Last Updated on February 16, 2023 by Mitch Rezman

This has become a helluva slippery slope.

0 to 10 budgies in 25 months.

They are in this big beautiful Prevue F050 aviary.

They’ve created their own micro-culture.

Why did we name her Cream Cheese?

She’s now part of our breakfast club.

 

The moment their full-spectrum lights come on they are active, planning, conniving, active, and seem to be very happy.

 

I call them my talking flowers.

 

Their voices get overshadowed by rapid wing-flapping as they crisscross soft rope and the triple-branched Manzanita perches.

We re-created a wonderful budgie-centric environment for them.

 

The aviary can comfortably handle even more but our philosophy has been to allow birds to find us which has worked well so far.

 

Last Thursday I saw a post on https://nextdoor.com a useful social media portal (rare).

 

Some folks in the neighborhood had found a small yellow and green budgie while admitting they were not prepared to keep it is a pet (thank you very much).

 

I responded that we would be happy to offer a new home and posted an image of our aviary with nine very upbeat budgies.

 

On Friday Matthew, messaged me that nobody claimed the bird and if I would like her I could come and get her.

 

They were about four blocks from us.

 

We did the two-way Dick Tracy conversation thing which resulted in me heading over to his place with a travel cage and a large flannel baby blanket.

 

We have had a nice flannel baby blanket inventory (thank you Goodwill) since seeing our flock blossom.

 

Matthew met me at the front gate with two small guard dogs announcing my arrival to the household and the neighborhood.

 

He wrestled the dogs inside and I followed walking into the kitchen finding Cream Cheese (a name long predetermined prior to this event) patiently sitting on the perch in a small dog carrier with food and water.

 

It took me a couple of minutes to grab the lovely little yellow keet and move her from a small dog crate into the travel cage I brought.

 

I said my goodbyes to Matthew and his lovely wife.

 

Upon arrival at home (20 minute round trip tops – (beat going to Columbus) I placed the travel cage on the kitchen counter.

 

Catherine easily grabbed the little bird and walked her into the living room where the large aviary resides.

 

Cream Cheese is small much like Bagel, our last rescue.

 

She flew to a high Manzanita perch and you could see she was exhausted.

 

Her eyes kept closing.

 

I knew she was probably hungry.

My suspicions were soon confirmed.

 

She hopped into one of the Tweaky Clean feeders (monkey see monkey do) scooping up seed in her beak faster than a desert island rescue survivor eating her first meal in weeks.

 

Unfortunately, she spent the rest of the evening fending off Waffle’s advances.

 

Much like any relationship you could tell that she just wanted Waffles to go away for now.

 

Fast forward to Monday, three days later.

 

After spending time under our full-spectrum light therapy and Old Country Buffet-style mess-less seed feeders, Cream Cheese was in much better spirits.

 

She followed the path of Bagel, spending lots of time on the corner shelf in the back right side of the birdcage which provides some isolation.

 

Bagel displayed the same behavior during his first week in his new captive environment.

 

Now when she (Cream Cheese) came forward and Waffles got in her face, she had regained the energy to fend her off with a “move on to another perch or I’ll bite your face off” beak move.

 

Budgie playtime.

 

If you are thinking of getting a large aviary and filling it up with lots of small birds be they budgies or finches.

 

We design interior environments of our bird cages to allow for both happy and sad behavior.

 

Much like humans, birds in a flock can exhibit jealousy or aggression.

 

Thus we cagescape small privacy areas for any bird or birds who seek solace and reduce potential interaction by that certain bird.

 

Multiple feeders and water dishes also help avoid animosities.

 

A jealous bird can easily block the path to a single feeder.

 

When birds understand they have choices the overall flock stress remains low.

 

This was a win-win for everyone and we are happy that Cream Cheese flew into Matthew’s backyard who then connected with us via the universe (some call it the internet).

 

Now here we are.

 

We preach consistent light cycles for bird cages disrespecting daylight savings time.

 

 

Thus it was no surprise that when the two full-spectrum lights over the budgies aviary went off at what is now 7:30 pm (set your clocks back an hour day) an hour earlier than the prior evening, all the birds still dutifully rose to the top 20% of the cage and found their nighttime sleeping positions.

 

Daylight savings time can be a stress trigger for birds in our homes.

 

Inexpensive CFL full spectrum light will always improve any captive bird’s quality of life.

An easy but potent hack.

Written by Mitch Rezman
Approved by Catherine Tobsing