Little Green Men

Commonly called simply the "parakeet" in the U.S., the proper common name for Melopsittacus undulatus is the budgerigar. And don't let anyone tell you otherwise - budgies are parrots, or psittacines. The arbitrary term "parakeet" is a term often applied to many smaller species of parrot, but there is no genetic or evolutionary delineation between "parrots" and "parakeets". Budgies are no more closely related to other small "parakeets" than they are to large "parrots". In fact, budgies appear to have diverged from other psittacines quite a long time ago and have a multitude of genetic novelties that occur in no other psittacine species. Recent morphological studies combined with information from previous mitochondrial DNA analyses have suggested placing Melopsittacus into a monophyletic family classification with Loriculus (hanging parrots), Agapornis (lovebirds), and the whole families of Cyclopsittini (fig parrots) and Lorrini (lories) (Mayr, 2008).

Budgies are the smallest parrots on Earth and remarkable among parrots for many reasons.  Their spectacular budgerigar murmurations in the wild leave researchers stumped and viewers in awe. Wild budgies live in extended families of about 50-100 individuals, joining with other family groups at water sources where they unite for their mesmerizing performances of up to ten thousand budgies. They are entirely nomadic and may travel 250 miles in a single day across the vast red center of Australia to find the most recent rainfall, able to sense fresh rain at a distance of 40 miles. They are exquisitely adapted to locating their primary energy source - seeds.

The inclusion of seeds in a captive parrot's diet is a surprisingly controversial subject which is addressed in detail in our care sheet. For the most current information about bird husbandry, about which we learn more all the time, it is a good idea to check Google Scholar for recent primary literature or to ask an avian specialist veterinarian as they both read and conduct this research on a regular basis. It is also important to remember that each individual budgie may have different requirements based on lifestyle, personality, habits and genetics. It will come down to careful attention to your bird on a daily basis to know if they are getting the right nutrition.

Our bizarre little friends make excellent companions because they are flock animals. They are entirely reliant on their flock in the wild and stick close to them wherever they go. Anyone who has owned a tame budgie has seen this instinct in action. Every budgie requires companionship, either in the form of other budgies to live with or its owner, in order to be a fulfilled and happy budgie.

Yes, they talk! They talk well. Single budgies who have bonded closely with their owner are especially proficient and can learn hundreds of words, including full sentences. In fact, the world record holder for the most words spoken by a bird belongs to, not an African grey, but a budgie. It is sometimes said that males are "better" at talking than females, but this is somewhat misleading. A male and a female are likely to learn a phrase in about the same length of time with the same amount of practice. The difference is that males are more talkative - that is, once they learn the phrase, they may say it 100 times a day while the female might only say it when she feels like it or when you're interacting with her. Though more research is needed to understand the nature of mimicry in the animal kingdom, one possible reason for the budgie's ability to mimic is due to the need to recognize and repeat its own family's calls among thousands of birds. Females must learn to repeat their family's unique chirps just as well as males, so they cannot be worse imitators. This necessity also explains why budgies most closely bonded with their owners tend to speak most fluently.

Clipping: All our birds are flighted by default, but whether or not your bird is safer flighted or clipped is dependent on your bird's individual living situation. If you'd like to have your bird's flight feathers clipped we are happy to do that at no charge, and we are happy to advise if you're not sure.

Bird sitting and other pet sitting: Little Green Men serves as a sitting and boarding facility for birds, other reptiles and small mammals. Precautionary quarantine of newcomers is maintained in all cases.

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00360-010-0456-z?shared-article-renderer&error=cookies_not_supported&code=dba534e7-7d07-45da-92e2-6e3f71624eb2

• Diet and its effects on eggs production and antioxidant content
  • Depletion of antioxidants in the female's body after laying can leave her more susceptible to pathogens (). Antioxidants must therefore be replaced during laying. Egg food accomplishes this. Egg food also contains calcium, the main preventative of egg-binding which is caused by calcium deficiency (). Egg food and a cuttlebone must be provided every day to all females laying eggs or feeding chicks.
  • More calories and more nutrients does not necessarily mean a healthier egg. There are complex tradeoffs in nutrient availability within both the hen and the egg. For instance, when some vitamins or minerals are given in abundance, they may decrease the amount of another vitamin or mineral in exchange. This is yet another reason why variety is the key to nutritional wholeness in a bird's diet. Too much of any one thing can have a deleterious effect. Pellets are nutritionally balanced, but each individual budgie will have a different lifestyle, preferences and nutritional quirks. Therefore the best thing you can do for any budgie is to provide it with a wide variety of foods rather than resigning to one thing, even if it's pellets.
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Egg volume: (length)2 × width × 0.51 (Hoyt 1979)

Your budgie should never be outside. Budgies are common carriers of many different pathogens, and no matter how careful you are or how many tests you perform, there are hundreds of potential contaminants your budgie may carry that can pose a threat to wildlife but leave your budgie in apparently perfect health. By the same token, wild birds can carry all kinds of diseases from poultry-based viruses to avian malaria and other diseases. Your budgie should not be exposed to these pathogens (Baron et al, 2014). Baron, H. R., Howe, L., Varsani, A., & Doneley, R. J. (2014). Disease screening of three breeding populations of adult exhibition budgerigars (Melopsittacus undulatus) in New Zealand reveals a high prevalence of a novel polyomavirus and avian malaria infection. Avian diseases, 58(1), 111-117.

People tempted to bring their budgie outside should also remember that budgies like to forage on the ground, and our (U.S.) native flora and fauna is very different from the budgie's native Australian flora and fauna. The parasites are different, the bugs are different, the fungus is different, the bacteria is different, the plants are different. Budgies did not evolve in North America and are unlikely to be well-adapted to cope with all of our native microorganisms.

Another important reason to keep your budgie indoors is to maintain a steady temperature of their environment. Generally in the United States and United Kingdom where budgies are most popular outside of Australia (), the air is much more moist and dynamic than the red center of Australia where budgies are native. Rapid temperature changes and chilly breezes can pose a real threat. Budgies do have the ability to survive temperatures down to 40 degrees Fahrenheit, but they must adjust their metabolisms very gradually over months to achieve this feat (). We ourselves unfortunately lost our very first budgie to a January night when the heat shut off in our apartment, something that had never happened before and did not happen again afterward. The tragedy was made worse by our feeling of guilt that we didn't know it was happening. We had left the house to watch the AFC Championship game that evening and weren't home to know the temperature was dropping. If we had known, we could have gotten him out of there and to somewhere warm. We had only had him for ten days.

Even if the fluctuations are not enough to kill your budgie instantly, they can severely weaken his immune system and bring out dormant illnesses and digestive imbalances that can make him miserable or kill him secondarily (). Budgies don't need a heat lamp, they are perfectly comfortable between 60 and 75 degrees where most of us keep our houses, but they should avoid cool breezes and large fluctuations in temperature in general.

Lastly, the outdoors has predators. Budgies are extremely brightly colored. The odds that your budgie will be eaten are very high.

Are males better talkers than females?

For years we have been telling new bird owners that this is really not true, and we still 100% believe that. A study was done, however, that demonstrated that males almost invariably imitate the call of their mate, regardless of their age upon meeting or their familiarity with one another, while the females did not appear to imitate the calls of the males (Hile et al, 2000). This suggests that the reason for the mimicry performed by males is to solidify the pair bond during the mating season. However, the sample size in this study was very small (n=9), only one breeding cycle was observed for each pair, and the budgie pairs were only observed twice weekly, so it is possible the females were mimicking the males also but this was missed since they don't vocalize as frequently. Because so many females have been recorded mimicking just as well as males, an easily searchable phenomenon on YouTube or within our own aviary, we suspect that the purpose of female mimicry may simply be different to the purpose of the males'. More research is needed to determine the evolutionary significance of and the variables involved in the mimicking ability of both genders. Perhaps it is the inability of human owners to mimic the female's calls that forces her to conform to ours. Regardless of explanation, a single, well-bonded budgie of either gender is certainly the most likely to speak human words back to its owner.

The greatest threats that will face your budgie are:

• Their own waste, especially contaminated water and food dishes, nest boxes, and foraging areas. Budgie waste is an efficient cultivator of many strains of bacteria and fungi, including some that can be passed to humans. Thankfully the spread of zoonotic diseases to your family is very unlikely. More likely to be a problem is the proliferation of these pathogens in your budgie's own body by repeated inhalation and ingestion of aerosolized bacteria on poop dust particles. Keeping your bird's environment clean is the most important thing you can do for her. Even if you believe your budgie has not come in contact with any outside pathogens, remember that you as the owner go outside into the world where wild birds live, and you enter pet stores, and you bring your animals to the vet, and you buy food for your bird which came from elsewhere (all foods can go bad), and your bird originally came from either a breeder or a pet store (either of which contains many other birds). It is always possible for your bird to contract something you don't know about or to have been carrying it all along, even if you have had her for years without seeing any symptoms of illness. Everyday contaminants can be controlled, however, with proper cleaning, daily dry food changes, hourly wet food changes (avoidance of wet foods is acceptable, too - our compromise is to offer wet foods once per day for one hour and dry food for the rest of the day), and at least twice daily water changes (fully washing with antibacterial dish soap). This may sound like a lot, but doing all this for a single bird will probably take no more than about 30 minutes each day.
• Stress, or the release of the stress hormone cortisol, is not just psychological, it is a physiological problem that can lead to many complications such as a reduction in immune response, increased susceptibility to disease, digestive imbalance which causes many secondary issues, shorter lifespan and, in acute cases, sudden death. The scary thing about stress is that it may be difficult to notice that it is occurring. Many owners don't realize that something they're interpreting as good behavior is actually a sign of a very stressed bird. Lethargy from stress may sometimes just look like relaxation. Preening can either be a sign of contentment or of stress. Yawning is another behavior that can be misleading. Budgies do indeed yawn when relaxed and before falling asleep, but they also show a significant increase in yawning frequency about 20 minutes after a very stressful event such as a simulated predator strike (Miller, M. L., Gallup, A. C., Vogel, A. R., & Clark, A. B. (2010). Handling stress initially inhibits, but then potentiates yawning in budgerigars (Melopsittacus undulatus). Animal Behaviour, 80(4), 615-619.). Stress can be caused by many different events such as seasonal molting, breeding, a change of environment, an illness, a temperature change, a dietary change, death of a mate or companion, introduction to a new bird or other animal, or even something simple like a new sound happening in the house. Because all budgies are unique as individuals and behavior may vary greatly from one to another, knowing your bird well is very important in detecting early signs of trouble. The most universal sign of stress is a sudden, significant change in behavior or personality that can't be explained. A very sick bird will often become suddenly "tame" because he is too lethargic to run away or bite, or because he actually wants help. My tame birds, on the other hand, become more shy than usual if they're stressed. The more time you spend with your budgie, the more details you will discover about his tendencies and behaviors that can tell you a great deal about his health.
  • One of the best ways to prevent stress in your bird is to get them well socialized in many different situations while they're still young. This will greatly reduce the chances of your budgie suffering from acute stress when they encounter new situations later in life. We have done this for you already, but it will still be your job as the new owner to continue the socialization throughout their lives. The same is true for hand-fed and indeed all birds.
• Poor diet, particularly all-seed diets which frequently lead to fatty liver disease. Even the most exercised budgies in captivity do not burn as many calories as wild birds who may fly for hundreds of miles each day in search of food. Wild budgies also have a naturally varied diet because there is a different food available at each stop along their nomadic journey. It is generally not recommended that captive budgies be on an all-seed diet like their wild counterparts primarily because the budgie will inevitably pick out only his favorite type of seed from the mix and leave the rest, leaving gaping nutritional holes. Also, his favorite seeds are likely to be the fattiest ones such as brown and spray millet. Therefore it is ideal to allow your budgie access to only a small amount of seeds once per day (unless she is ill or not accepting other foods, as it is crucial to get calories into a budgie during these times - budgies can starve to death within 48 hours, and will stubbornly and rapidly starve themselves to death if they don't like the food you give them). We choose to give our budgies ½-tbsp of seeds per bird in the evening because it gives them a chance to eat their ½-tbsp pellets, 1-2 leaves of greens (usually spinach, kale, cabbage or broccoli), and sprinkle of egg food earlier in the day when they're hungriest. The added bonus of this schedule is that giving the seeds at bedtime is an easy way to get them to go back into their cage for the night without forcing them.

While there are many other dangers a household can contain such as windows, other animals, teflon cookware, and drastic temperature changes, most of these are easily preventable as long as the owner is aware of them before bringing the bird home. The three I have listed are my primary concerns for new owners because they are the top dangers to budgies that aren't always obvious at a glance and can slip through the cracks as silent killers. Many owners will assume that their casual cleaning methods or cheap seed mix are sufficient for their bird's health because they "have never had any issues before", but it can become a serious threat at any time and without warning. If you take nothing else from this care sheet, please take away that your budgie's environment requires daily cleaning, stress can kill him, and good nutrition can save his life.

Hile, A. G., Plummer, T. K., & Striedter, G. F. (2000). Male vocal imitation produces call convergence during pair bonding in budgerigars, Melopsittacus undulatus. Animal Behaviour, 59(6), 1209-1218.