[sohotitsscary]

I have my bird over 2 years now before I got him the toy he was very tame and could be handled easily and he talked loads, since I got him the toy he snuggles under it and cleans it like it was a real bird but he stopped talking and is not so tame anymore.. when I try take out the toy my bird will bite me and make horrible noises if I do remove the toy my bird makes awfull sounds till its put back, I know budgies like company but seriously has he falling in like with his plastic toy?

[Aurora_Bell]

Would you ever consider getting him a real mate? Sounds like he has fallen for his toy. I am not much a bird person, they kind of freak me out,but it sounds like maybe he is lonely. I remember a woman at a pet store was buying a budgie, and while I was creeping in the back ground looking at fish tanks, I heard her say that they are social birds and do well in pairs. If they have found a mate they usually don't like to be separated.

[sohotitsscary]

Would you ever consider getting him a real mate? Sounds like he has fallen for his toy. I am not much a bird person, they kind of freak me out,but it sounds like maybe he is lonley. I remember a woman at a pet store was buying a budgie, and while I was creeping in the back ground looking at fish tanks, I heard her say that they are social birds and do well in pairs. If they have found a mate they usually don't like to be seperated.

I'd like to get him a buddy but I b afraid they won't get along, I think the bird would kill for this toy

[Aurora_Bell]

Yikes! I am kind of chuckeling, but I know it isn't funny... at all.

I hope someone comes by who knows more about budgies!

[sohotitsscary]

Yikes! I am kind of chuckeling, but I know it isn't funny... at all.

I hope someone comes by who knows more about budgies!

It is kind of funny its not every day the news has a budgie drive by

Thanks for your suggestion thou :) I think I'll chance it and get him a buddy they do like company

[Aurora_Bell]

Keep me posted!!

[hheath541]

My mother has had parakeets (budgies) most of my life. There have only been a handful of years, total, when it just wasn't possible.

It is very common for budgies to fall in love with toys, or even their own reflection in a mirror. For that very reason, my mother never buys toys with mirrors or shaped like another bird.

If you want to get him a friend, you can just replace the toy with the real thing. Buy another bird with similar coloring to the toy, if possible. Take the toy out, and put the real bird in the cage shortly after. If you're afraid he might attack the new bird, and you have an extra cage, you can put the new bird in the other cage and put them side-by-side until they get used to each other.

Either way you do it, you'll have to get rid of the toy before introducing the new bird. It's very possible that he would see the new bird as a rival for the toy's affection and attack.

Budgies can be sweet, but they are not known for their intelligence.

[Aurora_Bell]

Wow very interesting, seems like they are vain little buggers too!

[sohotitsscary]

my mother has had parakeets (budgies) most of my life. there have only been a handful of years, total, when it just wasn't possible.

it is very common for budgies to fall in love with toys, or even their own reflection in a mirror. for that very reason, my mother never buys toys with mirrors or shaped like another bird.

if you want to get him a friend, you can just replace the toy with the real thing. buy another bird with similar coloring to the toy, if possible. take the toy out, and put the real bird in the cage shortly after. if you're afraid he might attack the new bird, and you have an extra cage, you can put the new bird in the other cage and put them side-by-side until they get used to each other.

either way you do it, you'll have to get rid of the toy before introducing the new bird. it's very possible that he would see the new bird as a rival for the toy's affection and attack.

budgies can be sweet, but they are not known for their intelligence.

Great idea!! :)

Do you know what would be better to mix male or female with a male bird? And should it be a younger bird to be less stressfull to mix

[hheath541]

Wow very interesting, seems like they are vain little buggers too!

Yes, they are.

When I was really little we had a parakeet that fell in love with his reflection. He would spend all his time just sitting there, staring at himself and preening. My mom figured he was lonely, so she bought him a friend.

Every time the other bird got near the mirror he would scream and lunge at her. He didn't stop until after the mirror was removed. Even then, it took him more time than it should have for him to warm up to her.

I think he blamed her for 'chasing away' his reflection. He honestly had no idea it wasn't another bird. He would sit and coo at it for hours.

[Alty]

great idea!!! :)

do you know what would be better to mix male or female with a male bird?? and should it be a younger bird to be less stressfull to mix

Unless you want babies, go with the same sex. Also, a bird around the same age as your bird would be best. They will have the same energy level.

It is actually recommended that you not put them together immediately. It's best to put them in separate cages for a few weeks, side by side, to let them get used to each other.

Whatever you do, don't mix breeds. You will have to get a budgie. You can't get a cockatiel or finch or other breed. Budgies are particular and prefer to be with their own kind.

One thing you should know. Your bird will likely never be as tame as he once was. Birds imprint on one person or thing. At first he was imprinted on you, now he's imprinted on the toy. You can't get rid of it until he imprints on something else, your new budgie.

They will form a bond and that bond will mean that they will act less friendly towards you.

It's not a total loss. You can work with them both and get them reasonably tame but you'll always be number 2, never number one.

Sorry. Birds are fickle. ;)

[hheath541]

I don't think it matters which sex the new bird is. In all the years my mother has had budgies, most of the time she ended up with a male/female pair. It wasn't planned, she picks her birds based on their colors, not their sex. We never had a pair end up breeding.

Budgies are difficult birds to breed, and will rarely do so on their own in captivity. It takes special planning and preparation to convince a pair to breed. As long as you don't attempt to take any of those measures, you should be fine.

[Alty]

Actually Heath, budgies are very easy to breed.

The only criteria for breeding is that they're a bonded pair and healthy. If they meet that, they'll breed. Ideal situation would be all the tools, the nest, the cuddle bones and specialty food etc. but I've seen budgies lay their eggs in a food dish if nothing is provided.

Regardless of whether they do or not, a female will lay eggs, even if she is with another female, or even all alone. It can be very traumatic for them when you take the eggs away, which you'll have to do if they're not fertilized.

My grandpa raised and bred budgies and cockatiels for many years. He loved the birds but it was also a good way to make a living, seeing as the budgies bred very regularly a few times a year. They usually had up to 8 babies each laying period.

[hheath541]

I admit, I've never done a lot of research into budgies (I have to remind myself not to call them parakeets in here). I've read a couple books, but never really looked into the breeding more than scanning that chapter. The budgies were usually my mother's pets, with the exception of one that bonded to me.

Maybe the books I read were ill-informed, or I'm remembering wrong. I have no idea. I do know that we had females, often paired with a male, and never ended up with babies. They never laid any eggs, either.

There wasn't a vet in the county that treated small birds, so none of them were ever vetted. They never really had health problems, though. They'd get their wings clipped every few months. Once or twice we had to get a serum for dry feet and beaks. Generally, they lived the expected 3-5 years without problem.

Now I'm wondering why none of them ever laid eggs.

[Alty]

It is weird that none of them laid eggs. Are you sure they were female?

We never vet our birds either. I've never had a serious problem that required it. Most problems are easy to fix at home.

I had budgies growing up, because of my grandpa. I did get a pet store budgie once, he was beautiful, a really nice blue color, apparently the coloring on him was pretty rare.

We went away on vacation and my grandparents looked after him. We came back an he was green.

I asked my grandpa what happened. He told me they sometimes change color. I believed him. I was young.

Turns out that my budgie was the perfect male to breed. My grandpa couldn't resist, so he took my bird for breeding and gave me one of his older birds. :(

I love budgies, they're great little birds. Out of the small inexpensive birds they are the easiest to train to talk, to whistle and they're very easily tamed.

Right now I have a cockatiel. I'm actually thinking of getting her a mate, she's been laying eggs and I have to take them away, they're duds. They will continue laying and laying and laying. My friends cockatiel died because her uterus fell out from laying too many eggs.

I lost a lot of finches that way.

Males are easier. ;)

[hheath541]

Considering we've had around 15-20 birds over the years, I'm sure at least ONE was a female.

We were always told that the way to tell was by looking at the color of their nose. Blue for boys and pink for girls. The few we had that were purple, we just picked a gender.

I've seen the blue budgies marked as rare. The odd thing is, around here most of the budgies are either blue or yellow.

Had a beautiful blue male named tweety that I loved. I taught him to give kisses. When I put my hand in the cage, he'd hop right onto my finger. Even when he was out of the cage he'd come to me. We could let him fly around the house. When he got done after a few minutes he'd go back to his cage, climb in, and pull the door shut behind him.

My mom decided he needed a friend after a year or two. Got a little yellow female she named sunny. She was the meanest, most ill-tempered bird I've ever known. She'd bite anyone who put their hand in the cage, even if they were just trying to change the food dish. She screamed at the top of her lungs for no reason. If she managed to get out of th cage, she'd fly to the highest spot she could find and yell at you, or dive bomb your head. I couldn't stand her.

Tweety stayed the sweetest bird ever, even with sunny as a cage-mate. A couple years after we got sunny, she started attacking tweety. I was away at college, and my mother didn't want to move one of them to a different cage herself because she was afraid she'd hurt them when they resisted. She found tweety dead one morning with most of the feathers on the back of his head plucked out. Sunny lived another year, and never got another cage-mate. She was a wretched little creature.

[Aurora_Bell]

Wow that is a terrible story! Poor Tweety!

How long to budgies usually live for? I always wanted one, but as I got older birds started to freak me out. I used to have sparrows,(long story, turns out I am a criminal) but I had them in a huge 5ft cage. I don't know if I forgot to close the door one day but I had 2 birds living in the cage at this point a young sparrow and a young pigeon, I woke up in the middle of the night, I could feel this swooping and I could hear thse weird noises, I looked up and the sparrow was pirtched on my lamp staring down at me. It was the freakiest thing I have ever experienced. I don't know how she learned to fly, I don't know if it was a dream or what happened. Non the less, I have been traumatized ever since!

[hheath541]

They live for about 3-5 years on average. They're fairly easy birds to own and take care of. As long as they have food and water, and you keep their cage clean, they're generally happy.

[Alty]

Poor Tweety. I had a Tweety once, a cockatiel. We actually found him. He had gotten loose and ended up on our neighbors screen window on her second floor. She's terrified of birds so I went over.

I was so worried that I wouldn't catch him. I had to pop out the screen in order to have the window open, he had perched on the window ledge and the screen only popped out, not in, so I literally had to bump him off the window and hope he'd come back.

I got the screen out, he flew away and then came back a few minutes later. So I put out my finger, hoping he'd just climb on. No way. He wasn't having any of that. He flew off again, was gone for around 15 minutes. I thought for sure that I had blew my chance.

He finally came back and I thought "to hell with this" and just snatched him up.

At that time I had a friend that raises birds, mostly cockatiels. He was amazing. That guy knew everything there is to know about birds. I asked him to come over a short while after we caught Tweety. Tweety wouldn't come out of his cage.

So my friend came over, got the bird out and clipped his wings. We figured that would be best in order to train him. Well, once his wings were clipped he just hopped on my finger, started whistling pretty songs, just like that.

My friend guessed that Tweety was around 9 years old. He actually died shortly after my poodle Silver. They were buddies. Tweety would seranade (sp?) Silver while he ate.

Tweety died in my hands.

[hheath541]

My grandparents went camping several years back, like they did most years. They were visiting one of the other campers, when a cockatiel landed on my grandma's head and just sat there. He stayed there all the way back to their camper, where he made himself at home. When they left, he came home with them, from Indiana to Ohio.

They had him for a year. Named him 'indy.' never got his wings clipped. He had a few hours a day where he could fly around the house.

They took him camping with them the next year, and he flew off. I think he went to help another family.

They got a dog not too long after that. Their dog had died several years prior, and they'd both sworn they would never get another one. They just wanted another pet after indy left.

That little dog has been my grandpa's lifeline since my grandma died. I honestly don't think he could have survived without her. She goes EVERYWHERE with him, even to work. She's old and blind and has heart and lung problems. Most of her teeth are worn down to nothing. He loves her and she sits and listens when we talks and gives him someone to cry on when he goes to visit my grandma.

I don't think they would have gotten another dog if indy hadn't found them.