Tag: basics

Ten Reasons Budgies Make Bad Pets

I’m sure it’s a little jarring to read that post title on a blog that’s devoted to the joy of budgies! It’s true, however, that having budgies as pets is not for everyone. Hopefully this top ten reasons budgies make bad pets will help you decide if parakeets are the pet for you before you embark on budgie parenthood.

  1. Budgies can be LOUD and they do not have an “off” switch. Depending on the number in your flock and their individual personalities, some budgies are noisy all day. Need to have a meeting or want to watch a movie? They will compete with background noise no matter the volume. Like to sleep in on days off from work? Budgies are early risers and some will start flock-calling you before the sun is even up.
  2. Budgies are messy. You can get a seed catcher for your cage and cross your fingers but expect to vacuum or sweep around your cage area every day (more than once a day during molts). Messes get more extreme once you add in bath time and/or feeding wet foods like chop. Get ready for wiping wet food and the occasional budgie poop off the walls, which leads me to my next item;
  3. Budgies poop every 5-10 minutes. Sure, the poops are small and easy to clean up, especially once they dry, but when you’ve had a bird on your head and then run your fingers through your hair/a nice fresh poop that’s another matter entirely. They will poop everywhere they hang out. Larger parrots may be trained to poop only in certain spots, budgies should not be trained that way. Their systems work so fast it’s important for their health that they do not hold their waste.
  4. Budgie ownership is deceptively expensive. You might think the initial buy in is reasonable, with a pet store budgie coming in at around $20 and a small cage not much more. However, you will soon find out that the starter cage is cruelly small, and you must upgrade immediately. Then, you’ll discover that your budgie needs much more than the dowel and plastic perches that came with the cage, and in fact needs a wide variety of perches for optimal foot and mental health. They also need toys, toys get destroyed and must be replaced or are never loved and need to be rotated out for stimulation. Once that’s out of the way, you’re also probably going to end up wanting a Playstand or some other Playground for your budgies that is not their cage. They will also need different foods, supplements like cuttlebone, and potentially expensive veterinary care down the line for a host of common budgie illnesses.
  5. Budgies are flying toddlers with steel jaws. Depending on your budgie’s disposition, they might enjoy chewing up your blinds, wood trim around windows and doorways, your framed artwork, cabinetry, and anything else they can get their beaks into. A female budgie who is desperate for a suitable nest might even chew a hole through your wall. Some budgies are aggressive and may end up gnawing on your fingers to the point of drawing blood.
  6. Depending on your household, budgies will cause significant changes in how you live your life. Be prepared to give up the following: candles, diffusers, wax melts, sprayed scents, plug-ins, bleach, and a host of other products that potentially fill your cabinets. Also, check to see if your cookware is non-stick, if it is, it likely needs to be replaced.
  7. You will always need to have your guard up about open doors. Even if your budgie’s wings are clipped, they might end up accidentally flying out of an open door or window without a screen. You and everyone else in your household will have to be vigilant about making sure the budgies are never around an open window or door.
  8. Budgies are prey animals and may never be safe around other pets. You might think that your cat or dog has zero interest in your budgies, until one day you come home and find the cage knocked over. Obviously, your mileage may vary, but it’s happened to families with the best intentions and the most trust in their furry pets. Budgies also need to be protected from other pets like rats, guinea pigs and even other pet parrots like lovebirds.
  9. Budgies should not be left alone for more than a day and it will be harder to find adequate pet sitters or boarding options than it is for cats and dogs. The first time you must leave town can cause a panic to find someone you trust enough to come in your house once and day and water/feed your budgies without accidentally feeding them something toxic or deciding to “help” by cleaning up their cage with a harsh chemical.
  10. Budgies require your time. Sure – a large flock will probably amuse themselves and mostly interact with each other, but a single budgie will need your time every day. They are social creatures and need you to play with them. Quality time is spent through various enrichments, or just watching tv together, but it has to be pretty much every day. If your budgie lives in your bedroom and you are gone 12 hours a day at work or school, you may have a very sad pet indeed. If you don’t have time to hang most days of the week then budgies are probably not for you.

Well, there we have it. Ten things to consider strongly before you embark on budgie ownership, which is a commitment of 5-15 years, by the way, although I wouldn’t put a long lifespan on a list of cons!

Speaking of which, now that we’ve got the reasons budgies make bad pets out of the way, check out my post on reasons budgies make great pets as a counterpoint.

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The Grate Debate – using grates in budgie cages

Parakeet cages tend to come with a grate for the “floor” of the cage. This often sparks a grate debate as parakeet owners weigh the merits of keeping the grate in the cage against the potential benefits of removing it. Here are some pros and cons of using the included grates.

Pro Grate:

  • Not necessarily a pro, but the grate may be critical to the structural integrity of your cage; or removing the grate may leave large gaps that a budgie could wriggle through. We had this issue with Toby’s flight cage, and fortunately had a similarly shaped piece of wood trim that we could use to block the gap. But, it may not always be that easy and that’s something to consider if you’re removing a grate.
  • If you use a grate, you may be able to use less substrate at the bottom of your cage. Whether you are using bird cage liners, paper towels, newspaper, or any other option, a grate will catch some of the poop that would typically land on your lining. At that point it’s just a matter of preference, some folks find scraping a grate once a week to be a better choice than changing newspapers every day or two.
  • The grate may help discourage breeding. A nice flat, comfortable cage bottom could look like a pretty good nesting area to a hen that’s determined to lay some eggs. A grate would, comparably, seem like a less desirable place to raise babies, it would be uncomfortable to sit on for long periods of time, and babies would have a difficult time learning to walk and maneuver in the world. Also, eggs laid from a perch above would be more likely to break on impact.

Anti Grate:

  • Removing the grate frees up additional living space for budgies. The flat cage floor gives them a chance to move their feet and be active in different ways, particularly if they aren’t interested in going to the floor in your home. It also increases opportunities for enrichment and stimulation by way of foraging.
  • Without a grate, you may find you have to clean a bit less. This is a matter of preference, but I am not a fan of scraping poop off a grate. I love that without the grate I can just remove my cage liner, pop in a new one, and I’m done with that task.
  • Not using a grate may have some safety benefits for your budgies. First, the bottom of the cage will be a softer landing spot if ever they fall off a perch. Probably not a frequent occurrence, but night terrors can definitely cause a budgie to take a dive off a perch. Once they are on the bottom of the cage a flat floor is a safer walking surface than a grate, where feet can slip through and possible get twisted or bruised up.

Personally I remove the grate from every cage that I own unless it’s absolutely not possible due to structural issues. The benefits of enrichment and safety when removing a grate far outweigh any bonus I can think of for leaving the grate in the cage. Let me know in the comments if I’m missing any really important points for consideration!

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Parakeets and human hands – how our flock reacts

Parakeets and human hands, or rather the parakeet’s relationship with human hands, is a fascinating and varied topic. We have three budgies, and each of them have wildly different personalities. I’ve been thinking about that  lately, and how their personalities are reflected in their behavior around our hands.

A blue parakeet eats shredded carrot from a white plate
Toby takes first dibs on eating the shredded carrots

Toby is our first parakeet, and was an only bird for almost a year before we brought home her “sister” Kelly. We lavished Toby with attention and spent a ton of time training (or attempting to train) her on things like flying to us from anywhere in the house and on basics like stepping up on our fingers.

Given that history, you’d think Toby’s relationship to our hands would be pretty straightforward, but it’s actually quite complex. She seems to regard our hands as birds, so, when she the mood strikes she likes to interact with our fingernails as though they are playmates. She will pin her eyes and tap her beak against a human fingernail and reacts to it exactly as though she’s playing with anther bird.

Maybe because of her belief that our fingers are birds, what she won’t do reliably is step up onto a finger as though it’s a perch. In fact she seems quite offended by the idea if you ask her to step up! She will do almost anything to avoid hopping onto our hands, maybe because she wouldn’t naturally step on another budgie?

Regardless, unless she’s quite distracted or tricked with millet, she wants nothing to do with our hands at all unless they are being her bird friends.

A pale blue and white parakeet sits on a wooden perch
Kelly thinking about what (or who) she should bite next.

Kelly is a different matter entirely when it comes to hands. We brought her home from a parrot shop where as a baby she was hand fed and handled frequently by her breeders. Because of her upbringing we had a misguided assumption that she would be totally cool with hands and very easy to work with.

She was accepting of stepping up when she was a juvenile, but as soon as she starting moving towards adulthood she decided it just wasn’t working for her. Unlike Toby, however, she doesn’t see our hands as birds at all. As best as we can figure, she things of our fingers as wooden perches. At least that’s a logical explanation for why she bites us so hard! Much harder than she bites the rest of the flock, unless she’s very angry at them, or certainly everyone would be dead from blood loss.

Kelly will, however, take help from a hand without biting if she needs it. For example, if she ends up on the floor and feels confused, then she will look around for us to help her out. Maybe she thinks of that as her human flock coming with their weird wooden perches to get her out of trouble? I have no earthly idea, but it’s very much at her discretion.

After working with her extensively to try and reduce her biting we have essentially accepted that it’s just not going to work out between her and our hands! She’s a great companion and a lot of fun otherwise, and it’s rare that we need to risk injury to enjoy her company at this point.

A green parakeet naps on a heated perch
Kevin loves the K&H thermo perch for an afternoon nap

Kevin came third, and for no reason whatsoever has the ideal relationship with our hands. As frequent readers know, Kevin was completely miserable in quarantine, wanted nothing to do with humans, and only started acting remotely budgie-ish once he was with Toby and Kelly.

The moment he met them his relief was palpable, and even though they immediately started plotting to kill him he was overjoyed. So, to be honest, although we’ve intermittently worked with Kevin since on taming and training, it’s been spotty at best and we largely accepted that he was a “bird’s bird”.

Which is why it makes no sense at all, but he’s amazing with our hands. He always steps up when asked and will let us put him wherever we want. He will sit on a finger for longer than either of the girls and seems really comfortable. He’s the only one who’s ever sat on my finger and preened himself for a moment or two.

Moreover, he actively looks to us and our hands for help and sees hands as a solution rather than a problem. If he wants to get from point A. to point B. and we offer a hand he will take it 100% of the time.

He doesn’t see our hands as birds, or as wood to be chewed, but as helpful tools. He likes to beak at our fingers in an exploratory way, and will agreeably endure, but does NOT enjoy, an occasional gentle head or chin rub.

As I write this it becomes even more clear to me how their personalities are reflected in their actions towards our hands; Toby’s desire for connection and attention, Kelly’s single-mindedness, and Kevin’s gentle affability. I feel, essentially, that although I could have done more to train each of them, the results would always be strongly driven by their personalities.

A very common question for a new parakeet owner to ask is, “when will my parakeet let me hold him/pet him/snuggle him, etc. Without being a Debbie Downer, I always want to answer, “probably never”. But that’s the truth, with taking on budgie parenthood you’re spinning the wheel of chance and there is no guarantee that you’ll have a budgie that will EVER want anything to do with you touching them. In fact, I’d even venture that it’s more likely they won’t.

One of the great things about parakeets is their huge variation in individual personalities and the multitude of ways that you can have positive interactions with them that don’t involve petting. Although our parakeets and human hands interactions may not always be ideal, and are occasionally quite painful, I wouldn’t trade these cool little people for anything more predictable or more snuggly!

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Budgie cage placement – separate room or middle of the action?

A couple of years ago we decided to move the parakeets’ cages into what is intended to be the master bedroom in our house. We decided to change our budgie cage placement for a couple of primary reasons.

The first was that our oldest girl, Toby, had become really fixated on my husband. She was territorial about him and loved nothing more than to sit on his shoulder, scream in his ear and fight anyone who came near him. The second was that our “middle child”, Kelly, had developed a habit of chewing her cage bars and making a horrific clanging noise. We were working on redirection, but honestly given the two lady budgies’ issues it seemed like a good time to take a break and hopefully hit reset on some behaviors.

We lasted a bit over a year and now the budgies are all back in the dining area between our kitchen and living room. Our house has an open floor plan so they are in the middle of the action with a good view on all human activity except work and sleep time.

Our cage set up
Our two current cage set up

Here are my pros and cons for budgies having a separate room.

Pros

    • In their own room the parakeets could be guaranteed ten to twelve hours of solid quiet, dark sleep time. This helps to keep them out breeding condition and is good for their health in general. With budgie cage placement in the common area they are much more likely to stay up later while we are cooking dinner, watching television in the evenings, or grabbing a late night snack. If you have night owls in your family this can cause disturbed sleep until the wee hours of the night.
    • Speaking of cooking, being removed from the kitchen in their own room meant we didn’t have to worry as much about accidental smoke or other dangers from the kitchen.  We only cook using stainless steel pans, and would never take the risk of non-stick/Teflon cookware, but I still worry about accidentally burning toast someday and risking their lives.
    • The budgies had a place to remove themselves if they were feeling overstimulated. If we were watching a loud movie or playing music the budgies could remove themselves any time they wished to a nice quiet place and take a break. Granted, I’m not sure how legitimate this one is, since they seem to enjoy loudness in general!
    • It was much easier to corral them all into one place at a moment’s notice so we could open the front door. With the budgies in the main section of our house we eliminate the ability to open our front door during the day. This makes signing for packages or just going in and out of the house a very difficult task requiring bribery to get them all into cages. With their home base in a room with a door it was much easier to shoo them all in and shut it quickly.

Cons

    • It was harder to clean up after the flock and service their cages. They weren’t near the kitchen anymore so getting water every day was a nuisance. It felt like more of a pain cleaning up after them overall, the mess was spread out all across the house and, if I’m being honest, it was easier to ignore messy cages when they weren’t in front of me all the time. Similarly, I found myself forgetting to swap out toys and perches routinely to keep their cages enriching.
    • The bedroom didn’t offer them any opportunities to look out a window. Unfortunately all of the windows have a view of a busy street. During the day the sun glints off cars whizzing by and at night it’s all headlights. The few times I tried leaving a curtain open I could tell the flock was constantly startled by traffic. With their dining area placement they can look out into the backyard and watch bunnies, squirrels and of course outside birds. This is definitely a source of entertainment.
    • Their separate room was also the hardest of our house to heat and cool. In the summer it gets direct sunlight all afternoon until sunset and heats up pretty fast. In the winter, as the largest room in the house it’s also the hardest to keep heated. So, even if I had less worries about kitchen smoke and disturbed sleep I replaced them with different concerns about overheating and chilling.
    • It set us back severely in taming Kevin. Kevin was totally miserable the entire time he was in quarantine and desperate for parakeet company. Shortly after he integrated into the flock we moved them all to the bedroom. The fact that he had 24/7 budgie company coupled with becoming even less familiar with us resulted in him viewing humans as an inconvenient necessity and nothing more. We certainly were not part of his flock. I now believe that parakeets being able to view human activity from a safe distance is a critical part of taming. Shortly after they moved out to the common area and he could watch us go about our business I saw a shift in his behavior. It clicked for him pretty quickly that we were not, in fact, scary monsters, but part of his larger flock. Kevin can still be pretty shy around us, but he’s much more likely to choose interacting now and it’s so gratifying just to not have him react to us with fear. I don’t think we would have gotten past that without his being immersed in our daily lives.
    • This brings me to my biggest con. The parakeets being separate from us in their own room enabled them to create their own little subculture. Across the board they didn’t choose to interact with us as much as they had. It started to feel less like a human/pet relationship and more like I had rented out a room to a small family that didn’t speak the same language as I did. They were living their separate lives and happy without integrating too much. It was painful to feel that Toby and Kelly, who are typically way interested in humans and their activities, were totally fine with limited interaction.

Although almost any of the cons would have been enough to convince me to put our budgies back in a common area it’s the last one that really did it. It was so sad not having them as a major part of our daily lives and I think we’ve all been happier now that they are part of all the action again. So, my final recommendation on budgie cage placement is in the middle of the action 100 percent! Even though it takes more care not to open doors and increased safety in the kitchen it is absolutely worth it to feel like we are all part of one flock.

How much time out of the cage budgies should have every day

So, you’ve had your parakeet for a while, he’s pretty much tamed up and is one of your best pals. Now that the hard work is done you might be wondering how much time your budgie should have out of the cage every day. The answer depends on your schedule and your individual budgie.

If your budgie is still on the edge of being new then the answer is how much time can you devote? For the first several months when we had Toby as a solo parakeet she couldn’t be  out of the cage without full supervision. She would come out and immediately look to us to entertain her. If she didn’t have our full attention there was no telling where she would end up or what she’d get into. Now mind you, my house is small, but it’s still pretty darn easy to lose a parakeet in any nook or cranny.

I do not recommend having a parakeet out unsupervised that you don’t know extremely well. And I do mean even for you to run and change over a load of laundry.

Under those limitations, if you can devote two hours a day to hanging out with your parakeet I think that’s great. That’s enough time for them to stretch their wings, socialize, and hopefully tire themselves out a bit.

But please don’t beat yourself up if you don’t make that every day. Sometimes you’re going to have to work late and you get home just in time for dinner. Other times your human family will have needs that take precedence. Stuff happens that is totally out of your control and you will miss days. So, please make sure your budgie(s) have a nice large Flight Cage and all of the toys and perches that make up a varied life.

budgie time out of the cage
If this is what I do when you’re watching me, imagine the fun I have unsupervised!

Budgie time out of the cage for an established flock can be different. Now that we’ve had Toby, Kelly and Kevin for several years we know their behavior patterns pretty well. Also, having three of them typically means they keep themselves fairly well occupied. If someone wants to really get into trouble (like trying to eat framed artwork or the blinds) inevitably another parakeet will come over and ruin their fun.

Over time we have adjusted things in the house that we know are problem areas. Like putting decals on windows and covering enticing gaps.

My flock of three is usually out of their cages for about 2-3 hours on a weekday (as soon as I get home from work I let them out) and anywhere from 4 hours to the entire day on a weekend. As long as we’re going to be home I open up the cages as soon as I get up and typically put them to bed around 7pm.

Now mind you they are at their leisure to head back to their cages at any time, and they do typically go home for a lengthy afternoon nap. Otherwise they are usually on one of their window perches, on a play gym, or, yes, getting into nonsense.

budgie time out of the cage
Is this the nonsense to which you are referring?

The other key piece is that they typically like to hang out where they can see the whole flock, and that includes humans. So, if I go into my office space to work at least a couple of them will follow me and hang out on the play gym there.

For budgie(s) that you know well and have established patterns of behavior relaxing your vigilance a bit regarding supervision is natural. Check in every so often and be aware of any suspicious sounds (or the lack of sound, which is always MOST suspicious!). In any case, make sure your budgie always has easy access to food and water. Unless you are limiting their access to the cage for taming or training purposes they should also be able to chose to go home and take a break.

Ultimately I feel like a good guideline is that your budgie should have time out of the cage for about two hours a day. But, we must acknowledge that this absolutely won’t work every day. There will be days that you’re able to let them out for 15 minutes and days that are missed entirely. That’s okay, and you shouldn’t beat yourself up about a random missed day or two. There will be enough days that they are out for 2++ hours that more than balance out the short days.  

budgie time out of the cage
I live here now, right?