{"id":4791,"date":"2017-02-24T13:54:29","date_gmt":"2017-02-24T19:54:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/windycityparrot.com\/blog\/?p=4791"},"modified":"2017-02-24T13:54:29","modified_gmt":"2017-02-24T19:54:29","slug":"4791","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dev.windycityparrot.com\/?p=4791","title":{"rendered":"Budgie Nutrition, Cage Set Up Video & Tips"},"content":{"rendered":"

Peggie W replied –\u00a0<\/span>Feb 19, 8:25am<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Hi, I am about to order some of the Scenic pellets for parakeets. I was just wondering how this compares to Volkman\u2019s parakeet mix<\/a> or Harrisons. I’ve been feeding my keets Volkman\u2019s. Also, could you write more about parakeets? <\/span><\/p>\n

No one will write about parakeets! It’s always about the larger birds. I’d like to hear more about training an older, or stubborn bird, getting them to play more. Also, more about creative cage arrangements for smaller birds.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

Many cages I see on YouTube with parakeets are heartbreaking – sparsely furnished, boring. Also, seems 99% of the bird toys out there are for larger birds. Parakeets are a huge part of the market, so I’m surprised they are so ignored when it comes to toys and care advice. I’d love to hear more on this from your newsletter! Thanks for the weekly emails, I always look forward to reading them.<\/span><\/p>\n

I’ll work up something for you Peggie – mitchr<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

For now<\/span><\/p>\n

To be clear Volkman is all seed – Harrison’s and Scenic are pellets or fully engineered food. Harrison’s pellets are organic and non gmo but they only have a couple of formulations.<\/span><\/p>\n

Scenic has more flavors and been supplying zoos for many years.<\/span><\/p>\n

So here’s the something Peggy<\/span><\/p>\n

When most of us hear the word parakeet we instantly think of our budgies. The reality is parakeets come in all shapes and sizes, monk parakeets a.k.a. Quaker parrots.<\/span><\/p>\n

Mustache parakeets, Indian ringneck parakeets you get the idea.<\/span><\/p>\n

Editor’s note: all conures are parakeets but not all parakeets are conures.<\/span><\/p>\n

Now that we’ve gotten housekeeping out of the way let’s talk about “budgerigars”.<\/span><\/p>\n

At a TASC meeting one night Dr. Karen Becker spoke about performing intake on a budgie in a woman who was in her late 70s or early 80s.<\/span><\/p>\n

Working away through the traditional intake questions, when quizzed about the bird’s age the woman said 26.<\/span><\/p>\n

Naturally, Dr. Becker replies how can you confirm this? The woman brought out the Woolworths receipt where she had originally purchased the bird confirming its age.<\/span><\/p>\n

When Dr. Becker queried the woman as to what she attributed the birds longevity, the woman replied “I have a cup and he has a saucer of decaffeinated green tea, every day for 26 years”.<\/span><\/p>\n

Which led to an interesting discussion by Dr. Becker about how widely tea is used in nutrition and zoos for exotic animals. But that’s another rabbit hole.<\/span><\/p>\n

This is a first-hand tale of budgie socialization<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Some of you may remember when we rescued Bacon the budgie last summer<\/a>. After a couple weeks we realized\u00a0that he was miserable, he was wild and it would take a long time to train him if ever. He needed a cage mate, not us.<\/span><\/p>\n

It didn’t take us long to acquire what we thought was another boy budgie but it turned out to be a female we named Eggs. Fortunately they got along famously and would sit next to each other for hours chatting and kissing. But they still acted very skittish as Bacon would react wildly when we neared the cage which also got Eggs going.<\/span><\/p>\n

Here we had this big beautiful Prevue flight cage and Catherine felt that the addition of another pair would round things out. We had no idea how prophetic that turned out to be.<\/span><\/p>\n

Thank you ! I saw several things there that I know my parakeets would enjoy.\u00a0<\/span><\/i>I’ve been chopping their lettuce for them but I am going to start using those millet clips<\/a>.<\/span><\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

Also, the millet holder, and some of those toys.\u00a0<\/span><\/i>I’ve had them 3 years this spring and none of them will take a bath ! Dirty birds.<\/span><\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

\"romain<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

But more than that, I think they’d enjoy a bath, if’d they’d at least try it. \u00a0<\/span><\/i>I’m reluctant to mist them in their cage.<\/span><\/i> I was worried their perches would get too wet.<\/span><\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

Would love some advice<\/span><\/i> on getting them to take a bath, for their own pleasure.\u00a0<\/span><\/i>Again, thank you for being so responsive, very appreciated.\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/span>
\nPeggie<\/span><\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

The weekend of the National Cage Bird Club show that we were helping brand Hagen bird food we were gifted a beautiful pair of budgies by none other than Jason Crean from the aforementioned TASC.<\/span><\/p>\n

It’s been about seven weeks since these four hoodlums have been together. We made some changes to the cage. \u00a0They also like millet – what bird doesn’t? We give them one millet spray in a holder every two days to share between the four of them.<\/span><\/p>\n

Moving most of the toys to both the left and right side of the cage allows short flights of 6 to 18 inches but flights nonetheless. This solves two problems. <\/span><\/p>\n

It ensures that they all get plenty of exercises while allowing “escape routes” when one bird gets a little over affectionate towards another – which happens a lot.<\/span><\/p>\n

I can tell you from experience budgies are not monogamous. We\u2019re fairly certain that Toast and Jam are brother and sister. What is even more interesting is that the head feathers on Eggs have changed dramatically making her look very similar to a relative of Toast – which is very pretty.<\/span><\/p>\n

I’m working on getting the camera with a wider lens. The activity in this video defines their day. If one of us is standing in front of the cage they all freeze in place, but once we walk away it is a never-ending soap opera.<\/span><\/p>\n

You can hear them talking to each other. They’re clearly communicating about “activities.” And I don’t take this lightly.<\/span><\/p>\n

Look at this BBC video of millions of budgies in the Australian outback.<\/span><\/p>\n