* Pet Bird Chat * NEW

[Rinsea]

Hey everyone! I'm planning to get a parakeet/budgee. I have been doing a lot of research but majority of the people posting tutorials and care guides on youtube obviously do not know what they're doing. I can tell because when they show pictures and video clips of their budgees they don't look tame, they get a lot of dislikes, and their budgee does not look like it's in good condition, I remebered one of them saying 'I did not take my budgee out of its cage for months' And he calls himself a 'bird expert' Some of them provide very helpful tips but others don't even keep their budgee in the correct cage.
This is my first time owning a bird so what do I need to remember? When picking out a bird what should I look out for? Is their a difference between male and female? What can I/cannot feed my budgee? How much should I feed them? What toys do you recommend? And how can I tell if my budgee is ill?

Thank you to anyone who responds

[Tabbster]

Hey everyone! I'm planning to get a parakeet/budgee. I have been doing a lot of research but majority of the people posting tutorials and care guides on youtube obviously do not know what they're doing. I can tell because when they show pictures and video clips of their budgees they don't look tame, they get a lot of dislikes, and their budgee does not look like it's in good condition, I remebered one of them saying 'I did not take my budgee out of its cage for months' And he calls himself a 'bird expert' Some of them provide very helpful tips but others don't even keep their budgee in the correct cage.
This is my first time owning a bird so what do I need to remember? When picking out a bird what should I look out for? Is their a difference between male and female? What can I/cannot feed my budgee? How much should I feed them? What toys do you recommend? And how can I tell if my budgee is ill?

Thank you to anyone who responds

Some budgies just don't like to be taken out of the cage, which is why some never even really come out. They can be hard to tame, flighty, and bite a lot. If the cage is big enough, it's not really a problem and It's best to let the budgie stay inside. When picking a bird, don't look much for the "cutest colors". Pick one that's got clear bright eyes, unruffled feathers, and is active and chirpy. The difference on male and female is that an adult female budgie has a rough, bumpy brown cere (the cere is the coloured part above the beak) and adult males have a blue smooth cere. Baby or young budgies usually have a purple cere, which will change either way. Pick a young budgie, you can tell the budgie is young because of the purple cere and the budgie will have black bars on it's forehead. Adult budgies usually have a solid colored forehead. There isn't a special amount of food to feed them, just fill their little seed container to the rim. Blow shelled seeds out regularly with a straw. Any budgies toys work. I'll try to update this later, also they are budgies and not budgees c:

[found.]

Hey everyone! I'm planning to get a parakeet/budgee. I have been doing a lot of research but majority of the people posting tutorials and care guides on youtube obviously do not know what they're doing. I can tell because when they show pictures and video clips of their budgees they don't look tame, they get a lot of dislikes, and their budgee does not look like it's in good condition, I remebered one of them saying 'I did not take my budgee out of its cage for months' And he calls himself a 'bird expert' Some of them provide very helpful tips but others don't even keep their budgee in the correct cage.
This is my first time owning a bird so what do I need to remember? When picking out a bird what should I look out for? Is their a difference between male and female? What can I/cannot feed my budgee? How much should I feed them? What toys do you recommend? And how can I tell if my budgee is ill?

Thank you to anyone who responds

Some budgies just don't like to be taken out of the cage, which is why some never even really come out. They can be hard to tame, flighty, and bite a lot. If the cage is big enough, it's not really a problem and It's best to let the budgie stay inside. When picking a bird, don't look much for the "cutest colors". Pick one that's got clear bright eyes, unruffled feathers, and is active and chirpy. The difference on male and female is that an adult female budgie has a rough, bumpy brown cere (the cere is the coloured part above the beak) and adult males have a blue smooth cere. Baby or young budgies usually have a purple cere, which will change either way. Pick a young budgie, you can tell the budgie is young because of the purple cere and the budgie will have black bars on it's forehead. Adult budgies usually have a solid colored forehead. There isn't a special amount of food to feed them, just fill their little seed container to the rim. Blow shelled seeds out regularly with a straw. Any budgies toys work. I'll try to update this later, also they are budgies and not budgees c:

Some color mutations will may have pinkish ceres for their entire lifetime, by the way. ;v;

I, personally, cannot take out my parakeets because they are extremely frightened of humans. I've attempting taming them, and I still continue to try and get them used to me, but people really just stress them out a lot.
I provide them with toys and natural perches, of course, and I keep an eye on their health. You can still be a good owner without letting your birds out, depending on circumstance.

Letting them out would really just lead to a lot of anxiety and stress to all of us. They could, in their panic, fly into something hard and break their neck or fracture a bone. And I don't know how to catch them without giving them a heart attack.
Whenever I open their cage doors, anyway, they stay inside. They're too afraid to come out.
I really, really wish that they were tame, but they aren't. Thus, I am left trying to get them to relax before I can ever consider letting them fly free in the house.

It's sad to see them in their cage all the time, I understand. Just adopt a hand-tame parakeet to bond and interact with, and you should be fine when it comes to that sort of thing. My family made a mistake when we purchased our Lyra from Petco, because pretty much all the parakeets there are wild.

Good luck with your birds!

[Tabbster]

I would definitely say the best place to get a budgie is from a breeder. You'll get a young, healthy budgie and it will be easy to tame him. I see way too many given up because they weren't what they thought they'd be, even more so with kids. They see videos of budgies talking and doing tricks, but there's a lot of hard work involved and 99% of budgies just aren't up for it. Don't forget you should have $300 or so saved for vet care. Small parrots get sick easily, I recently took in a budgie with diarrhea and it takes a lot to get them back to health.

[wallflower;]

I've been stalking this chat for a while and today I've finally got a question to ask. Does anyone here have experience with the A&E elegant style cages? And if so, are the feeder doors safe? I've read some reviews saying something about the screws facing inward? Thanks in advance! (And if anyone has cage suggestions for a lovebird, preferably under $200, I'd really appreciate it as well.)

[Tabbster]

I've been stalking this chat for a while and today I've finally got a question to ask. Does anyone here have experience with the A&E elegant style cages? And if so, are the feeder doors safe? I've read some reviews saying something about the screws facing inward? Thanks in advance! (And if anyone has cage suggestions for a lovebird, preferably under $200, I'd really appreciate it as well.)

Personally I don't have any experience with that type of cage, but I took a look at one and it looks like a pretty solid cage to me. However, for the price and size I'd say you should go for something else. My recommendation would be to look for ferret cages, just make sure any shelves in them are removable, and that the bars aren't too wide. Ferrets need tons of room, so the cages are usually quite affordable; birds love them and they are easy to clean and take apart. I've seen some beautiful corner cages go for around $150, and most of them are pretty massive. It would be a paradise for any pet bird to live in as there is plenty of flight room. If you're looking for something a bit smaller though, you can find cages better than A&E for about $50 on ebay, amazon, etc. Plus, there's always the option of making one yourself out of furniture! It'd be a bit of a project but the end result is always worth it. If you do decide to go with A&E, if you find there are inward screws you can put silicone/rubber nubs over them so it'd be safe for the bird.

[Rinsea]

Hello everyone I have another question, I'm making some home made toys for my parakeet I have these strings right now but I'm not sure if any of them are harmful for my parakeet: yarn, cotton thread, and nylon (fishing line). There are many foraging toys on youtube made of paper, is it okay if I use paper I already wrote on? or paper that has printer ink?

Any help appreciated ^.^

[Megaguirus]

Hello everyone I have another question, I'm making some home made toys for my parakeet I have these strings right now but I'm not sure if any of them are harmful for my parakeet: yarn, cotton thread, and nylon (fishing line). There are many foraging toys on youtube made of paper, is it okay if I use paper I already wrote on? or paper that has printer ink?

Any help appreciated ^.^

I'm not so sure about fishing thread, but yarn and cotton thread should work just fine, depending on the weave. Be careful about toes getting stuck, though, its happened a couple of times with my tiels. My best choice for chewing thread is lanyard string, because of its size and how much they love it. However, because it is weak plastic, you need to braid the lanyard string really well if you don't want it gone within a day XD. Typically, I take lanyard string and large plastic beads to make toys, and depending on the "quality" they last a day or a couple of days. But these are cockatiels, I don't know about parakeets, because I don't remember the homemade toys we made for them, or how long they lasted.

And I wouldn't suggest ink, even though I have had many chew on books and printer paper, it wasn't a choice, they just found it, and I stopped them after.

Another thing to consider is "will my bird ingest this? Is it safe?" My tiels rarely ingest the things they chew, unless its synthetic brick or drywall (stopped that behavior, though, with chewing blocks. There was something in those things that they needed and thankfully found in the blocks), but its a good thing to keep in mind when making toys.

[Professor Sycamore]

My parakeet passed away Thursday February 2nd at 1:32 PM.

Rest in Peace Sprite.

[Rinsea]

Hello everyone I have another question, I'm making some home made toys for my parakeet I have these strings right now but I'm not sure if any of them are harmful for my parakeet: yarn, cotton thread, and nylon (fishing line). There are many foraging toys on youtube made of paper, is it okay if I use paper I already wrote on? or paper that has printer ink?

Any help appreciated ^.^

I'm not so sure about fishing thread, but yarn and cotton thread should work just fine, depending on the weave. Be careful about toes getting stuck, though, its happened a couple of times with my tiels. My best choice for chewing thread is lanyard string, because of its size and how much they love it. However, because it is weak plastic, you need to braid the lanyard string really well if you don't want it gone within a day XD. Typically, I take lanyard string and large plastic beads to make toys, and depending on the "quality" they last a day or a couple of days. But these are cockatiels, I don't know about parakeets, because I don't remember the homemade toys we made for them, or how long they lasted.

And I wouldn't suggest ink, even though I have had many chew on books and printer paper, it wasn't a choice, they just found it, and I stopped them after.

Another thing to consider is "will my bird ingest this? Is it safe?" My tiels rarely ingest the things they chew, unless its synthetic brick or drywall (stopped that behavior, though, with chewing blocks. There was something in those things that they needed and thankfully found in the blocks), but its a good thing to keep in mind when making toys.

Thank you for your advice!!