cages

[Parakeet Girl]

well in my old forum the people there said that for one budgie you need a big cage about 18x18x18.now in this site peopleare saying that it is ok the have a good enough sized cage and it will be fine.what is the right answer?
:S

[jayjay]

um, when we say good enough, 18x18x18 would be minimum good enough. don't get me wrong about me saying a small cage was good enough in the discussions about acclimating a bird. acclimation is short term and in a pinch, an ok cage is better than none. i realize that caring for budgies can be expensive, and if you cage is say something like 15x12x15 or roughly that, it is certainly adequate for a temp cage, but not a permanent home. 18x18x18 is certainly good enough for one -maybe- two. i personally have only jay in a cage of 30x18x18, but that is probably a bit much for just one. the 18x18x18 is definitely a good starter size, but bigger is ALWAYS better. go with what you can afford. and remember its cheaper to buy a nice big one then to wait till a sale and buy a second one cause you will have already spent money on the small one. if you want big, i would go with length over height. 18x18x60 sounds huge, but unless your budgie enjoys flying straight UP, he probably wont care much that its so vertically large. on the other hand, 60x18x18 would giving him flying room. but if you must get the vertically high one, 18x18x60 is better than 18x18x18. hope that helps

[jayjay]

o i forgot to mention, as for when you would want a big one over a small one, consider this - how often do you let your budgie come out of his cage? if the answer is not a lot, then a bigger cage is only fair. if you go smaller, let him out to stretch his wings a bit, else, give your budgie a bit more room in the cage to move around.

[Tracie H]

I think JayJay is right, the bigger the better. But, cages are costly. I've bought several. Usually I buy them on eBay, but even then they aren't cheap.

Maybe you could just save your change in a jar or something for a little while until you have enough to buy a bigger cage, that way it won't be such a big strain on the budget. In the mean time your little friends should be fine as long as they are getting along. Also if you are at least saving your change you can feel better about knowing that their present home is temporary and you are working toward something roomier. If you are in a big hurry, maybe you could save half and just pay the other half.

In any case, I wish you the best of luck, your birds are beautiful.

[Parakeet Girl]

well... um... i dont even get money. i dont get allowence or any thing. my grandpa bought me the cage and the birds.my parents wont let me get another cage either. the cage i have is small for the birds but i cant get anything better.it is about 13x 15x17 or at least something very close to that.

[jayjay]

wow, thats rather small. how many birds do you have? really, if you go to petco.com (always has more sale than the actual store) or ebay, its not that expensive. i even saw a nice cage for 30$ that was rather big on amazon.com. if you have more than one bird, you should get a bigger cage. why wont your parents let you get a cage?

[Tracie H]

Aww sweetie, maybe keep an eye out for yardsales even. If you were to find one be sure to clean it very thoroughly with bleach water OUTSIDE, and let it dry out until there is no scent of bleach left on it. Even if you find another small cage or two that you could split them up and give them a bit more room that would be better than nothing.

[Parakeet Girl]

my parent dont like the birds. they say that i am just wasting money for nothing.and i also have another cage and they dont want to have 2 cages lying around. the other cage is about 7x5x9 very small. it looks a little like this.exept green and black .


http://www.petsmart.com/global/product_detail.jsp?PRODUCT%3C%3Eprd_id=84552444180 8361&FOLDER%3C%3Efolder_id=2534374302047584&ASSORTMENT%3C%3East_id=2534374302023691&bmUID=1155312060187&itemNo=27&In=Bird&N=2047584&Ne=2

[jayjay]

well, dont feel bad, when i was younger, my parents too felt that pets were a waste of time and money so i never had the chance to get any really. the ones i had in the past were ones i adopted from my uncle who moved away to CA and back then, the two budgies lived in a cage about that size for the better part of 8 years. so now that im done with college, I finally have a budgie and the ability to splurge so i got him a super sized cage and make most of the other stuff he uses cause its fun.

owning a pet teaches responsibility and its a stress relief for those days when school and everything just seem to get you down. will it cost you a bit, yes, but i don't see why your parents would be so against it. its no more than that xbox that most parents are too willing to buy their kids.

but i digress - the cage you have is a bit small, especially for 3 budgies, but that said, if you play with them enough and let them out to stretch there wings and excercise, they will be fine. don't worry too much about getting a cage if you cant. check out garage/yard sales and stuff if you ever see them though. you may be able to get one so cheap that your parents just wont complain. but the key is to let them out of their cages everyday for a few hours if you can. that will make up for the cage size. when you are able to get a bigger cage, that will be great, but until then, the fact that you care and are tyring to learn more about them is enough for me to believe that they will do just fine. i would avoid getting anymore budgies though. as is, if something should happen, it will be costly for vet visits and you wouldnt want to have to deal with angry parents unwilling to pay for those visits.

best of luck and don't worry, you and they will be fine :)

[Enna]

I WOULD JUST TOSS THE SMALL CAGE. Its really even to small for finches or i guess if you were to keep it it could come in handy for maybe a holder for the bird stuff. i can't see anyone putting a budgie in there. My cage is also small but I'm working on a new cage of course. Mine is right now 18, 16, 18 i think. i may be wrong but the new one is like 32 by 21 by 35. Now bad eh. i know cages cost a lot but look at it like this some cage make a good investment because there good for more then 1 type of bird. One can hold at lease 5 types if its big enough. The new cage I'm getting can be good for finches budgies parrotlets lovies tiels and a whole bunch other. i think the new cage is buying is a good investment and talk to your mom about this. Put her in the birds way of life. Ask her if she would like to be crammed into 1 small room with only food and water and a few toys with no real great place to exercise. I'm sure she would hate it. Bird can get hyper as far as i can say. the same goes for people and getting this extra energy out would be great for the birds. also a bigger cage might show a little more character from your birds

[Parakeet Girl]

i was wondering. whould it be possible to somehow conect the small cage to the big cage?they would have a lot more room.oh, and jayjaythe only reason my parent agreed to let my grandpa buy the birds is because i have been asking for a pet since i was 4 yo.

[HollyT]

Tough situation there kiddo...we didn't have many pets growing up either...with 6 of us mum and dad didn't need another mouth to feed...and lets face it we wouldn't have done right by them anyway...my first pets were hamsters...but I had my own money for them...saved from birthdays, babysitting..I was older in my teens. I did have a keet at one point, we got him from a neigbor but he didn't live long. I bought my own first budgie right before I graduated college.

like we all really needed to know that...sorry I tend to babble...

Anyway...since it appears as though you have no funds readily available or won't anytime soon...I'd try to remedy that if I could...are you old enough to babysit for neighbors or friends...could you convice your parents to pay you small amounts for doing chores? extra chores? What you have is small for two birds. However you can make it work for now by giving them lots of time out of cage and interacting with them. Change their toys around often and offer them interesting treats.

Maybe if you show your parents how much you love and care for your bird's they will relent!? I would also consider yard sales, or fleemarkets...although anything too old won't do..and you'll have to clean it thoroughly if you do find something.

Wish there was more I could offer in this case...hope your parents change their minds.

[jayjay]

if you are up to the challenge, im sure there would be a way to connect the cages. you'd have to do some work with cutting up the cages a bit and connecting them somehow so that the door to at least one of them isn't obstructed and free to be used as was. i never use a cage i buy as is. i usually bend and cut and add in my own personal touches just to make the doors open the way i like or whatever so you can certainly do it. what you may want to do, and your dad can probably help you with this is to use some heavy duty wire cutters (small needle noses with the cutter work just fine) and cut out a whole on one side of the cage to match the size of the smaller cage. then using pliers, remove on side of the cage wall of the smaller cage. put the two together and use florist wire or something to tie them together. where every you tie using the wire, just get some undyed hemp rope or raffia to wrap so that the wires arent exposed. keep in mind budgies love to pick at hemp ropes and raffia (jay goes at whatever i make out of raffia) so you'll have to check it and make sure the wire isnt exposed and retie/wrap if need be.

if nothing else, the old cage is good for treating sick birds with heat lamps or used as a transport so i'd keep it around. cages are collapsable with a little work so it wouldnt take too much time to do that and slide it under your bed or something.

another way to retro-fit a cage extension would be to go out and buy some plexiglass for walls and a bottom. connect them with silicon on the outides so that the birds dont pick at the dried silicon. then just drill a bunch of holes every few inches. i would leave leave the top open and put something over it that is more open like a screen of somesort. the advantage of building this setup is that you can make it as big as you want. you'll still end up spending like 20$, but you dad may enjoy the project anyway. i cant imagine a guy passing up a chance to build something haha

[BUUZBEE]

i would not toss the small cage as posted earlier, it is perfect for taking them to the vet or as an emergency cage.

[Parakeet Girl]

um... jaykay how much would that cost? i only have 5 bucks.my parents will only use thier money for the birds if i have no money for food.

[jayjay]

for plexi glass? it can be somewhat expensive. around 20 bucks for all the supplies you would need, but that really is depending on just how big you want it ($5 alone for the silicone). to mod your old cage and attach it to your other one would cost you a few dollars i would imagine since all you would need is the wire and some rope and you may have all that around anyway so it may cost you nothing but some of your time :). but be careful which ever way you choose. dealing with wires and cutting the cage can leave rather sharp points. you wouldn't want to hurt yourself. make sure to remove the birds and let them go somewhere safe away from the cage as you work on it and be sure to dull all the points you cut so that your birds cant get hurt on them.

another method, if you really want to be gung ho about making a cage is to make one out of dowels that you can buy from home depot or a craft store. get small ones and they should be fairly cheap. you would need about 50 to 100 small dowels. cut them in half. lay them down flat with about 1/2 inch spacing apart until you have a size you like for one wall of the cage. get someone to hold them as you take them all down with a long piece of tape. then get another dowel and cut it to the right size to go across all of them. lay one close to the top, one at the bottom, and one in the middle (or space out two) and tie each with wire. you can imagine how you would go about building the rest. the bottom i would just buy a piece of board and cut to that size while the top, i would make another 'wall' for. its a lot of work i know (2hrs or so if i was to do it probably), but it would certainly be a cheap viable solution, not to mention fun. again, your dad would be able to help. i know my dad use to hate me buying things as a kid, but he never complained about building projects that i wanted to do and was always a bit more 'free' with the money haha. just go to a craft store next time and see how much the dowels would cost you. i know the ones i got that i used to make the ladder for jay cost about 30cents each but they were pretty thick. the very small ones hsouldnt cost more than a few cents, especially at a home improvement store.

and ok, one more option. not as great looking probably, but it would work. go buy a big storage bin (clear one of course). they are cheap cheap cheap. i use to use a large one for my slider turtles and they were quite happy in it. again, you would drill a bunch of holes every few inches and the top would be a screen of some sort. just lay newspaper on the bottom. i know, it doesn't sound like a cage, but it will work very well. you can put perches through some of the holes you drill and stuff still and if you do it just right, it will have everything the budgies need. and with this method, you probably could get away with spending less than 10$. and if you think they need those bars of a cage for what ever reason, consider this, they dont live in cages in the wild and many pet stores have them in huge display cases surrounded by glass. so long as they have tons of space and enough air holes for good ventilation, they wont have a problem. just dont put the top cover on and try to put wholes in it (unless you put a lot). closing it like that may just make it too warm and humid in there even with the side holes which again should be spaced about an inch apart and no more than 1/2 inch holes. it needs a very open screen top for good circulation.

[Parakeet Girl]

thaks but i will try to stick with the firs one.hope it works.Also i dont care hoe it looks