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Budgie or Budgerigar
The Budgie, or Budgerigar to call it by its full name, is a small bird of the parrot family, it is native to Australia where it can be found in flocks numbering in the thousands. It is thought that the budgie was first introduced to Europe around 1870, where it quickly became a favourite household pet.
In the wild state, the budgie is green and yellow with black markings, but over the years many other colours have been introduced into the captive species. Blue has proved to be a very popular coloring along with all yellow or white and many combinations of these colours.
The colouring of non wild budgies has been divided into two distinct groups, white based and yellow based. The white based group consists of blues, blue/grey, whites, white/grey and variations of, whilst the yellow based is, green, yellow, yellow/grey green/yellow and green/grey.
In the wild, budgerigars are a lot smaller than their captive bred relatives and their colouring lends itself well to the birds being able to blend in with the surroundings. The budgie is a fairly smart bird and it can be taught to do simple tricks and is quite adept at mimicry. The male budgie has proven to be the far better talker than the female (which makes a refreshing change) and has been classed as being amongst the top five talkers in the parrot species.
In the wild the budgie is found mainly in scrubland or woodland areas, although when extreme weather conditions prevail, such as a drought, budgies are known to move to denser wooded or coastal areas. The main diet of the budgie is seeds from spiniflex, grass weed and wheat.
The budgerigar is of the hookbill family of birds and as such they are able to crack open seeds for eating, captive budgies will eat practically anything fed to them, although their diet should consist of fruit and fresh greens as well as seeds. Budgies are very friendly when tame and will, if allowed, quite happily eat from your plate, unfortunately a budgie does not always realise what can and can't be healthy for its digestion, so you should be aware of that, if you allow your pet to share your food.
Budgie toys
Budgies are very friendly when tame and make for ideal pets but they do require lots of attention, if a single bird is kept alone, mirrors and other shiny objects are perfect for keeping them occupied as the budgie will see its own reflection and assume it is another bird, and so spend time talking to itself. Budgies love to play also, so making sure that there are lots of budgie toys such as bells and ladders or balls for it to occupy itself with is important.
Most pet shops offer a wide variety of budgie toys and most will be perfectly safe for your budgie but you should always check that they are properly suitable, no jagged edges or small loose bits that may come off and be swallowed, Some budgie toys are meant to be chewed, so it is a good idea to make sure that the toy is made of soft wood which is ideal for keeping budgies beaks in shape.
You can of course make your own budgie toys which will give both you and your pet hours of fun, if you make your own you must ensure that there are no harmful chemicals or paints used in the components, certain coloured woods or string may have been dyed with a substance which could prove harmful. If using beads to fashion a toy then you need to make sure that they are too big to be swallowed by mistake.
Budgies are very inquisitive by nature and any new toy placed in the cage will receive immediate attention, if you watch a budgie when it first encounters a new toy or object in the cage you will see, more often than not, that the bird first approaches the toy warily and will appear to study it from several angles, as if trying to decide what to do with it. Once the budgie has satisfied itself that the toy poses no threat it will then go on to the next stage, which is, finding out what it actually does.
The budgie will push, pull, peck at, drag and attempt to perch on the new toy in its' attempt to discover what the new object does, it will even try to see what is underneath, if it can and where possible will flip the object over as if trying to see what is different on the other side.
Your budgerigars cage should be inspected and cleaned at least once a week. All build up of droppings and stale food must be removed. The feed containers and drinkers should be thoroughly cleaned daily, ideally they should be stainless steel or a sturdy plastic which can be easily cleaned. If disinfectant is used in the cage cleaning process care should be taken that any residue is washed off as this could be harmful to your budgerigar.
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