Hi everyone, I want to buy a couple of budgies for my young boys to interest them, I don't want to breed, and I'm a beginner at keeping birds. I have a cage wich is 50cm wide X 50cm deep X 90 cm high. I was thinking 2 birds, the cage is positioned just outside my backdoor, under shelter, fairly sheltered from the elements its only a small yard with reasonably high fences.

 

I have a couple of natural perches in it from a tree branch that fell in our front yard they are aus native. this is as far as I have gotten, I wanted to research as much I could as I never had much luck with birds as a child. I live near Murray Bridge SA, so if anyone can give me any advice, or recommend a breeder I can buy a couple of birds from.

 

Any advice would be much welcome as I have no clue at this stage. I don't want to rush out and buy birds from our local petstore, and not know what I'm doing..

 

please help!!

thanks

Hello and welcome

 

There are a few members who live in and around Adelaide.

 

It's great you are doing research before getting the birds!! If your wanting to get 2 birds, then 2 boys are the best combination.

The cage you have sounds good, its not ideal as budgies need width rather than height for flying space, but its not too small so will be fine . Also a photo would be great.

 

Do you want the birds to be tame, or non tame birds to look at??

Edited March 16, 200916 yr by **Liv**

Hi, I probably just want them tame enough to sit on my finger my boys are a bit little for them to play with the birds so, for them it will be just looking and listening. But having birds that are tame enough for me to have them sit on my finger and not freak out when me or the kids go near the cage would be good.

I'm still new at this forum thing so I will work out putting up pics when I get a chance.

 

so I will need to get birds that are old enough to be sexed?

Hi, I probably just want them tame enough to sit on my finger my boys are a bit little for them to play with the birds so, for them it will be just looking and listening. But having birds that are tame enough for me to have them sit on my finger and not freak out when me or the kids go near the cage would be good.

I'm still new at this forum thing so I will work out putting up pics when I get a chance.

 

so I will need to get birds that are old enough to be sexed?

No you wont need to get birds old enough to be sexed exactly as they would be older and harder to tame. Get baby budgies....any with pinky purple cere will be boys. Any with whitish ceres even if there is pale blue on the white cere, will be girls. Dont rely on petshop people to get the sexing right...most often they get it wrong. Any budgies cere that is fully coloured ( bright blue for boys and reddish brown for girls ) will mean the budgie is older, so try and avoid.

An outside cage must be secured and monitored as many budgie cages outside can be knocked over by wandering cats. Some birds come in and have been known to attack budgies through the bars of cages too. If you want tamable trainable budgies, best to keep them inside.

Yeah if you want them to sit on your finger it is best you keep them inside so they don't fly away when you take them out of the cage.

We have a section in the forums on sexing young budgies, complete with pictures. Go check it out!

I suggest getting 2 boys too if you don't want to breed they are more apt not to bite (not that they won't) are usually more chatty and may talk (not that a female won't), also with females there are cases that you have to worry about laying eggs or getting egg bound. This is my opinion .

 

As for the kids how old are they? Make sure when you get the birds you know that in the end you will of course be the main caregiver and if the kids are younger and jerky that you need to get your budgies used to them ASAP because birds will tend to run from little hands that grab, kids that can't sit still etc.... (not that any of this applies to you...just putting it out there).