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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