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Welcome to Adorable Budgies
This site started out as a personal website about our birds and aviary. It soon started growing and is now enjoyed by people all over the world. Although the main focus of this website is budgerigars, we often discuss other pet birds in our forum. Our main goals with this site are to be informative, fun and to bring bird fanciers together to share stories, hopes, dreams, experiences and worries.
We will continuosuly strive to bring you the best information and articles relative to budgies, and also lots of photos. We endeavour to keep the site informative as well as letting you know all about us and our 'hobby'.
Budgerigars are special little creatures, full of attitude and personality. We will be posting a few videos to show just how silly they can be. Some will make you laugh, some will make you say Awwww, and some, well they'll just show our birds living the life of Riley in their aviary.
Do any of the following statements sound like YOU?
* You haven't bought a budgie yet, but you're seriously considering it
* You are looking for hints, tips and advice regarding keeping budgies yourself
* You want to get some ideas of how to take care of a budgie
* You already own one or more budgies and are interested in finding out how others keep theirs
* You are looking for a place to find responsible budgie breeders somewhere near you
* You are looking for links to great items to help boost your budgerigars health, happiness and well-being
* You would just like to hang out, look at pictures of cute
and adorable budgies and possibly have a bit of a chat with other bird
lovers
Then please do stick around, check out all of our pages, view our pictures of budgerigars, visit our budgie forum, check to see if we have any baby budgies ready for new homes right now and basically just enjoy the site!
Click Here to go directly to our forum
You will find lots of extra info, Q&A's and photographs of budgies there. Come on in and join us, you can tell us all about YOUR birds too :)
The Budgerigar (Melopsittacus undulatus, nicknamed budgie), the only species in the Australian genus Melopsittacus, is a small
parrot belonging to the tribe of the broad-tailed parrots (Platycercini); these are sometimes considered a subfamily
(Platycercinae). In the latter case, the Budgerigar is sometimes isolated in a tribe of its own, the Melopsittacini,
although it is probably quite closely related to Pezoporus and Neophema. Though Budgerigars are often called
Parakeets, especially in American English, this term refers to any of a number of small Parrots with long flat tails.
The Budgerigar is found throughout the drier parts of Australia and has survived in the inlands of that continent for
over 5 million years.
The Budgerigar is one of the two Parrots to be genuinely domesticated as a species along with the Peach-faced Lovebird
(Agapornis roseicollis). Believed to be the most common pet Parrot in the world, the Budgerigar has been bred in
captivity since the 1850s. Breeders have worked over the decades to produce a wide range of colour, pattern and
feather mutations, such as blue, white, violet, olive, albino and lutino (yellow), pied, clearwing, spangled,
and crested.
Modern show budgerigars, also called English budgerigars and/or Standard-Type Budgerigars are larger than their
wild-type (natural form) counterparts, with puffy head feathers, giving them an exaggerated look. The eyes and beak
can be almost totally obscured by feathers. Most Budgerigars in the pet trade are not of the show variety
(Standard-Type aka English Budgies) and are similar in size and body conformation to wild Budgerigars and thus aptly
called wild-type Budgies.
Budgerigars are intelligent and social animals and enjoy the stimulation of toys and interaction with humans as well
as with other Budgerigars. A common behaviour is the chewing of material such as wood, especially for female
Budgerigars.
Budgerigars can be taught to speak, whistle tunes, and play with humans. Both males and females sing and can learn to
mimic sounds & words. Both singing and mimicry are more pronounced and much more perfected in males. As a whole,
females rarely if ever learn to mimic more than a dozen words or so. Males can very easily acquire vocabularies
ranging between a few dozen to a hundred words. Generally speaking, it is the pet Budgies and even more so the ones
kept as single pets which talk the best and the most.
In captivity, Budgerigars live an average of five to eight years, but are reported to occasionally live to 15 if well
cared for. The life span depends on the budgerigar's breed (show Budgerigars typically do not live as long as
wild-type Budgerigars) and on the individual bird's health, which is highly influenced by exercise and diet.
Although wild Budgerigars eat grass seeds almost exclusively, avian veterinarians recommend captive birds' diets be
supplemented with foods such as fresh fruits and vegetables, sprouted seeds, pasta, whole grain bread and other healthy
human foods, as well as pellets formulated for small parrots. Adding these foods provides additional nutrients and can
prevent obesity and lipomas, as can substituting millet, which is relatively low in fat, for seeds mixes. Budgerigars
do not always adapt readily to dietary additions, however. Chocolate and avocado are recognized as potential toxins.
