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Hello and welcome to our budgie age page!
How old is my budgie?
Understandably, a very useful thing to be able to tell and there just so happen to be three different ways
to work out the answer. Below, I have listed these workings out along with the explanation and 'how to'.
Age buster number one; The Cap Feathers. This method will work with the exception of a few varieties as they
do not have the usual feather markings, these breeds are the albino, recessive pied and lutino. Right, in the
majority of varieties, the younger budgies will have markings on their head that resemble 'bars' that will go
all the way from there to the cere. When the budgie goes through its first molt (normally at around the age of
three to four months) these marked feathers at the top of the head will be replaced by other feathers that will
not be striped. So you can rule out you budgie being any older than 4 months if it still has stripes going to the cere.
Now, depending on the colour variety, if a budgie has either a yellow or white cap, it means that it has gone through
its first molt so will be older than 4 months.
Age buster number two; the budgies Eyes. This method will work with the exception of fallow, albino and lutino as
they will always sport a light coloured iris (for example, a red eye with a pink iris). On the other end of the
spectrum dark-eyed-clears and recessive pieds will always have a dark (black) coloured iris no matter what age it is.
In most varieties though, a baby budgie's eyes will predominantly be black and as they age, it should lighten to a
light shade of grey. So if your budgie has completely black eyes then it is under the age of 4 months. If on the other
hand your feathered chum has irises that are dark grey then it's most likely to be around four to eight months old.
And the last but by no means least of the tell tale iris method is that your budgie will probably be older than eight
months if it has either a white or light grey iris.
Age buster number three; The Illusive ID Band. Sometimes a budgie will have a band around one of its little legs
which will display some letters and numbers - this is the ID band. If this is totally blank then it won't give you
any information (unless you are the breeder) as it is a 'family band'. The following is how to read an ID band; one
of the sets of letters will be the company that has issued the band. The next set of numbers will be the breeders
name and (or possibly both sets of information) initials. The third part will explain the budgies age as it states
the year the budgie hatched (if it's bred in California, the last number of the year will be inside a 'California bear')
so will usually be the last two digits of the year (e.g., '97 would mean 1997) Set of numbers number 4 will be the
pedigree or serial of the birds (e.g. 36 would mean the 36th bird hatched that particular year to the breeder.
Depending on where you come from (say, America for example) you can also tell by the colour of the band, yet this is
far less a reliable way as different companies codes could represent different years and so on.
support@ukbudgies.co.uk
Thankyou
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