One budgie or two?

[cheese burger]

those pictures are so cute
but i have a question
i am going to get a budgie of my own tomorrow i was wondering wether or not it is betta to get 1 or 2 because i am goin to get a young one as i have heard it is harded to choose the sex as my parents do not want me to breed them. also i have heard that it is harder to bond with them as they are to busy bonding and do not want to be apart. but yet that may or may not be a good thing because i will b @ schol and he will not be alone

what do i do AHHHHHHHH!!!!!

love cheese burger

[Budgiekin]

There are definitely trade-offs to having two budgies versus one. You are correct in saying that having two will usually make it more difficult to tame them. However, you can still work with them individually (like in a separate room where one can't hear the other).

Some budgies may be able to handle being home alone for longer periods of time, but I am of the thinking that it is best to provide them with a sense of being part of a flock (hence, having more than one budgie when they are going to be home alone for large portions of time).

Let us know what you decide!! :p

[Bea]

I'd start with one. :) Then you can bond with it and if you still want a second later on then you can add another.

[cheese burger]

well i only have one cage so i mite get onew it depends on what my mum says tomorrow i will tell you soon though

[Mistyoriline]

You should think about the cost of vet bills too If they fall sick can you afford 2 bills and is the cage big enough for two?I say start with 1 but if that one doesn't seem happy after 2 or 3 days then get he or she a mate I think thats why alot of budgies die when they are brought home to a solitary family of humans.....they get depressed very fast....and some die from heart attacks becaus they feel so singled out and unsafe in thier environment...just my thoughts though

[Bea]

Here's a tip: get a really young baby budgie (if the shop/breeder doesn't have any then come home empty handed, it will be hard but worthwhile), once you get it home do not put it in it's cage. Cup it gently in your hands and just sit and talk quietly to it for as long as possible (when i brough Ozzie home i sat with him for 2hrs). Obviously if the budgie is madly panicked then you should put it in it's cage and use the slower taming method. By holding your new budgie you are making yourself the one familiar thing in a completely new world. You will be the 'safe' zone, even safer than the cage. This is the method i used for Ozzie and he was tame and coming out on my finger the first afternoon home. After only a few days he got all excited and raced back and forward begging to come out for cuddles whenever he saw me. One of my friends has used this method on all her past budgies too and they've all been INCREDIBLY tame. This will only work on very young budgies though (6-8 weeks).

If you do this your budgie should be so pleased with your company that it wont mind being single. If you have to leave it alone during the day leave the tv or radio on for it. Then once you've established a very strong bond with the single budgie maybe you could consider a second. :)

[Amy]

Good tips Bea! I'm going to do that with my babies!

And I'd say start off with one if you think you can spend enough time with it and to see how you get on, if you love it and you thing it's lonely, get it a partner, but put it in quarantine for 30-40 days first.

Good Luck!

[Mistyoriline]

I will have to try that method one day.

[Dolphie]

Hello! I would get one budgie, a young male budgie. Try to get a budgie that has stripes across his head and maybe even some black on the beak. Baby budgies, about 9-12 weeks of birth, will have some black on the beak. The younger you get your budgie the easier it will be to train and bond with. If you do plan on getting a young male budgie, their ceres will be a solid purple/pink color throughout the cere. Young female budgies will have blue/white on the cere.

If you do plan on getting one budgie you can play music for him/her when you are not around. Budgies love noise, just as long as it's not too loud. You can play some soft music for them while you are not home. Budgies love noise, as silent can mean that a predator is around in the wild.

Once you have your budgie tame (can take months) then if you wish you can always add another. Your first budgie will remain tame. Just remember if you do get another budgie, they will both bond to eachother and probably choose eachother over humans.

Best wishes.

[cheese burger]

thankx you guys

thanx bea my budgie is already finger tamed cheers
gr8 tips

love beth xxxx

[cheese burger]

by the way i got one voilet colbalt

love beth and battery

ps the name is a long story (thestory is in the journal page)

xxx

[Bea]

That's an adorable name! :D Can you post some photos?

[Crystal_Dawn]

I personally do not think it is ok to house any bird (other than naturally solitary ones like canarys) alone for more than 6-8 months. and during those few months you have to be willing to make your bird your life and spend obcene amounts of time with him/her. Then once the bonding is well done, get them a friend... the thing is, birds are extreamly social animals and to be alone for a long period of time is awful for them... along with an unhappy life it can cause phsycological issues. In last months issue of bird talk they published a study done with amazon parrots (keep in mind budgies are just a social) they had two controlled groups, one group was housed alone, and they other in pairs. With the group housed alone, more than 50% of them devoloped tendancies such as extream agressivness, extream fear of new people and things, feather plucking and pacing back and forth. The group housed in pairs... now this is increadable... 0% devoloped any phycological unhappy traits! The study showed that they started to act this way after about a year, this is why I said don't let the training alone period go past 6-8months. I look at this way: I am a social animal just like budgies and I would go nuts too if I never got to see other people ever, even if the gigantic animal that owned me was sweet to me a couple hours a day and loved me... I would still need at least one other person to be with. Alot of people say that "no no, my bird is happy" in my opinion you only think that because 1)you don't want to feel guilty 2) you haven't seen him/her with an other one to be able to compare... I thought trisket was happy untill I got her a friend and then I discovered what a truley happy budgie acts like :) ... and I was spending about 6-8 hours a day with her before hand! But it isn't enough in the long term... and nothing compares to the kinship between two budgies. like speaks to like.

...here is a poem on a budgie website that made me cry for all the solitary budgies out there...
************************************************** ***************
http://www.birds-online.de/einzelhaltung/gedichtgegeneinzel_en.htm
************************************************** ***************

Only yesterday I was a happy budgie.
I sat in a warm nestbox,
surrounded by warming feathers and the familiar voices of my brothers and sisters.
Security and care under my mother's tender wings.

- - -

Only three days ago I was a content budgie.
Though I've been separated by force from my siblings and parents,
there were others of my kind who shared my fears.
We snuggled against each other and eyed the big unfeathered beings,
who paced up and down in front of our glass cases.
We got used to the fact that one of our friends suddenly vanished now and then.
The big unfeathered beings weren't able to get in to us.
To preen and cuddle each other is a good remedy against the fear.

- - -

Only a year ago I was a budgie.
Though I've been abducted from my new friends and brought into alien surroundings.
All around me strange unfeathered beings, whose size and voices scared me to death.

At nights I squatted alone in a dark corner, around me loneliness.
In my dreams my friends are with me, whose voices and warmth give me hope.
Memories are a good remedy against the fear.


Although after a while I realized that the unfeathered beings meant well,
I couldn't understand them.
Preening and cuddling helps to bridge distances.
So I took courage and began to preen the unfeathered beings.

- - -

Infinite ages ago I knew who I was.
Now I'm here, surrounded by darkness and silence.
The unfeathered beings visit me only very rarely now.
Did I do something wrong?
But how could I know since I can't understand them?
Just as they can't understand me.
The loneliness grabs at me and I am defenceless.
A void spreads in my head and in my soul.
Only sometimes in my dreams a fragment of a memory rises from infinite depths.
Fluttering of wings, familiar voices, a beak that caresses gently the thinning plumage on my neck.
I cannot hold these pictures, they slip away when I try to remember.

There is no remedy for loneliness.


************************************************** ***************

[Bea]

Well i can see the benifits of keeping multiple birds but it's not at all fair to just asume that a single budgie will be unhappy. Blinkie was a single budgie for over a year and from a very young age i spent tons of time bonding with him, as a baby he would turn to me over his siblings for head scratches, preening (with my fingers) and cuddles. I am his flock, even now with Ozzie he still mainly chooses to spend time with me. I was homeschooled for the first year of his life and so he had my constant attention and love but this year i started college (yr 11) and am at school during the day (though with my time table never for longer than 5hrs), for the first term he was still a single budgie. During the day he and my dog would stay inside with the tv on for noise/comfort and everyday when i come home he is thrilled to see me (but then he is like that if i even leave the room for 15mins), i would never have said that he was unhappy while i was at school. He's a very happy budgie who plays non-stop regardless of whether there are people paying him attention.

[Crystal_Dawn]

i'm sorry if i offended you bea, that was not what I was trying to do at all... for the rare person who is at home constantly, it can work, but most people don't have that luxuary. It is important i think to specify that when telling people that they can live alone. The average person either goes to school or work and also has a social life on top of all of that etc... so telling people that they can live happily alone is not true... more accurate would be they can live with just you if you are extreamly committed and have next to no other commitments in your life. When i fist got trisket i gave up having a social life for about 8 months or so and devoted all of my spare time to her and to this day she adores me just like Blinkie is with you :) so i do understand that they can come to love us as one of the flock, but I still think that like speaks to like better... and i think that in the average home a single budgie would not be very happy. plus I think that the study I refered to proves that there is somthing to be said about the differences... 0% vs. more than 50% is kinda hard to argue with... again i'm not trying to upset you, i am very certain that you are an amzing budgie mom who gave blinkie everything he needed :) i just think that most people wouldn't go to the lengths that people like you and I would, and so its safer in the birds intrest to say birds need to be in pairs... in fact in italy they recently made it illigal to house a bird alone... theres got to be a reason for them to have done this right? with all of the studies and now even a law in one country I can't help but be on the anti single bird side of the argument.

[Crystal_Dawn]

oh and you also said that you are in collage in year 11? I don't understand that system, where are you from? how does that work? just curious :) here in canada we have grade school up till grade 12 and then university/collage goes year 1,2,3 etc. for an undergrad degree. then masters year 1, 2 etc.

[Bea]

I'm in Australia. High School from 7-10 and then college for 11 and 12 then you go on to Uni or TAFE.

[Crystal_Dawn]

oh interesting :) i want to live in austrailia but they won't let me bring my babies :( so I can't... i could never leave trisket

so you didn't say anything about my post before that one... are you not mad at me anymore? ... :(

[Bea]

I wasn't mad, i just think generalising on keeping single budgies isn't right. Some settle right in to the single life while others truly are 'bird birds' and need the compant of other budgies. :)

[Crystal_Dawn]

so you don't agree with waht i said in my last post then? you think that a single bird would be happy even if the person wasn't as dedicated as you or i?

... i guess we'll just have to agree to disagree :)

[Bea]

Yeah, i think as long as it's not alone in silence with no mental stimulation for long periods of time and gets a few hours of special attention and out of cage play time everyday a single budgie can be happy. :) But i can see very easily how and why you can think otherwise.