Kesha and Dora
Budgerigar
Acquired: Pet store
Gender: N/A
Budgies boy and girl
We got two adult female and male budgies at Petco. We wanted to get two, because we were told that one would feel lonely. We also have purchased a cage, toys and food. That was the easiest part. It turned out that they got completely different personalities. A boy (blue) was calm and a girl (yellow) very active and sometimes aggressive toward him. You actually can see your bird's personality from the day one. I wish we had asked a store assistant what these particular birds are like. But since there are like 10 in a cage I doubt it's practically possible to know.
Kids loved them instantly and wanted to hold them. A boy was tolerant and could sit on the finger for 3-4 min, while a girl wasn't excited to be bothered at all. So I read the technique that you have to put your hand in the cage a few times a day to let them get used to it and eventually they would land on your finger and let you carry them around.
As you see on the picture with my son it did work. You need to socialize with them constantly or soon they will turn "wild" again.
We often let them fly free a little but then we had to have our windows and doors closed. Badgies will happily escape if you let them and usually they don't come back.
The hardest part was cleaning the cage. You will have to do it almost every other day.
They are very vocal also especially in the morning. We had to cover the cage at night so they wake up when kids did.
We had them for two years or so. Then we moved out of the country and had to give them away to my cousin.
It's a great pet, if you don't mind noise. I am actually thinking about getting one or two soon.
