When acquiring or buying budgies, you should take a close look at the breeder or the supplier and also the birds on offer.
Among the suppliers of budgies, unfortunately, there are many “black sheep” and unserious breeders. If you are not careful, you may get budgies that are too young, damaged, sick or even crippled.
Breeder
Since 2014 the breeding permit for budgies was abolished, there are many private and hobby breeders or even “living room breeders” in addition to the experienced, serious breeders.
Problem
The big problem with many private and hobby breedings is the often completely insufficient knowledge and also the mostly little professional keeping conditions, whereby both the parent animals and the chicks can suffer damage.
Thus, a lack of nutrients during rearing is enough for the budgies to fall ill later or for malpositions of legs or feet to occur.
In addition, the young budgies may already bring parasites due to lack of defenses or unsuitable housing conditions, which may under certain circumstances untreated even lead to death, for example, by debilitation or starvation (intestinal parasites).
Reputable breeders
These can usually already be recognized by the husbandry conditions and, of course, their expertise in budgies and their breeding.
Possible criteria would be:
- Aviaries with sufficient space for flying and suitable seating.
- Cleanliness of the facility
- Budgies also receive fresh food and additional minerals
- Delivery birds are at least 8 or better still 11-12 weeks old
- Separate and sufficiently large cages for the breeding pairs
- Breeder can (as far as possible) answer questions about sex and color combinations
Unreliable or not recommendable breeders
Here it is often enough to see the housing conditions to know that you should not buy budgies there.
Possible criteria would be:
- Small and/or dirty aviaries
- Birds are kept in the basement or without access to daylight
- For budgies there are nesting boxes in the aviaries
- Young birds are crammed into small show cages or breeding boxes
- Budgies do not receive fresh food or minerals
- Breeder can not determine the sex of budgies
- The young birds are missing feathers or they look “disheveled”.
- Guaranteed “hand tame” budgies are sold
Budgies
Age at delivery
One of the most common problems is that budgies are given away far too young.
The budgies should be at least 8 weeks old or better yet 11-12 weeks old before they are surrendered.
If the budgies are too young, there is a risk that they are not yet able to feed, i.e. they cannot yet digest normal grain food and thus still have to be fed by their parents.
If you acquire a non-feeding budgie, it will starve to death before the bowl is full and thus die in a very short time.
A clear sign of a budgie that is too young is a beak that is completely or partially black.
However, the beak does not necessarily have to be like this, as some budgies may have normal coloring.
Another sign of a bird that is clearly too young would be plumage that is not fully developed.
Appearance
When purchasing should also pay attention to the external appearance and behavior.
A healthy budgie should have the following criteria.
- Clear and open eyes
- Smooth beak and waxy skin (exception: broody hens).
- All claws should be present and in order
- Fully formed plumage
- No missing or broken springs
- Not fluffed up
Checklist
“Hand tame” budgies
Unfortunately, supposedly “hand-tame” budgies are offered again and again and sold at correspondingly high prices. However, this is usually a case of fraud.
Thereby mostly much too young bud gerigars are offered, which due to their age still remain sitting on the hand, but from approx. 10 weeks then fly away like all other budgerigars.
With sufficiently old birds, it also happens that these are trimmed the feather, so that they can not fly away. Once the feathers have grown back, they behave like all other budgies.
It is perfectly fine to state that the budgies eat food from your hand. One should be very careful with all promises that go beyond this.
Pity shopping
If one lands with a unseriösem breeder or sees appropriate photos on the Internet, one is often tempted to buy the budgie out of pity anyway.
However, there are some reasons that speak against it:
- As long as this breeder finds buyers he will continue to make
- These budgies often have a short life expectancy
- One can introduce parasites or diseases with these and with which the other budgies possibly can infect
- High veterinary costs due to disturbed or weak immune system
I have made the mistake only once, when I bought a budgie out of pity from a “basement breeding”, when my usual breeder just had none to give away.
As a result, a few weeks later I was a permanent guest at the vet and the budgie still did not even experience the end of the juvenile moult.
Due to poor housing conditions, lack of daylight and lack of nutrients during rearing, the hen had a severely weakened immune system and also had intestinal parasites (coccidia) that were difficult to detect and unfortunately could only be diagnosed in the bird she had infected.
As sad as it is, I can only advise against buying budgies from dubious breeders from my own experience.