Budgerigar food health week: day 5

Daily bread

There always has to be enough food in your budgie's food tray. This sounds obvious to you, but some budgerigars actually starved to death because their owner didn't see the difference between the empty seed shells and the actual food. Budgerigars "crack" open the seeds you give them and only eat what's inside. They leave the empty shells lying around. 
In comparison to a lot of mammals and reptiles, budgies can't go long without food. They digest and use the energy from their food so quickly that they are already starving after one day. Therefore you have to make sure to refill their food tray completely every day!

Healthy seed mix for budgerigars. Image © parrotparadise.ca

 Budgie-sized portions

Fruit and vegetables have to be divided into small "boats" so that it's easier for your budgie to eat. Vegetables have to be washed thoroughly with lukewarm water. Your budgies have to eat it fresh - never give them anything that starts to get rotten. Serve them fresh fruit and vegetables in the morning, so you can remove it from their cage in the evening, when they're done eating. Never leave any pieces lying around in the cage. Your budgie can get diarrhoea very easily from rotten food.

Limmmme! Image © nlcafe.hu

 Quality takes time

A lot of fruit and vegetables you buy at the supermarket contain pesticides and absorbed poisonous fumes from all the traffic around. If you don't pay attention, your bird can get poisoned. The best you can do is buy biological fruit and vegetables and wash them more than once. Or you can buy your fruit at a farm in the countryside, far away from all the busy traffic roads.

It's always good to know where your fruit comes from. Image © folk.uio.no

 From the garden

Your budgies like plants like dandelions and shepherd's-purse. If it comes from your own garden, you can give your budgies the whole plant, roots and a bit of earth included. Don't give them the flowers, though! The earth contains minerals and stimulates your bird's digestion.

PLEASE TAKE NOTE OF THIS: TOXIC PLANTS 

 Budgies cannot eat the following plants:

• Avocado
• Dieffenbachia
• Ivy
• Taxus
• Foxglove
• Tung tree
• Lobelia
• Mistletoe
• Larkspur
• Poinsettia

You always have to doublecheck for any toxic plants in the house when you decide to let your budgie fly outside the cage!

My list above is still incomplete. If you're in doubt about something, you can visit this link or consult the wikipedia article on toxic plants.