pet budgie page

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Budgies

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Budgies, sometimes known as parakeets, are a wonderful pet. Originally from Austrailia, where they fly in flocks, they are now grown in the United States by both commercial and private breeders. Over the years I have owned several and highly recommend them as a pet, especially for those people who have limited space or restrictions preventing them from owning dogs or cats. You can purchase them from most pet stores or check your local newspaper for private breeders. Prices usually range anywhere from $15 up to $50+. Click on the photo "thumbnails" to see some photos of a few of the budgies we have been privileged to have as part of our family.

Mork (blue) & Mindy (green) Dec '79	Petey and treat stick training Feb '79
Mork (blue inside cage on right), Mindy (green inside cage on left), Pepper (purple on hanger) and Petey (on front left outside of cage) December 1979	Petey in March 1980, was our tamest budgie, he would do anything for a piece of lettuce

There are 10 basic steps to keeping Budgies.

1. Provide an adequate cage in a safe and secure location.
2. Clean the cage regularly.
3. Clip the budgies wings for protection.
4. Offer a varied diet of seeds, pellets, fresh veggies and fruits.
5. Keep clean water available at all times.
6. Take your budgie to a vet for regular checkups and have a good Budgie reference book.
7. Maintain a routine, feed, water, loose from cage, etc. at the same times daily.
8. Provide an interesting environment, rotating a variety of toys regularly.
9. Provide radio or TV background noises if you are not at home for extended periods.
10. Pay attention to your Budgie on a regular daily basis.

The cage should be large enough for free movement around the cage. The bars should be close together, so that the Budgie won't get his head stuck between the bars. Cover the cage at night as this provides a safe and secure well-being for your budgie. The cage should be located up against a wall or corner, again, making your budgie feel more secure and never have the cage where the budgie will be in a draft.

The cage should be cleaned on a regular basis. If you have only one budgie in the cage, you can clean it every other day or so, but the seed and water should be maintained daily. I always sprinkled a bit of gravel on the paper in the bottom of the cage (you can buy this at Wal-Mart or the pet stores). They use this "grit" to help grind up their food as they eat. If you have one of the cages that have a wire grid for the "floor", you should provide a separate feeder dish of grit.

When you first bring your budgie home, you should also invest in a good Budgie Reference book. Make sure that the book you purchase has a good diagram to show you how to clip the feathers on the wings. Clipping their wings, if done correctly, will keep them from flying too high or fast. The feathers do grow back, so you will need to do this on a regular basis. This is done for protection of your budgie. Otherwise, when they get loose, they will immediately fly into your windows, walls or whatever, since their instinct is to fly high and away. Once your budgie is totally tame, you won't have to do this. We always kept ours clipped until they would come to us when we called. It is so cool to open the cage and go sit across the room, hold up your finger like a perch, call your budgies name and have him fly across the room directly to you.

I always give them seed daily, plus a pellet treat once a week. I also would have a small piece of lettuce, which one of my budgies absolutely would do anything to get this treat. There are commercial seed varieties that include vegetables and fruits also that you can purchase. Be careful not to over feed on the fresh fruits and vegetables as this can cause them to have loose stools.

Always, always, always make sure your budgie has fresh, clean water daily. They will dirty up their water daily, you may not see them drink it, but they do and they will die without it. So get in the habit first thing when you uncover the cage in the morning, giving him fresh water.

Take your budgie to a vet on a regular basis for a checkup. I didn't do this except for once, and the vet we had in the area was not equipped to give a budgie any kind of checkup. He didn't mind taking my money for the visit, but basically, he had never had a budgie "patient" before. I invested in several budgie reference books after that and had better luck.

Just like a child, your budgie needs a routine. Feed him, clean his cage, talk to him, turn him loose, as much as possible at the same time each day. If you have only one budgie, this is especially important. The budgie is a very social bird, used to the company of other budgies and a routine, either from the pet store or private breeder.

Budgies are very curious birds. They like to play and chew on new things. Have a variety of different budgie toys and change them each week. They also like to climb things and explore, so the little climbing ladders and swings are something they like very much. My husband build a playground full of little swings and ladders, bells and chains. We built some things ourselves with pipe cleaners and Tinker Toys also. Each evening, we would turn them loose and they would play for hours with all the items. You will need to keep this playground area clean also. We also kept a swing, ladder and a couple toys in the cages too, for during the daytime hours that we were both at work.

If you keep houseplants around, you must be careful that your budgies don't chew or eat the leaves. Some plants are actually poisonous to budgies. And budgies love to chew on things. When we would put up our live Christmas tree each year, it was sometimes tough to get them to go back into their cages! We also had a train set running under the tree and our one tamest budgie, "Petey" would hop on the train and we would run him around the tree!

In later years, we had a green budgie we named "Fusty" since he fussed all the time. He loved to land on our ceiling fan, which we always had turned off before we let him loose. I would take the broom handle and spin the blades and he would ride the blades around. When it would stop, he would fuss at me to do it again and again.

If you have only one budgie, it's a good idea to leave a radio playing or the TV on so there are voices talking during the day while you are at work, or if you have to go out. If it is too quiet, the natural instinct of the budgie is that danger is nearby. This will actually stress your budgie and his health will suffer. As long as there is some voices, they feel safe and happy.

Pay attention to your budgie daily. You need to talk to them, play with them and work on taming them on a daily basis. They crave the attention. If you are not going to be able to spend alot of time daily with your budgie, then it is better to have more than one, so that they will keep each other company. I actually kept all 4 of mine in separate cages, since my cages were small. If you have two or more in the same cage, sometimes there will be a "bully" who picks on one of the other budgies, pulling out his feathers and generally making him miserable. By keeping them in separate cages, they would "holler" at one another across the room, they could see each other and then it was a treat to them when I would release them in the evenings to play together for awhile.

I've been fortunate enough to mostly be at home all the time, though we did have budgies for several years while I was still working. I found it is best if you have just one at a time, if you can spend the time with him, for taming. It is much easier to tame one budgie if you are his whole world. You can then add another budgie and he will follow the first one and actually tame fairly quickly and so on.

Budgies can learn to speak "human" words, but this requires a tremendous amount of devotion. If you have more than one budgie, it is very difficult, since they will speak "budgie" to each other, rather than "human" to you. It is also much easier to teach a young budgie to speak than an older one. When I say younger, I'm referring to a budgie under one year of age.

I hope this information is helpful to you and enjoy your budgies!

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