Tag: parakeet

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.

Reminder: Home Keet Home participates in the Amazon Affiliates program. If you click any of the links to Amazon in this post and end up buying something we earn a small commission. This helps us keep the blog going and keep the budgies in millet and toys, so thank you! 

Top 8 Reasons Budgies Make Great Pets

Budgies are awesome. Everyone who has them knows it, but if you’re still on the fence about becoming a budgie parent here are eight reasons budgies make great pets!

  1. Budgies have an average lifespan of 5-10 years, and with the right diet, exercise and care they can exceed that upper limit. It’s amazing to me that something so small has such a nice long lifespan. Imagine the bond you’ll have with your budgie after spending years together.
  2. Budgies are comparatively inexpensive to keep. Sure, the startup costs can be more than you expected, but spread out over that fairly long lifetime it’s really not that much. Your preferred base food (seed or pellets, likely) probably won’t break the bank, and budgies can eat many of the vegetables and fruits that you do too. The costs can also scale to fit your budget. You can get a quality good-sized cage secondhand for next to nothing or buy a new massive cage with all the bells and whistles for several hundred dollars. The same can be said for toys, want to build your own, go for it! Or, if you want to buy toys there’s a vast array available too!
  3. Budgies are a huge boon to mental health. Having any pet to take care of is tremendously helpful to one’s mindset, but I think budgies are particularly well-suited to lifting moods. Not only are they generally cheery and many of them like to sing, they are also very sensitive to the moods of their flock, including humans. After taking part in several parakeet groups through Facebook, I have seen tons of heartwarming stories about budgies comforting their humans after a bad day, and I have personally experienced my own budgies reacting to our collective grief after losing Kevin, as well as just generally being there for me when I need a lift. Knowing that they need me to be okay has also helped me to regulate my own moods.
  4. Although you can develop a very strong bond with your budgie, the relationship can also be a bit more distant with a larger flock. If you want to spend hours a day with one budgie, that’s great, on the other hand, if you want a flock that maybe keeps to itself more and doesn’t rely on you for its social needs you can do that too. A flock of two or more budgies will likely lean on you a lot less for their entertainment and will probably bond more closely to each other.
  5. Budgies have individual personalities! You might not think it of something so small, but budgies are extremely social creatures with very distinct personalities. Some are shy, some are bold, some are silly and humorous while others are very serious. They have individual preferences for types of food, styles of music they enjoy listening too and what they like to do to amuse themselves. In many ways they are just like tiny little people.
  6. There’s a ton of stuff you and your budgie can do together. You can try training your budgie in basic things like recall, you can feed your budgie different vegetables and fruits in a variety of shapes and sizes to see what they like best, you can watch tv and listen to music together, and your budgie may be interested in preening you. I am barely scratching the surface here, there are tons of things you can do to provide enrichment to your budgie that will increase your bond and also amount to a really great hobby for humans.
  7. Budgies are smart. They learn their names, they can be trained to do certain tricks and some of them may even learn to mimic human speech. Showing a budgie almost anything new and watching him think and explore the object is fascinating.
  8. Budgies are beautiful and seeing them fly around your house is a thrill. It’s actually sort of magical, at least for me, having these spritely little creatures that live in my house and fly around. It never gets old! And neither does having them because they are constantly evolving and surprising me. It’s just a general low-key miracle.

I hope this post helps you understand reasons why budgies make great pets! Before you run out and gear up for your new budgie, be sure to check out the counter point to this post, 10 reasons budgies make bad pets. Not to be a downer, but it’s important you know what you’re getting into!

Reminder: Home Keet Home participates in the Amazon Affiliates program. If you click any of the links to Amazon in this post and end up buying something we earn a small commission. This helps us keep the blog going and keep the budgies in millet and toys, so thank you! 

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.

The budgies have their own room – finally!

Quite a while ago I started thinking seriously about moving the budgies into their own room. I did some crowd-sourcing and readers were split on whether it was a great idea or would be a total disaster. I got hung up and probably too concerned about the outcome, considering it wouldn’t have to be a permanent situation! Toby’s continuing obsession with her “papa” pushed the issue and we finally decided that we all needed a bit of space. At long last the budgies have had their own room for several weeks now.

In their new room, Toby, Kelly and Kevin have their cages, and they also have a fun play zone with the Java tree and a hanging Boing.

after waffling about it for ages the budgies have their own room!java tree in the budgies new room

Hanging boing in the budgies new roomThey really enjoy all of the added play space. I’m working on a way to get them better window access, but we’re not all the way there yet.

I was worried that this would keep them separate from the humans and they would be isolated, but in practice it’s expanded their territory, which is awesome!  After a few days they were very comfortable flying back and forth from their room to their play area with Playstand where the cages used to be in the dining room.

playstand where the cages used to beThey will spend literally all day chilling out on the Playstand, and at their window perches in the kitchen and living room. I keep the food cups full and it’s convenient having the table right there to put fruits and vegetables out and water so they don’t get thirsty.

So, the budgies are definitely not isolated and in fact they get even more time out of their cages then they used to. Having their cage space separate from the play zone made for an unexpected expansion of “neutral territory” so there’s been a reduction in knock down drag-out fights between the girls. We are still struggling with Toby being unable to leave Patrick alone and she will defend him like he’s her property, but we are now well into springtime so I am sure hormones are a factor.

As I had hoped, they are getting a lot better sleep now too. We are able to put them to bed between 6:30pm and 7pm and since they are farther away from the kitchen and living room I don’t have to worry as much about keeping them up cooking or watching television. It’s also nice that on the rare occasion we burn something in the toaster over I don’t have to fret about smoke inhalation.

Patrick’s allergies have been easier to manage since the move, but I do have to admit that I feel like I’ve got a lot more to clean up after, since they have increased their territory and mess zone. Toby has had one night terror since the move and I was able to hear it and respond really quickly, so that’s not much different either.

So far so good! The positives of much better sleep for the budgies and being able to make an ice cream sundae after 7:30pm for the humans are worth the increased cleaning for sure! Sometimes it does feel like it’s the budgies’ house and we are just living in it, but I suppose that was inevitable once they outnumbered the humans.

Getting ready for quarantine – new parakeet coming soon!

I’m sort of freaking out with excitement. After our initial plans to get a boy parakeet in early November didn’t pan out due to our plumbing issues  it was starting to feel a bit remote that we would actually get a boy budgie added to the flock. Happily, things have quieted down and we are going to go pick out our new boy this Saturday! This means it is finally time to get ready for a new parakeet quarantine.

Quarantine is important for a few reasons. One is that if the new budgie comes in carrying diseases we want to avoid spreading them to our existing flock. Some diseases can be transmitted by touching only, and some are airborne. The new budgie also could have mites, and we would definitely want to avoid transmitting those. The new parakeet will be quarantined in a separate room for 30 days, which should be enough time to know if he is sick. During that time we will have to be careful to wash our hands thoroughly before and after interacting with him. Ideally he would be in a totally separate air space, but that’s not totally possible. The room he’s going into will get too cold at night if the door is shut, so we’re going to keep them as separate as possible and take all the precautions we can, even if it’s not perfect.

The 30 day quarantine should also give us time to get to know our new flock member and bond with him one on one. So, more than an inconvenience, it’s really an opportunity. We didn’t quarantine Kelly and regretted it deeply, not just because we took a risk with Toby’s health, but also because it made our bonding with her much more difficult. I still wonder if working with her during a quarantine would have lessened her aggression towards us.

I debated quite a bit on where to get our new fellow, and finally landed on a locally owned pet store, Benson’s.  It’s not as great as getting a rescue budgie, but we really have some specific needs for our new friend and I know that rescues like to adopt out pairs or more of parakeets. I am glad to support a local business instead of a big chain store, and we’ve checked out their aviaries, which are amazing! The parakeets look like they are in great condition, both physically and mentally.

To get set up for our new fellow I barely had to buy anything, due to the expansive nature of my toy and perch hoard.

We also already had an extra cage on hand (technically 3 extra cages, but who’s counting!). Since we upgraded Toby and Kelly to flight cages, it meant we had the Drs. Foster & Smith HQ Victorian Top Cage ready and waiting. It’s a bit bigger than a traditional quarantine cage, but particularly since the new guy will be used to having quite a bit of room I think he’ll be okay.

They clip birds before you bring them home at the local shop, and although I’m not a fan of lifelong clipping, it will make me feel less nervous transporting him. Also, I think that if we play our cards right, his being clipped will help accelerate the taming process. We put a careful eye towards designing his quarantine cage for maximum accessibility in terms of hopping around and climbing the bars from perch to perch.

When we bring him home, I will also make sure to get a supply of whatever he is used to eating to make sure he doesn’t reject a new food when he’s already freaked out about being in a new place.

I think we’ve got everything lined up for as smooth a transition as possible. Now all I have to do is make it through the next 24 hours without bursting with excitement!  Wish me luck, and watch my Facebook Page for a pic of the new fellow tomorrow!