Budgie Parakeet, The Best Pet Reptile?

Well, hi there. I have fantastic news. The dinosaurs didn't go extinct. Well, most of them did, but one lineage survived, and those are the birds. And because dinosaurs, including birds, are more closely related to crocodilians than crocodilians are to lizards and snakes, it is impossible to form a clade called reptiles that includes both crocodilians and lizards without including the birds. The same is not the case for mammals, by the way. You can make a reptile clade with turtles, crocodilians, lizards, and snakes without including the mammals, but not the birds. The birds must be included because they are right in the middle. And this amazing little dinosaur is a budgie parakeet, which is, in reality, a small parrot. Budgies are one of the most common and inexpensive pet dinosaurs on the planet. In fact, they're the third most commonly kept pet of them all behind dogs and cats. And it makes a lot of sense. They are beautiful, personable, affordable, and widely available. Like I said, these are just little parrots. And the reality is, parrots are awesome. In a lot of cases, parrots are unreasonable because they're big, they're potentially dangerous, and they cost a fortune. On top of that, they live forever. This little parrot is like the perfect parrot because it's small, still gorgeously beautiful, unreasonably inexpensive. They live for a long time, so it's not like a chameleon or a rat or something that, you know, you're going to have to learn how to mourn. But it doesn't live so long that you need to pass it on to your grandchildren someday. Yet it's still a ridiculously smart bird. They can learn how to talk. They love you. So if you want a bird, I mean, this is an amazing bird, and they're so underrated. But are they good pets? Birds usually are not. At least, they're not easy pets. So is the budgie an exception? And is the budgie the best pet reptile for you? To help you figure that out, we're going to analyze the budgie parakeet based on our five categories, which are handleability, care, hardiness, availability, and upfront costs. When it comes to handleability, we give the budgie a score of four out of five. Budgies are highly social birds. They roam around the Australian outback in flocks that can be as large as hundreds of thousands. They don't like to be alone. If you have just one budgie, it will want to be with you all of the time. Just be sure to socialize it well from a young age so it isn't afraid of you. Being birds, which are endotherms, they turn most of their food into heat. This means that they eat a lot and they poop a lot. Their poops aren't big, as they're not big, and they tend to be relatively dry for bird poops since they're a very drought tolerant parrot. That said, when your budgie poops on you, just remember Clinty said there'd be days like this. There'd be days like this. Yes, Clinty said. They do have little claws that they will use to hold on, and you will feel them, but they won't do much damage. They could bite, and with their little seed crushing beaks, it won't feel nice. So again, socialize them while they're young. Females tend to have the more powerful bite. Generally, they only bite to communicate their displeasure with what you're doing, and they don't bite as hard as they possibly can. Again, generally, if well socialized, your little budgie is going to be your best friend. In fact, they may not want to leave you alone. Do be careful when they are out, as they can injure themselves. Mirrors create fake rooms guarded by force fields. Toilets are exciting little pools for a bird from the often bone-dry outback to explore. And make sure they don't get out of the house. They fly, you know. You could trim their wing feathers or perform surgeries that remove their ability to fly, but that seems a bit like cutting off the legs of your pet racehorse, if you ask me. If you want a pet that can't fly, I would point you to, uh, the rest of the reptiles. Honestly, if you want something with a budgie personality that can't fly, get an emerald tree skink. But trimming the feathers is something that you can do without harming your bird, as long as you do it correctly, to limit its flying ability temporarily, should I'd like to take just a moment to say thank you to our patrons at Patreon. Almost every week, right when the video first launches, I get people who comment on some of the comments that are already there. They're like, what the heck? This video has been out for 10 minutes. How can this comment be three days old? Ooh, well, they support us on Patreon. And one of the perks that we have to try to pay people back for the fact that they support us, and that does so much for our channel, is that we give early access to all of our videos. So if you want to be the first person to comment, and if you want to see people respond to your comment, like how the heck did you comment on this three days ago? Consider checking out our Patreon. When it comes to care, we give the budgie a score of three out of five. I'm just going to give you a quick overview of the basics of budgie care, but I'm going to have Russ from Aquaramax Pets, who actually owns this budgie, run us through a day in the life of a budgie keeper. The enclosure that you're going to need is going to be a bird cage. Honestly, I would recommend a cage large enough for the bird to fly about. If you want a budgie that doesn't fly, again, you should consider an emerald tree skink. This cage should have a lot of toys with which your bird can interact. It should also have many appropriately sized perches of varying different sizes, provide cuddle bone for calcium and lava stone for beak trimming, as well as chewable perches that will help with the beak and the nails. This will allow you to avoid having to trim them or have them trimmed, which can be stressful for everyone involved. When it comes to food, these guys should have seeds as their staple diet, but not their only diet. And we should mention they're going to pick the kernels out of the seeds and then toss the holes back into the bowl. So it will look like they have plenty of food, even when their food has been stripped of its foodly essence. I mentioned that their staple diet should consist of seeds, but that shouldn't be everything. Supplementing their diet with some fruits and vegetables as well will be really, really beneficial for your budgie. Make sure to provide water. They are more drought tolerant than most birds, but they still need water. If you have multiple individuals, then they don't need as much attention, but they should be in your presence for multiple hours each day with at least one hour a day of direct interaction. If they aren't getting enough attention, they will let you know by screaming. And that's better than the way that an iguana will let you know, but it still isn't how you'd say pleasant. If you should need to leave them for more than a couple of days, you will need someone to come and care for them. Budgies, like most endotherms, are kind of a lifestyle. And here is Russ to walk you through that lifestyle. When this budgie wakes up, he usually wakes up when everyone else is waking up, you know, waking up with the light in the room and so on. And he's usually interested in coming out as soon as possible. He wants to come out of his cage. He wants to interact. He wants to sit on his shoulder. And as you go about your morning activities, he'll probably want to jump in the sink. One thing he loves is the towel rack. He loves to jump onto the towel rack and make faces in it because he can see his reflection. So that is a morning ritual that he likes to participate in. He will often try to beg for a bit of breakfast, but you do have to limit the human food that he gets to make sure he has a balanced diet. But a little bit of leafy green vegetables and some fruit is just fine. Things like that. He does want to, like I said, stay with you a lot of the time during the day. So he spends an inordinate amount of time on a shoulder like this. You can see he's very at home there. And as we pass each other in the house, he'll jump from shoulder to shoulder. He's very social with everyone in the house. He belongs to my daughter, but he is a friend to everyone. And he really gets a kick out of jumping from shoulder to shoulder. Most of the time we keep him flighted. So he also flies from person to person. And while I'm on a Zoom call for work, he will often be sitting on my shoulder and trying to get my attention. He does so in a variety of ways. And he has learned to produce certain sounds to interact with us. One sound means, I want what you have. We've learned to recognize that. Another sound to mean, I'm hungry. And some sounds he seems to associate with what he sees going around him. For example, if he sees water running, he will make a very convincing trickling water sound. And so he goes about his day finding things that he can mimic. He loves to mimic the cat. He does a very convincing meow. He can mimic the rocking chair and the kitchen cupboard. Exactly. As well as many human words. My favorite thing that he says, and he does so in a fairly loud and clear voice is, excuse me. And he will sometimes do it when people pass each other. Or even when he hears a loud noise, he will say, excuse me. And it's kind of fascinating. So living with a budgie is a lot of work in that you have to make sure he's getting all that time interacting with people. And he will let you know, as Clint was mentioning, very vocally. And sometimes it takes a little while to figure out exactly what he wants. But he makes it very clear that he wants it. And then it's up to you to kind of figure out what it is. So it's fun. It's rewarding. There's nothing like having a budgie sitting on your shoulder and talking to you and then watching him just fall asleep contentedly. It's a lot of fun. It's very rewarding. I've had a lot of budgies throughout my life. And though this one we haven't done a lot of training with, they are very intelligent and can be trained. We had a budgie some years ago. And using positive reinforcement, I trained it to say certain words on certain verbal cues. So I asked him what his name was, and he would respond with his name. And he would go through certain acrobatic routines on command and things like that. So doing something like that, that can occupy their considerable intellect every day, can also be a good idea. So every morning it is important to make sure that you, at the very least, remove the seed holes from the food dish. Because as Clint mentioned, they will appear to be seeds when they're just holes on top. So you can take it over a garbage can and blow the holes off, and the heavier seeds will remain in there. And you can put them back in. And if there are not enough of those, you can replenish the seeds. Make sure that the water dish, the water is clean in there. They will often foul their water by dropping seed holes or pooping in it, things like that. So you need to wash out the water dish. And then replace the paper at the bottom of the cage as well. And then there are other maintenance tasks. Baths are a common thing that they need. Not every day, but fairly frequently I want to bath. What we usually do is put a small plastic food saver container in the bottom of the sink. Put the sink on just a very small trickle with tepid water, and he will jump in and dance around in the water and get the droplets under his feathers and fluff them up. And it's not only very cute, it's an important part of their hygiene routine. So that's important as well. Interacting with a budgie is going to occupy a lot of your time. Budgies are And as flock animals, they need an intense amount of interaction. In the wild, they're interacting with each other the entire time they're awake. And so your budgie is going to need to do something similar. With a budgie that lives with another budgie or a group of other budgies, they're not going to have to rely on contact with you quite as much. But if you have a lone budgie, then you are the flock, and you need to make sure that you are spending quality time with the bird. And there are One is just sort of hanging out, where you don't need to necessarily be focusing your attention on the budgie. Like right now, the budgie is on my shoulder, and that need is being fulfilled. He's feeling like we're together, we're hanging out, and that's fine. He's hearing me make noise, he's probably going to start talking, you know, and feel comfortable with that. I could be doing homework, or I could be washing dishes, you know, a variety of kinds of things I could be doing. As long as the bird's there, he's going to feel that. But the bird is also going to want some very direct one-on-one contact. And that could take the form of talking directly to the budgie. A lot of times... Oh, I'm sorry, he's asleep. I didn't realize you were asleep, buddy. He loves this. He loves to sit right in front of my face and watch me talk. And this helps him learn how to talk. He seems to pay attention, whether he's looking to see how I move, or he's just listening intently. He likes to sit right in front of my mouth and listen to me talk, and he feels like he's getting one-on-one attention when I do that. And another thing that qualifies is training. Like I said, I've trained budgies with positive reinforcement, and that is a very rewarding one-on-one direct activity as far as they're concerned as well. So you need to make sure you balance both of those. Several hours of hangout time, and at least one hour a day direct interaction, which may actually be better if it's divided up into small sections. You take 10 minutes here, 10 minutes there, and spread it throughout the day. And that does tend to help keep them from getting bored. Thank you, Russ. If you don't already subscribe to his channel, Aquarimax Pets, get over there and do it. What are you doing? No, right now. Speaking of flying things, Father's Day is... Well, it's creeping up on us very, very quickly. And it can be so difficult to find just the right thing to get for dad. And if you ask me, the perfect sort of a gift is something that is really cool that you would really want, but you almost couldn't justify buying for yourself. And who thinks about buying a really, really rad wallet? Well, Ridge Wallet thinks about buying a really, really rad wallet, and they have designed a really, really rad wallet. And I think it's definitely worth checking out because it has a ton of cool features, a lifetime guarantee. It's the kind of thing that dad maybe doesn't even know that he wants, but as soon as he sees it, he'll be like, yep, that's exactly what I've always wanted. How did you know? So fly on over to ridge.com, use discount code CLINT, save a little money, and get just the perfect gift for dad this Father's Day. When it comes to hardiness, we give the budgie a score of 3 out of 5. For a small bird, these guys are durable. They come from some inhospitable parts of Australia. That said, they're still a little bird. Starvation and dehydration can occur very quickly, especially starvation. 24 hours without food and you might have a dead budgie. And remember, they will try to conceal the fact that they're out of food. Have a variety of perch sizes to avoid bumblefoot, but mostly watch out for accidents. Ceiling fans, open ovens, open toilets, stovetops, fireplaces. Oh, and this is a crazy one. Teflon. Don't cook with anything that is nonstick. The fumes can quickly kill your budgie. Just mostly, if there is something that could possibly kill a little bird, they will probably find it. When it comes to availability, we give the budgie a score of 5 out of 5. Like I said earlier, these are one of the most commonly kept pets in the world. They are in almost every pet shop. Not only are they available in every pet store, but there are also a wide number of breeders. Budgies are very, very easy to breed in captivity, which is why you find them everywhere all over the world. And so, probably the best place to go if you're looking for a pet budgie would be straight to a breeder. If you do get one from a pet store, one thing that you'll notice is that in the adults, the top of the head is just a solid color. It doesn't have the barring that you see farther back on their head. If they've got that barring all the way down to their beak, that's probably a younger bird. And if you get a younger bird like that, there's a much better chance that you'll be able to socialize it appropriately. When it comes to upfront costs, we give the budgie a score of 3 out of 5. Budgies are insanely cheap to buy, especially for a captive bred bird. It is honestly shocking that they can be so cheap. I almost wonder if budgies are a lost leader like the $5 chickens at Costco. They sell you a $20 bird that needs a few hundred dollars in supplies right away and will continue to need supplies for the next decade or two. The enclosure, toys, perches, food and water bowls, they're going to add up. And of course, you'll need to replace all your nonstick cooking supplies. And this is why overall we give the budgie a score of 3.6 out of 5. Listen, birds are a lifestyle. This lifestyle is not as extreme as what you need for a peregrine falcon or an owl, but it's still a lifestyle. This is a $20 bird that will require several hours of your time every day for a decade or longer. This might be the best score that we will ever give to a bird. But again, if the lifestyle of a bird owner isn't what you want, then a budgie isn't for you. If what you want is an amazing little parrot that is beautiful, harmless, personable and affordable, then the budgie is probably the best one that there is. If you want all of that, but you can't commit to putting a few hours a day into it, you don't mind if it can't fly. Check out this video on Aquaramax that we just filmed about emerald tree skinks. And as always, like and subscribe, and we hope to see you real soon. And try not to scare the pants off this bird. Yeah. That's the goal. I feel like that's the Yeah. Birds are nervous. Now this is not a super nervous bird. Birds are nervous folks. It's like, it's like they're so conspicuous that their only way to survive is to be constantly on guard and ready to use their superhuman ability to fly. You could trim their wing feathers. Are you serious? Is this really happening? Pretty sure this happened a few weeks ago. Birds. Anyway, it was so funny. So worth it. So worth it. I'm so glad we dug into that. Anyway, five minutes later. Okay. And they tend to be relatively dry for bird puke, bird pukes. All right. So the, the day in the, sorry. Okay. Just leave that in. Face shake. This is absolutely what I'd recommend if you were a tiny pirate.