This evening my husband and I are picking up our first budgie, who is a male and 9 weeks old. We will arrive home with him at about 8 pm so I expect he will go to bed shortly after arriving home, and would therefore not have much time to become oriented in his new cage before bed. Should I leave a lamp on overnight for him in case he wakes up and can't remember where his food and water is, or would the light stress him out? I have sewn a lightweight cage cover for him also - would his second night home be the right time to start using this? Thank you for your advice.

He should be fine in the dark, and cover his cage too. That way he won't see any motion or anything that might scare him. He can get used to his cage in the morning. But maybe make sure he eats some millet spray or something before he goes to bed.

 

Good luck

That sounds like a great idea. Thank you!

How did the first night go, and his first few days?

 

And welcome to the forum!

Thank you so much for asking Finnie! We actually decided to wait until after Christmas before we get a bird after finding out that some family with small children will be visiting us soon from interstate. We want the house to be nice and calm when our little bird settles in with us :-). We've already reserved a baby budgie that will be ready for purchase in January and are so excited!

Oh, that's great! We'll be expecting photos then, you know.

Thank you! :-)

I got my first pair of budgie last night. First night was not that bad for them. I put them in a quiet place, put some vegetables and millet in cage. I covered the top of cage with a thing clothe, with front open. I left the night lamp on for the night. Within four hours, I noticed them eating millet. I dint see them sleeping.

 

And now, on the second day. they are chirping, preening, eating vegetables and millet. I noticed that they become more active when I play budgie sounds on youtube.

Edited June 9, 201410 yr by scala

That's great news Scala! I'm so glad they are settling in nicely. I'm sure they will bring you endless amounts of joy. We've had our budgie for 18 months now and couldn't imagine life without him!