Budgerigars -what do you know?
By kadia123
@kadia123 (60)
Australia
January 20, 2007 9:06am CST
How many of you know about Budgerigars??
Do you know what their orgins are??? They are actually found up north of Australia in huge flocks. Budgerigar means "good eating" in aborignals language, and yes they do eat them. Out in the wild you will see mainly green ones and some times some blue, yellow and white ones but they dont survive because of the predators can spot them easily.
I bred them for about 10 years and they are such great little creatures, yet many people have them at home and do not look after them properly!
These are the most important things about Budgeriars that you must know!
They must have fresh water
They must have cuttlefish, which is not washed! They actually go to the beach in the wild to eat the salt, etc.
Always have sand preferably beach sand on the bottom of the cage, they like to eat the sand and yes they will eat at their droppings because they are getting stuff they need out of their droppings. In their crop which is just under their beak, they need it to grind their food as they dont have teeth. With out this they will die of starvation.
Please do not feed them lettuce as it will give them dirrahoea, the best thing to give them are apples, carrots, flowering gums, gum leaves, grass in seed, corn, and silverbeet or spinach.
The budgerigars can live for many years if looked after properly.
Always have medicated grits, as they gives them the minerals and vitamins.
1 person likes this
1 response
@Adversa (406)
• Australia
21 Jan 07
One thing that needs to be said is that what we refer to as a Budgerigar here in Australia is known as a Parakeet in America.
This is a misnomer as Parakeet is meerly the family group that the budgerigars (Or Budgie for short) belong to. The name Budgerigar is Aboriginal (I forgot which dialect) for "Good Eating" which I feel is hillarious. there far to small to be considered a serious food sourse.
As far as the care goes Kadia is one hundred percent correct with the care. I use shell grit (crushed shells) insetead of sand though and it works well. I give my birds carrot and apple (grated) seasonally I will give them a few extra treats.
I make a poit to grow my own millet sprays ansd It is there favourite thing in the world. I chop up silverbeet for them and I throw in a fresh branch from a gum tree into the flight every week (the love to play in the green leaves, eat the leaves a little but they really want the bark)
Other things I like to remember is to always use branches rather then dowl (round wodden rods, sorry i cant spell) as the constant width of the dwol can gause foot problems for them.
De louse regularly (I have set up an irrigation system in the roof of the flight. when its delouse time I remove all food and water, plug in a hose and then put some de-lousing formulae (its in a slow feed to the main hose, so it mixes with the water and sprays like rain in the cage). The love it, they love the rain, plus its easier then catching 30 plus birds and delousing manually. It also gets the cage clean.
Keep two or three quails in the bottom of the cage too, they keep the floor relatively clean and reduce the risk of rodents.
1 person likes this
