Budgies

[Tikkajazz94]

I might be getting budgies. I have been reachering on them alot so has my sister,


I just want to know how easy is it to raisie them. can Someone help?

 

[onthespot]

from what I have read, they breed easily enough, most problems come from genetic defects, fused toes, bad beaks, small, poor immune systems from tight inbreeding, because they ARE so easy to breed. I always have to fight myself back from getting some, just because the return is so low on your effort. They don't sell for much, and cockatiels and love birds are at least as easy to breed for way more money.

 

[Wifezilla]

The females are evil. The males are generally very trainable and sweet.

 

[kstaven]

Quote:
Are you looking at standard budgies or the british budgie. There is a major difference in the size, look and care requirements.

 

[Renee]

I love budgies. Budgies hate me.

 

[mangled]

There's a huge difference between the English budgie and what I call the American parakeet.

The bigger bird on the right is the English.

If you're looking for just a pet, they're cute, active birds, and not terribly loud, as hookbills go. Get five or six together, and well, they can make a heck of a ruckus.

The females are bossy and seem to be a bit more nippy. They can't be taught to talk. The males are generally affable and can be taught a lot of phrases. They have these cute, little scratchy whispers.

If you're looking for a companion bird, that you can handle and will sit on your shoulder, go with a hand-fed bird. They may be small hookbills, but I can tell you, from painful experience, the parent raised birds can bite like chainsaws.

I've bred both English and the smaller parakeets. The amount of effort you put into raising them doesn't make you much, if any profit. When we lived in Phoenix, AZ I could get $10 for a parent raised baby, and $18-$24 for a hand-fed baby.

I would call around to your local pet shops and find out what kind of demand there is. Here around Pittsburgh, PA, there aren't many shops looking for babies, and the most I've gotten for a hand-fed baby is $10. Honestly, as much as I enjoy the babies and hand-feeding, there's absolutely no profit in it.

By hand fed, I mean I let the parents raise them for the first week, then pull them and put them in a brooder box, and mix hand feeding formula and feed them until they are weaned. It takes about 6-8 weeks of hand-feeding to wean a baby. They eat, on average, every 1 1/2 to 2 hours for the first week or so, and then you can taper off to every three to four hours as they get older. By the time they're 5 weeks, I was able to let them go for about 6 hours overnight, and the morning's first feeding would have them hanging off your hands to get to the syringe.

It is a huge amount of work.

Good luck- run a google search on raising budgies. There's a ton of good information out there.
Em

 

[reallemons1]

I had several keets growing up and have 4 now. Never raised them though. 2 of them were extra special. 1 was Pettie, a green male who wasn't very friendly but loved being talked to. He learned a lot of words and phrases and talked a lot very clearly. The other was Tweet Tweet, a blue female. She was super friendly and quite the ham. She learned and taught us many tricks. She also learned to talk very well. She played checkers, cards (well sort of) and loved ice cream. She would dive bomb at my hampster when he was on the floor, grab his tail, and fly off flipping him over. Poor hampster would get so mad and Tweet Tweet would laugh (yea, she learned to laugh like us at things too). They are great little birds. I have had some though that didn't become friendly.

 

[Ellie_NY_chick]

I had them as a kid. I didn't know about the male vs. female ability to talk, but that's exactly what happened with mine! I had an albino female who was just beautiful, and a blue male that talked up a storm and used to dance like crazy to "Heartache Tonight" by the Eagles. He LOVED that song for some reason. Oh to have a video of that....

They're messy little buggers though, and you have to watch their feed because they leave hulls in their food dish, making it appear full when it's not. Sand covers on the perches help some with the toenails, but get them used to being handled at a young age because no matter what you do, those teeny-weeny toenails will need trimming. They love to fly through running water and perch on doors, so if you have them out you have to watch for scalding if you're doing dishes or the wind slamming a door shut.

Okay, now I want to build an indoor aviary...

 

[SunAngel]

I started with 2...found out quick they were a male and female, before I knew it, I had 12!

They were super loud and destructive. I have a 4 x 5 x 8 floor to ceiling cage built into a corner of my livingroom and they actually tore up the drywall around the window and the wood window trim. Needless to say, I picked my two favorite females and sold the other 10!

They now happily coexist with my 3 cockatiels.

They are very easy to care for though. Fresh water, toys and parakeet seed at all times and they are happy.

 

[Ms. Lewis Rich]

I have raised and shown Budgies, I found since they are flock birds, it sometimes takes setting up over 3 pair to get them to breed, they need the chatter.
And when you do set up the two as a pair sit and watch, she may hate him and kill him very quickly. You can take him out and give her another cock bird and they may be breeding with in minutesLOL If you need help as time goes on you can PM me I will try to help.