Are My Parakeets Kissing?

User Question
First, I just wanted to say how helpful your site about parakeets is! My two birds just love to listen to your sound clips..It's the cutest thing. I just wanted to ask what my parakeets, male and female, are doing when they look like they are kissing. Are they kissing or trying to bite each other? And how old do they have to be to have babies? Thank you!!

Lisa's Answer
I have a page on parakeet courtship here -

http://www.lisashea.com/petinfo/articles/bird_courtship.html

The kissing is actually seed-sharing, it's how mommy parakeets take care of their babies and how partners take care of each other.

Parakeets are physically ready to have babies at around 6 months old although I personally would wait until they were a year or older, because it takes that long to really train a parakeet and teach it to talk if that is something you're interested in. It seems cruel to force a parakeet into parenthood before it really has had a chance to become a full member of your family.

I have a page here on parakeet breeding -

http://www.lisashea.com/petinfo/articles/bird_breeding.html

Please read it and give serious thought to whether you're prepared to handle the issues that can come up when a parakeet goes through egg laying and chick raising.

All Questions in this Category

List of Parakeet Question Categories

NOTE: Because of the huge volume of incoming questions, I no longer answer them one by one. Instead, we have created a live, free Parakeet Forum which is very active, where people are online 24 hours a day to help you with your parakeet related questions. If you have any questions about parakeet care - or simply want to share your parakeet stories and photos - please join us!

Parakeet Forum