Budgerigars – Is This the Right Bird For You?
The budgerigar (budgie) is a small native Australian bird that is often referred to in other countries as a parakeet. However, they make up for their diminutive size through their intelligence. You can very quickly tame a new pet budgie bird, especially if you hand feed them from the day that they are brought into your house.
Both the males and females of the species can talk; but, in general, your better bet is to buy a male budgie bird if you want to increase the chances of getting one that does. It is difficult to tell the two sexes apart when budgerigars are young but as they grow older the color of the area surrounding its nostrils on its beak will change color – blue in males, brown in females. However, there is a chance that this method of sexing your budgie is not reliable because of the different color variations exhibited by different budgies.
It is always fun to know have parrots as pets. So if you are looking for some information on where to find details about pet parrots, then you will be delighted to know see a website like petparrotsweb. You can visit this extensive and informative site to know more about Cockatiel Birds and Budgie Birds.
How to Buy Budgie Cages
Buying your budgie an appropriate cage is one of the most important aspects of caring for it. There are a few things you need to consider when choosing one. Here are a few tips for buying budgie cages.
Size
The most important consideration when buying a cage for your budgie is size. It needs to provide adequate room for toys, dishes, and exercise. Also, since these birds fly horizontally, width is more important than height. The minimum size you should look for is 24 inches wide by 30 inches long.
Material
The type of material the cage is made from is also important. Powder-coated vinyl or stainless steel designs are best. Whatever you do, don’t buy a cage that is made from a toxic metal. Zinc and lead are the most harmful. Brass cages are also unsuitable because it produces toxic tarnish when wet.
Shape
You also need to think about shape when selecting budgie cages. Rectangular cages are the best option. Other shapes will reduce the amount of space your bird has to fly around. You should never buy your budgie a round cage because they won’t feel safe in it. They will only feel safe is the cage has a wall they can retreat to when stressed.
Bars
It’s also vital that to pay attention to the bars of your prospective cage. The bars should be spaced no more than 1/2-inch apart for budgies. If the bars are spaced too far apart, your small bird may get out. Sometimes, they may get stuck between the bars while trying to get out. There should also be horizontal bars on the cage so your bird can climb on them.
These are a few tips for buying budgie cages. To ensure the ideal health of your bird, it’s important that you learn everything you can about proper budgie care. So, click here now to learn how to care for pet budgies properly.
Budgie Training
Budgie Training: how to teach your budgie to talk, teach your budgie to step up, how to tame a budgie, teach your budgie tricks and games and more.
Teach Your Budgie to Talk
Budgies can be taught to speak, whistle tunes, and play with humans. Both male and female budgies sing and can learn to mimic sounds & words. Both singing and mimicry are more pronounced and much more perfected in male budgies. As a whole, female budgies rarely if ever learn to mimic more than a dozen words or so. Male budgies can very easily acquire vocabularies ranging between a few dozen to a hundred words. Generally speaking, it is the pet budgies and even more so the ones kept as single pets which talk the best and the most. – modified from the Budgerigar article on Wikipedia
Our budgies love this toy! 
You can record words you want your budgies to learn and the mirror is motion-activated so that when the budgies land on the mirror perch the mirror plays the sounds you recorded. Click the image for ordering information. Mirror Mate Recordable Training Mirror and Feed Cup Combo
As with foods, the key with budgies is persistance. Repeat the words you want your budgies to learn over and over every day. Soon they may pick up the words and incorporate them into their everyday speech. This works best with male budgies and when you have just one or two budgies. You are their flock so they will learn your words and will make up new sentences and word combinations with the words. If there are many more budgies in the flock, they tend to revert to budgie speech and forgo the language you have taught them.
How to Tame a Budgie
I’ve said it once, I’ll say it again: persistance! When you first bring home your budgie, for the first few days just sit beside the cage and softly talk to the budgie, sing songs, read from books, make eye contact. Let your budgie get to know you slowly. When you change out the food and water, speak softly to your budgie and tell them how pretty they are, how glad you are that they are going to share your home, introduce them to your home and to you. Then, begin just placing your hand inside the cage – don’t try to touch the budgie, just place your hand inside and let it rest there so your budgie can see that the hand is not a danger. Then go to the next step down – teach your budgie to step up. Once you have your budgie stepping up you can then do more bonding rituals like holding a piece of millet on your chest and let them fly to you and land on your chest and eat the millet. Once they come to know that you are not a threat, they will land on your head, play with your jewelry, sit on your shoulder and step up on your finger when you provide a finger and ask them to step up. Always appear sure and confident. Don’t hold your finger too far away from them – they shouldn’t have to step too far to get on. Never draw your finger away when they are stepping up or they will loose trust in you. If they are unsure and want to test the safety and sturdiness of your finger, they may first reach out with their beak to test. Do not be afraid. They are not going to bite, just touch with their beak. If they do ever bite, whatever you do – don’t respond. If you yell or scream or flail they may get excited and think it a fun game and continue to bite you. One way to get them to stop biting while on the hand is to shake your hand gently like an “earthquake”. Never ever hit or yell at your bird for any reason. They are sensitive and will loose their trust in you and only react scared and defensive and will fly away from you and not want to be around you. This is exactly the opposite of what you want. It is important to always approach them as happy and loving and non-intimidating. As they are prey animals and you are a predator with 2 eyes looking forward, at first – just look at them with one eye – so they will not be afraid. For your first attempts of bringing your budgie out of their cage – a small safe budgie-proof room is best – like a bathroom – with the toilet lid down and the mirror covered – someplace where you can easily retrieve the budgie if he flies away.
Teach Your Budgie to Step Up
One of the first things you should teach your budgie is how to step up. When the budgie is in their cage, hold a wooden dowel gently against their belly – just above their legs and say “Step up”. Be sure to say “step up” each time so that they learn the command. Be consistent. Use millet to lure them onto the stick. Be sure they get a treat each time they do what you are trying to get them to do and praise them in a happy high pitched voice. They will hop onto the dowel and you can move them to a different perch in the cage. Practice this over and over every day until they are unafraid. You can then bring the dowel out of the cage (in a safe room – free of budgie dangers like open windows/doors, un-curtained windows, open bowels/pots of water, other pets, etc) and practice step-ups there.
Once your budgie has mastered step-ups onto a wooden dowel, you can move on to teaching them to step up onto your finger. Hold the dowel with your finger pointing out onto it, getting your finger closer and closer to the budgie’s feet each time you do it. Once the budgie is getting onto your finger on the dowel, you can begin trying to get them onto your finger, holding out your index finger in a point just as you did with the dowel.
Teach Your Budgie Tricks: Play Fetch!
Another fun game or trick you can play with your budgie is Fetch. Our budgie Skye loves this game / trick. She sits on top of the cage and we hand her a little plastic seed cup from this toy: 
(Click the image for ordering information.) Vo-Toys Birdie Flower with Two Seed Cups and Perch Bird Toy Assorted Colors
She throws the seed cup onto the floor and we fetch it and bring it back to her. You can either hand the cup to the budgie or place several on the ends of the manzita perch they are sitting on and they will run to fetch all the cups and throw them down to the ground. They especially love it when this makes a big noise! We both love this game.
Reprinted with permission from BudgieCare.org
http://www.budgiecare.org/budgie-training.php
Budgie Toys
Budgie toys safety tips, what to look for, what toys budgies love the best, recommended budgie toys and more.
Budgies need many different kinds of toys! Look for toys with bells, spinning things, anything with mirrors, swings, ladders, and soft wood or paper that they can chew or shred.
We have bought nearly every budgie toy in existence. Some the birds love and play with incessantly and some they just ignore. Here we have listed the bird toys that the budgies really loved and played with constantly. We think your budgies will have as much fun with these bird toys as our budgies did playing with these!
Don’t just give your parakeet the tiny bird toys made specifically for budgies – some of the bird toys made for larger parrots can be just as fun for budgies!
Also, remember, parrots love to chew and need to chew to keep their beaks healthy! They need toys that they can shred and chew on and destroy! We’ve heard horror stories of poor little budgies who spent their days without toys to play with because “they just destroyed them”! Well, yes, they should! That’s what they do! A budgie without different toys to play and engage their intelligent mind with will quickly become bored and may turn to destructive behavior like destroying furniture or feather plucking.
- Budgie toy Safety Tips:
- Make sure to trim any frays or strings from toys so that budgies don’t get their toes caught in them.
- If you have a happy hut, inspect the inside frequently to be sure the bird is not chewing/injesting the fur on the inside. This could cause crop impaction.
Here are our budgie flocks’ favorite budgie toys: Click on the image of the budgie toy for ordering information.
Kozy Keet Bird Kabob Chewable Bird Toy for Budgies
Perch Budgie toy for budgies and small birds
Bears and Blocks Budgie Toy
Pink Parrot Sisal Rope Ticklers for Budgies and Other Small Birds
Super Bird Creations Mini Munch Balls 6 PK Bird Toy or Toy Part
Planet Pleasures Shredders Bird Toy
Planet Pleasures Parrot Pinata Bird Toy for budgies
Bird Kabob, Small Chewable Bird Toy for Parrots
Lattice Balls, Mirrored Lantern with Bell, Budgie Rings bird toys
Vo-Toys Roly Poly with Bells and Beads Budgie Bird Toy
Mirror Bird Toy for Parrots
Vo-Toys Birdie Flower with Two Seed Cups and Perch Bird Toy Assorted Colors
Activitoys Hall of Mirrors Toy for Birds
Avian Select Polly Pals Two-In-One Swing with Star Mirror and Bell Bird Toy
Avian Select Springtime Garden Mirror Sunflower Bird Toy
Avian Select Polly Pals Bird Bath with mirrored bottom
Avian Select 12 Step Wooden Bird Cage Ladder for birds
Avian Select Macramé Bird Cage Ladder
Avian Select Polly Pals Mirrored Perch with Treat Cup
Pollys Pet Products Coconut Bird Cup Size Large 1.5x16in
Vo-Toys Flower Mirror with Beads Cup and Perch Bird Toy
Vo-Toys Round Perch with Six Mirrors Bird Toy
Vo-Toys Tri Level Perch with Seed Cups Bird Toy Assorted Colors
Mirror Mate Recordable Training Mirror and Feed Cup Combo
Eucalyptus leaf tiki hut nest for budgie chewing/shredding
Reprinted with permission from BudgieCare.org
http://www.budgiecare.org/budgie-toys.php
Budgie Food
Budgie food health requirements for budgies, list of foods *not* to give budgies, budgie food recipes, and recommended seed mixes, cooked mixes, pellets…
Although wild Budgerigars eat grass seeds almost exclusively, avian veterinarians recommend captive birds’ diets be supplemented with foods such as organic fresh fruits and vegetables, sprouted seeds, pasta, whole grain bread and other healthy human foods, as well as pellets formulated for small parrots. Adding these foods provides additional nutrients and can prevent obesity and lipomas, as can substituting millet, which is relatively low in fat, for seeds mixes. Budgerigars do not always adapt readily to dietary additions, however. The key is patience and persistence. At first, they may be wary of new foods, but after a few weeks they may come around. Try giving an organic carrot with sopping wet carrot top greens or wet kale in a shallow bowl, and as they bathe they will nibble on the greens. Also try weaving greens through the bars of the cage for shredding. Chocolate and avocado are recognized as potential toxins. – Wikipedia
- Do not give to budgies
- canned veggies
- non-organic fruits & veggies
- avocados
- eggplant
- rhubarb
- potato leaves
- tomato leaves
- bean plant leaves
- apple seeds
- alcohol
- coffee
- tea
- chocolate
- tobacco
- apricot seeds
- cherrie seeds
- peach seeds
- pear seeds
- plum seeds
- avocado pits
- peanuts
- grit/gravel
Free Budgie Food Recipes Cookbook – Hundreds of heathy simple recipes for yummy food you can make for your budgies at home!
We recommend the following foods: Please click on the image for ordering information…
Recommended Budgie Seed
LM Animal Farms Bonanza Budgie Bird Food (2-lb bag)
Recommended Budgie Cooked Food Mixes
Beak Appetit Caribbean Crunch Natural Cooked Bird Food
Beak Appetit Nuts for Alfredo Natural Cooked Bird Food
Beak Appetit Cream of Tweet Natural Cooked Bird Food
Beak Appetit Cinnamon Sunrise Natural Cooked Bird Food
Beak Appetit Calypso Spice Natural Cooked Bird Food
Recommended Budgie Pellets
Harrison’s Adult Lifetime Bird Pellets – 1 lb – Fine
Roudybush Daily Maintenance Crumble Bird Food (22-oz carton)
Recommended Budgie Treats
Worlds Freshest Spay Millet 5 Pound Box
Reprinted with permission from BudgieCare.org
http://www.budgiecare.org/budgie-food.php
