As I’ve mentioned, Kelly recently got over her fear of everything and is now quite a handful, more precisely, a handful of constantly chewing beak. Which is totally normal, parrots are machines built for destruction, and the only saving grace of a budgie is its small size and (relatively) weak beak. If Kelly was an African Gray or a Macaw I would probably have no wood furniture or door frames left at this point.
Since she can’t take it to that extent, Kelly limits herself to chewing on approved toys for the most part, but the exception is the edge of our dining room table. Toby went through a brief table-mania last year, but was easily dissuaded from the pursuit. Kelly, not so much, she is determined to turn that thing into matchsticks one chomp at a time.
I can’t even be mad at her for it, seriously, it’s what she’s meant to do, so it’s on me to find a workaround and shooing her away 500 times a day isn’t cutting it. Also, I don’t know what varnish or veneer is on the table, and I don’t want her to slowly poison herself chewing on the wood.
My first idea was to take a long sheet of paper towels and drape it over the edge in question, weighting it with a couple of toys. This worked well, both Kelly and Toby enjoyed climbing up and down the hanging paper towel and it distracted from the table itself. But, I’m not feeling that style of home décor, so a more permanent solution was needed.
I decided to buy a tablecloth, I’m pretty sure this is the first tablecloth I have ever purchased. I didn’t want to spend a ton of money, but I was looking for something that would be visually appealing to both the parakeets and the humans, and seemed durable.
We ended up with the ColorBird Solid Cotton Linen Tablecloth Waterproof Macrame Lace Table Cover for Kitchen Dinning Tabletop Decoration (Rectangle/Oblong, 55″*102″, Linen)
I also like the lace edging. I know I’ll have to make sure they don’t eat it, but they will enjoy ripping it apart. It seems sort of odd to buy a nice item knowing that it’s basically going to be treated as disposable, but it will certainly be cheaper to replace than a whole table. Also, if they only attack one side I can rotate the tablecloth a few times for maximum use.
Hopefully this will be a good save for the table, I’m sure in a few weeks Kelly will figure out she can climb down and underneath and I’ll have a whole new set of issues. Coming soon, presumably, a post about getting rid of our dining room table and turning the entire house into an aviary 🙂
we could see that the humidity levels were sinking rapidly. We think a comfortable range is about 40-55 percent humidity and the house was dropping well into the 30 percent range. Not only is this bad for the humans, but it is very uncomfortable for budgies.
, which puts out a surprisingly good amount of humidity, and we prefer it to purchasing a big traditional humidifier (like a 
) for a couple of reasons. One because big humidifiers are harder to maintain and would need vigilance and lots of cleaning to keep mold out of the picture and two because of Patrick’s chemical sensitivities, bringing a big new plastic appliance into the house is a challenge. It would probably end up in the garage for months (at best) off-gassing whatever chemicals it came with.
as a humidifier, which you should only attempt if you are going to be home AND your birds will be safe at home in their cage. This is simple enough to do, just fill the crock with water and set it for a few hours; with the lid off the water should simmer and release steam. We tried on the low setting and it didn’t do enough to be worth bothering. I intended to try it on the high setting but then we decided to invest in a few more travel humidifiers so it hasn’t been necessary.
on their feet. There are a few ways I can think of to get the oil on their tootsies, one is to apply the oil to a finger used for step up, and then sneak attack your thumb onto their feet to apply more on top. Alternately you could put the oil on a perch and just let them land, or you could hold/towel them and just get the job done.
and/or hanging greens.
– This could be used either to transport both budgies to the vet (versus our tiny one-man cage) or it could be used as a quarantine/hospital cage if one budgie takes ill and needs to be separated and closely monitored.
– it’s recommended to keep a sick budgie nice and toasty warm, you can drape the heating pad over the top of the travel cage and then cover the cage on three sides for a nice cozy space. You always want to leave one side uncovered so if the budgie gets too warm they can move to cooler air.
– This powder aids in clotting for minor cuts. If you clip your budgie’s nails too short and hit the quick (blood supply) you will want to have styptic powder – or in a pinch 
– to help stop the bleeding. It does not take much for a budgie to bleed to death so this is an absolute must have. As far as clipping nails goes, a 
is the most recommended for budgie nails.
– Has to be the kind without pain relief. This can be used on minor scrapes and cuts as well to aid healing.
or 
– Used to pull blood feathers. Blood feather is really just another term for pin feathers that come in during molting. They have a more substantial blood supply to aid in growing and if they are broken they will bleed, which can again be very dangerous for such a small bird. I’m not sure this is one I would try to deal with myself, but you can restrain the bird and pull the blood feather out at the shaft, with a bit of pressure applied the bleeding should stop and a new feather will grow in eventually. Yikes! Sounds like frontier medicine, although I’m sure it’s the same thing the vet will do.
– Some folks dose their budgie’s water with Bragg’s organic apple cider vinegar year round to help control the growth of bad bacteria in the parakeet’s digestive tract. It can also get rid of viral, bacterial and fungal infections, as well as respiratory infections and parasites! Essentially this stuff sounds like a miracle product. I don’t intend to give it on the daily, but I want to have it on hand in case I see any symptoms develop, it seems like this would be something safe to start with while we are waiting to get in at the vets. Please google how much to give and draw your own conclusions. I saw different amounts ranging from a few drops in the water bowl to teaspoons, and since I haven’t personally tried it yet I don’t want to give poor advice. After reading up on organic apple cider vinegar I may start taking it daily, apparently the benefits to humans are also life-changing!
, 
for bandaging. Although seriously, if you are not a pro-level bird owner and you’re getting into bandaging wounds please see a vet.
, but I think I’d prefer to build mine piece by piece so I familiarize myself with each item, instead of having an emergency and opening the box for the first time in a panic.
. There are a lot of variations on these type of “tent”, some have hard sides covered in fabric, like the snuggle hut, and others have three soft sides, there are different types of fabric and different ways to connect them to your cage. They all follow the same theme of providing a nice snuggly hiding spot for your bird.
or the 
.
, hoping that since it was made of just wood and paper it wouldn’t smell too much (aggravating Patrick’s issues with new furniture). We also bought a used screen to try and reduce that new furniture smell further.