Graves and Nestboxes

As the title would suggest I have recently had a death among my pets, my budgie Primrose died while I was away at Alex's this weekend. She'd been out of condition for months, but as Beaky (her cage mate) is fine it was nothing to do with me or the way I keep them. The most depressing thing about this incident is that she's died at that time of year when birds start to breed. Only last week I bought a nest box for her and Beaky and installed it in their aviary.

My dad (who keeps many birds) has suggested I look for a breeder and purchase one of his spare hens off him. The truth is, I'm not sure I want to, I've had four budgies in the past year and only one is left alive. On the other side of this internal argument is the fact that Beaky is still very young, he's only about a year old, and I don't want him to live out his life alone in an empty aviary.

In other bird related news, my dad's zebra finches have started breeding. They do this every year, but when I went to see him this morning while he was feeding them, he pointed out a newly appeared youngster and explained that he hadn't even realised any of the eggs had hatched yet. The baby zebra finch's parents are both beautiful specimens the kind of zebra finches I love, the white ones with little brown capes. The baby is also like this, though more brown than his parents. The baby reminds me of what Beaky could have in the future, I don't want him to miss out on parenthood just because I've had bad experiences.