The budgie cage

This morning, I went to the pet store to find a good bird cage for our future budgies.

I compared the different models and prices and eventually chose a medium-sized cage from the brand Tallinn:

Blue Tallinn budgie cage with supplies.

There are two reasons why I bought this cage:

• It only has horizontal bars (which is easier for budgies to climb in)
• The cage itself is also horizontally shaped, which means that budgies can fly around a little bit (this works better than with a vertically shaped cage)

The price of the cage was 70 EUR, which is reasonable, as it came together with a bunch of cage supplies (eating and drinking tray, sitting perches, even a nice-looking toy).

Remember that even a large cage is too small if your budgies have to live there constantly. That's why it's important to give them enough hours of free flight during the day.

Go to a pet store, save a budgerigar

Something I have been wondering about for a long time:

What exactly happens to budgies that don't get sold in the pet store?

Budgies that are sold on a market are likely to suffer the same fate. Image © canadiancarlsons.com

Reasonable pet stores

Luckily, in most pet stores ALL the budgies are kept until they are sold (or so they say).
Adult budgies as well as baby budgies get sold quite rapidly, but the demand for young birds is still the highest.

Horrible pet stores

The less scrupulous ones may neglect the budgies that don't sell, waiting for them to fall ill, then ship them back in crates with dying or dead budgies, back to the supplier for a refund. Or, the older, weaker budgies may end up as free snake or reptile food. There are actually pet stores who worked with this "system". Budgies with problems sometimes go back to the breeder they came from - the breeder will most likely end their life because those budgies are "useless" to them. Some budgies are just kept in the display aviary for the rest of their life. Very, very boring.

But, do we really know?

Go to any pet store in town and ask the owner this question. Will they tell you the truth?
How much do they really care about these little birds?

One of the local pet stores here sold us a baby budgie with only half a wing, because they had clipped it too far. I think it's a scandal. The poor budgie is living at our home now, but he will never be able to fly. I don't know what would have happened if we had left him in the pet store.
So if you care for budgies, you might want to go to the pet store and buy a pair to make sure they are in good hands.