The Budgerigar : Housing the Budgie

Most experts regard the draught-proof box cage as the best type of budgie residence. Any averagely skilled home handyman can knock up a box cage in a matter of minutes. Either plywood or hardboard on a wood frame can be used for the sides. The cage is finished with a ready-purchased wire front of mesh. If the cage is to be painted, remember to use non-toxic paints with a plastic rather than lead base, as budgerigars a great gnawers.

Most families prefer the chromium wire cages sold by pet shops as being more decorative for the living room. If this type of cage is to be used, work to a minimum size of 18 inches long by 12 inches wide. It is sensible when buying a cage to mention to the dealer the type of site intended, i.e. whether the cage is to be suspended from a bracket, fixed to a free standing frame, or stood on a table, and let him advise as to shape.

Tall cylindrical cages should be avoided. Helicopters fly up and down – birds horizontally – and the bars of a budgie cage should be ideally horizontally rather than vertically spaced, to help the bird climb about his home. If the budgie is to spend the greater part of his day at liberty in the owner’s room, a cage with a flap-down front, which serves as a landing platform, is prefer able to the spring door type.

If the budgies are to be housed in a garden aviary, a good rule of thumb guide to the space they will require is a maximum of three birds to each square foot of roost floor area. On this sort of basis it is reasonable to think of an aviary measuring 6 feet by 5 feet tall as providing ample accommodation for three pairs. Although they are sociable birds, budgies, and especially hen budgies, can become very aggressive during their breeding season. However large the enclosure in which they are kept there is always a risk of fights if more than three pairs are housed together during the breeding season. Although squabbles can be minimized by providing more nest boxes than will actually be needed, and ensuring that each box is similarly styled and hung at a similar height, there is always a danger of several hens insisting on the same site and coming to blows over its ownership.

Many owners of budgie colonies over three pairs strong therefore build or buy aviaries of the modular plan type, so that during the breeding season they can be split into several compartments each holding a maximum quota of three pairs. With cage as opposed to aviary breeding, very little fighting takes place. The advantage of cage breeding is that, although it may take a little longer to clean stock cages, they stay neat and tidy for much longer, and it is easier to observe parents and young birds at close quarters.  It is, however, more expensive to set up a caged budgie colony than a aviary.

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The Budgerigar : Why A Budgie?

As well as the typically ‘parrot’ ability to mimic and thus ‘talk back’ to its owner, the budgerigar is a hardy, cheerful, alert little bird with a great talent for acrobatics. It can master a series of tricks, many of which it discovers for its own amusement, as well as being able to reproduce itself in quantity under captive conditions. Budgerigars usually live to around eight years old.  Instances of ten- or even twelve year old budgies are however by no means rare.  It is fair, however, to point out that the average lifespan of a pet budgie is below this.

Many pets are quite literally killed with kindness, through being fed unsuitable tidbits, or, worse still, being allowed to wander at will tasting everything on their master’s meal tables. This habit is obviously as unhygienic for the owner as it is unhealthy for the bird.

Other pet budgies are accidentally crushed or squashed while at liberty round the house and many escapes through windows or doors which their owners have forgotten to secure before the pet was released. In this context, owners often express great surprise that a bird which was trustworthy all its life, suddenly takes up a previously-overlooked opportunity to escape. It is never safe to leave a cage bird loose in room with the windows and doors open. Nor it is kind.

Although a number of lost budgerigars are recovered, and some find their way back to their owners, usually as a result of being able to speak their owner’s names and addresses, or through the numerically coded budgerigar Society rings they wear, the majority of escapees die miserable deaths from hunger, exposure or being attacked by native wild birds.

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The Budgerigar

The first cage-bred budgerigars, were, as still are their wild cousins today, green birds with yellow facial markings, black decorations on the wings and the top of head, and a ‘necklace’ of spots beneath the bill.      Today, scientifically-inspired selective breeding has produced budgies in almost every color except pink. A $500 prize awaits the lucky breeder who can produce the first truly pink specimen, although, of course, such a phenomenon would, were it capable of reproducing itself, be worth a fortune anyway. Altogether the expert breeder can produce a list of over 130 clearly definable color varieties in budgies.

From the owner’s point of view, it is probably practical to reduce the almost endless permutations possible to the following basic choices:  green, blue, violet or yellow birds, with either grey wing, cinnamon, opaline or pied marking (a blue bird, with the conventional white or the fancy yellow face).

As well as conventionally marked budgerigars there are albinos and lutinos. Both these types in their pure form have pink eyes and, because of their lack of pigment, are devoid of dark stripings on the face or body feathers. Lutino budgies are a clear canary yellow, and albino’s pure white.  Not all white budgerigars are necessarily albinos. Some ordinarily dark-eyed types are so light in color as to appear pure white, but a careful examination usually reveals tell-tale faint tracings of the darker wing marking. All albinos are white, however.

In baby budgerigars a striped marking, running from the back of the neck, extends over the crown of the head to the top of the bill.  With their first adult plumage the youngsters moult out this barred pattern, replacing it with a clear colored hood, yellow in the green-based types, white in the blue variants.

A glance at an adult budgie’s face tells its sex. In cock budgerigars the cere or wattle, the area immediately above the upper bill, is bright blue, where as in the hen bird, it is brown. Exceptions to this rule are immature babies, and the pink-eyed pigmentless albinos or lutinos in which the cere remains pink in both sexes throughout their life. When sexing very young budgies or albinos, it is useful to remember that the cere is almost always more rounded in shape in the cock bird, and that hens have a much greater tendency to nip when handled than the cocks. A good budgie should be about 8.5 inches long and tip the scales at around 1.5 ounces. When seeking a show champion, judges always look for a curved body shape rather than an angular one, not too slim, nor yet too fat and with the body tapering gradually to the tail.

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Where to Put the Bird Cage?

A cage bird should have plenty of access to light and fresh air. However no bird cage should be suspended permanently in the broiling sunlight with any shade available to its occupant. Such thoughtless sitting can result in faints or even fatalities. Equally a bird should be kept in a drought free place. Draughts are especially dangerous to the canary and finch family, but adversely affect almost all birds. Bird shelters out of doors should be frost proof and damp proof in the roost area.

As well as having shelter from direct sunlight, cages which contain indoor pets will need to be covered with a light cloth at night. A bird’s natural behavior is to roost at dusk for most birds are virtually ’night blind’. A bird, constantly exposed to electric light during what, for him, should be hours of rest, could develop dietary problems through overeating. Birds continue to feed through all the hours of daylight and may well develop exhaustion symptoms through not having the proper quota of rest.

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Bringing the Bird Home

Most breeders and dealers have specially designed carrying cases in which buyers can ‘take away’ their purchases. Such containers are suitable for train journeys of up to four hours. For longer trips, a special travel cage of the type used for show specimens will be required. However there will usually be a breeder well within the easy take-home range of any would-be pet owner.

It is important that a pet bird, or indeed any type of pet, should not be an impulse purchase, but that a cage, a suitable supply of food, sand, grit and any other necessities are ready and waiting to receive the new arrival. Travel cages, even the elaborate types used to convey show champions are not suitable as temporary bird homes for more than a day. As well as having supplies on hand, it is advisable to have given some thought to the routine of feeding and cleaning. The bird who is fed at the same hour each day will quickly become reliable ‘alarm’ clock for his master, making it quite clear that ‘dinner time’ has come around by lively movement and continuous squeaking. Regular routines for cleaning as well as feeding all help in taming process and make the chores of bird keeping easier for the owner.

Where only small quantities of seed are needed the manufacturer’s packet is a handy dust proof container. If loose seed mixes are used they should be kept in a sealed glass jar, or a plastic container of the type sold as flour bins, to ensure that the contents are not an attraction to mice. Where the bird seed is stored on the same shelf as the family’s food stuff it should be clearly labeled. Otherwise it is easy for a busy cook to confuse canary mix with caraway seed or other spices!

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What to Look For When Buying A Pet Bird?

Whether a bird is purchased direct from a breeder or from a reputable dealer, it is important to seek out an alert lively-looking specimen with clean, tight-feathered plumage. A sick bird betrays its poor condition by squatting low on its peach, or hiding in the cage corner with ruffled unkempt feathers, and is a bad buy no matter how cheaply it is priced. This does not mean that it is necessary for every would-be pet owner to pay top prices for prime show birds, which can change hands among enthusiasts at prices up to $50 or more for a single budgie or canary.

Yet another reason for seeking out a breeder of the required type of birds is that very often healthy specimens of excellent pedigree are marred, as show ring specimens, by a single physical flaw. This means a failure to comply with the very exacting specifications set down by show judges, which would be quite non-detectable to the lay eye, and which indeed might aesthetically improve the appearance of that particular individual. These birds are usually sold at what, in relation to their blood lines, are really bargain prices.

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Where Should I Buy A Pet Bird?

Without wishing to denigrate the many scrupulously honest pet dealers who operate in this country, I recommend the prospective pet-owner to buy his or her bird direct from the breeder. Seeing the quality of stock from which the proposed pet originates is a useful guide to the quality of the individual itself. This is obviously particularly important if the newcomer is intended to be part of a breeding colony. It is not always true that the physically perfect specimen reproduces perfectly. But if the family of that bird is seen to be of uniformly high standard, then it is reasonable to assume that the desirable traits are an inherited quality which will be passed on through the progeny.

Even when a bird is to be a singly kept pet, it is helpful to buy from the breeder. He can provide information about the kind of diet the chick is accustomed to, which will help speedy acclimatization to the new home. Most breeders will be happy to advise the novice in cage bird keeping, and to act as an information bureau for useful local names and addresses, such as that of a vet who is a specialist in handling bird cases.

For canaries, British birds, foreign finches and exotic birds, the best buying time is late summer or early autumn.

By then the new season’s chicks will have achieved their first adult plumage and, singing types will be warbling their first songs, so that sexing is infinitely easier. Budgerigar breeders, aware of the appeal of a new pet as a Christmas present, have managed to regulate the sex cycles of their stock so that chicks of the marketable age of six weeks plus are available during the festive season, are hardier and healthy throughout their lives as a result of this.

The journal Cage birds regularly lists the meetings of local breed societies and through contact with the secretary of such an organization it should be possible to get the names of several breeders specializing in each type of bird. As with all purchases, shopping around before making a final decision generally ensures value for money. Before buying a pet bird, visits to various aviaries will also help the beginner to build up a fund of useful knowledge about the species he or she wants to keep.

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