Alone is so lonely

"Will my budgie be a more responsive pet if kept alone?"

Photo © The Ottawa Humane Society

This is the title of an article I just read by Frank Indiviglio.

I noticed that the majority of the people voting in the poll on my blog only own one budgerigar. I'm not so pleased with this result. I always thought it's very sad to see a bird alone in a cage, without anyone of their own kind to interact with.  

Most people see a big advantage in this, though: they claim that birds housed alone tend to form a stronger bond with their owner, more so than birds that have other bird companions. There are even owners who decide to give away other budgies in order to make the remaining budgie a "better" pet. In my opinion, this is an act of animal cruelty.

Birds of a feather flock together

Budgerigars in the wild are always together with their flock members. Even in very large flocks, during flight, it is usually quite simple to spot couples. They remain, literally, within touching distance of one another. So never separate your budgie from his or her mate, you don't know how much you are hurting your bird with this.

I further quote: "A great many of the problems experienced by pet parrots are related to their bird being kept alone.  The agitated “dances”, displays and attacks on toys exhibited by solitary birds, and which are found amusing by those unfamiliar with parrot biology, are actually born of frustrated urges to mate and defend a territory.  Several parrot interest groups have now published position statements to the effect that housing a parrot alone is, in most cases, considered by the group to be animal abuse."

Photo © The Ottawa Humane Society

I understand that most people mean it well: they say they can spend more time on their budgie when there is only one of them. But bear in mind that spending a few hours each day with a budgie is still not enough - budgies kept alone need almost constant companionship of a person if that person is to be considered a “substitute” for the missing mate. This is extremely difficult to arrange for most people.

Please think about this if you only have one budgie. Budgies that are alone don't get half as old as the ones that have a budgie companion, to say the least.

Read the full article here:

http://blogs.thatpetplace.com/thatbirdblog/2009/11/03/parrot-bonding-will-my-budgie-be-a-more-responsive-pet-if-kept-alone/

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.

Export Prohibition / Globetrotter Budgies

Australia has been home to the wild budgerigars for at least five million years. Image (c) Bush Budgies

The home of the budgerigar is in Australia. They were discovered by the money forger Thomas Watling in 1792. Budgerigars were able to live in freedom until 1840, when the first live specimens were caught and exported to England.

The shipping of budgerigars was a very severe ordeal. The birds had little to no chances of survival, because no one knew what kind of food and care budgerigars needed. In fact, very little was known about budgerigars, because no one had ever studied a live specimen. Most of the budgerigars that did survive the whole journey often died shortly afterwards. This nightmare went on for years and the trade with budgerigars rose in such leaps and bounds that the Australian government finally imposed an export prohibition for budgerigars in 1884. This export prohibition is still valid today, although the budgerigar doesn't belong to the list of the threatened species in Australia.

Budgerigars huddled together in cold and rainy Western Europe. Image (c) Alieh S.

The few birds that survived the shipping journey were pampered in every way possible in order to keep them alive and happy (and to encourage them to breed, of course). There is a positive consequence linked to this: it is so easy to breed budgerigars today that no one bothers to catch them in the wild anymore. Just like globetrotters, they have travelled all over the world.

Budgerigars can be found all over the world, although their natural habitat remains in Australia. Image (c) Wikipedia

The first breeding result was based on pure luck. A female budgie had crawled through the small hole of an excavated coconut and gave birth to a nest of baby budgies, right there inside that coconut! By the end of the 19th century, yellow budgies started to appear and in 1910 the first blue budgie attracted many surprised people to an exhibition. Today, there are millions of colour and mutation variations, some of them more extraordinary than the others.

When budgerigars were first imported into the UK, people chose coconuts as nest boxes for budgies, thanks to the first breeding success! Image (c) Barrie's Budgerigars.

Wing Clipping

Do you want to be your budgie's friend? Do you want to be there for him, comfort him and gain his trust, so he can be sure that he is in safe hands?

I suppose the answer is yes, otherwise you wouldn't decide on buying a budgerigar.

Some people like to clip their budgie's wings. Their main reasons are so that the budgie can't escape or hurt itself while flying in the room. There are also stories of budgies with an "agressive" behaviour that get a lot calmer after their wings are trimmed. Some other people just like to clip their budgie's wings because they want their budgies to be tame. That's the "easy way", you know.



My answer to this is very simple: you can avoid all this trouble without even touching their wings.

Budgies are airborne creatures that need to fly around every day. But you can't let them escape out into the wilderness where they will only perish. So you must let them do it indoors.

Here you can find a checklist to make sure the rooms are clear of hazards when your budgie wants to fly around inside. Don't come up with lousy excuses like "I don't want my budgie to get hurt so I have to keep him in the cage", just clear a safe path for him. If you don't allow your budgie to fly around freely, you're not suited to be a budgie owner.

If you have an "aggressive" budgie, don't just brutally clip his/her wings but try to get to the source of the problem. The budgie may be stressed, or jealous (e.g. when you're keeping two females and one male). Or maybe they're living in a space that is too small? After you find out what the problem is, get to the solution. Remove the element that causes the budgie to be stressed (this could be an annoying noise like a barking dog, the rattling of a child toy, the buzzing of a lawn mower) or just move your budgie to a quiet room. In the case of jealousity, you can temporarily keep the two females apart until they both calmed down. Of course, when you clip their wings, they calm down because they're too scared to make a wrong manoeuvre and fall down without being able to fly back up again. Wouldn't you be?

Besides, there are very few to no conflicts between budgerigars. They love playing and they might go as far as playfighting, but they would never injure each other. When it comes to breeding, they might be a bit more aggressive. But then again, it usually doesn't go any further than a single peck that serves as a warning.

If you want to tame your budgie, you have to do it kindly. Clipping their wings is not kind at all. There's not only a high risk of hurting them, but you're also horrifying your budgie while you are doing it. For the rest of your life, he will regard you as the monster who stole his wings so that he cannot be a real budgerigar anymore. Real budgerigars need to fly.
With doing it kindly, I mean that you have to gain his trust. Whisper soft words to him, feed him little tidbits of food, just talk to him and tell him you're there for him and care about him. After a while, he will come to you automatically and offer you his friendship in return for your kindness.

Do you want to know why I'm writing this? Today, my mum bought a young dark green budgie in the local pet store. The little budgie is not even eight months old. When I saw him, I immediately saw the horrible thing they had done with his right wing. His breeder has cut HALF of his wing off. It looked so ugly that I was amazed that the budgie had survived it. If you still want to have your budgie's wings trimmed - consider all of the above facts first. The budgie that my mum brought in today is not able to fly and flutters around like a drunk hurricane. This can be just as dangerous as letting a budgie fly around in the room - and much harder to avoid accidents.