Last Updated on by Mitch Rezman
Susan M. related,
Our two rescued parakeets, who were found outdoors separately and given to a bird rescue, are not hand tame.
They enjoy being out of their flight cage and investigating in the one room I keep closed for them.
Recently they have eaten molding, on the back of an old mirror, and the other day molding around the glass on my antique china closet.
My husband sat with them yesterday while they were out and they did not attempt to bother anything.
We made them a play gym which we placed on top if their cage but they don’t seem attracted to it, even if I put a spray of millet out. How can I keep them entertained and away from mischief when they are out exercising and exploring?
Dear Susan
Most parakeets are not wood chewers enough to kill them. The two we had that did were exceptional.
If your birds chew up their mirror’s wood parts you may want to replace them with plastic-framed mirrors.
However, if you have more than one parakeet we do NOT recommend mirrors at all for them.
Mirrors are best for a single bird who has no one else.
Mirrors in your cage can increase hormonal behavior and aggression as they “love” the bird in the mirror instead of their cage mate.
So, I recommend it coming out, period.
Thanks so much for your quick reply. We certainly will be watching them more carefully from now on. They seem to return to their cage pretty quickly after we urge them to do so.
They also do destroy/eat the perches on their wood-framed mirrors inside their cage.
Is it dangerous for them to whittle down those 1/8-inch perches on those mirrors?
When they destroy wood in our living area there are piles of wood shavings for us to clean up. We wouldn’t want them to be hurt by eating the wood.
We will do our best to balance out in and out cage time from now on. Thanks again.
We love your weekly Brunch so much
Susan M.
Dear Susan
All of our budgies are rescues. We have had as many as 12 in our large aviary cage and it was quite a mess. We are now down to 8 and plan on not accepting more as it seems at a certain level, things get a bit too chaotic and messy.
Until about a year ago, we kept the aviary cage in the front showroom of our store, but it was costly to keep them heated during the winter (and cool in the summer) so my husband brought the big cage into our living space where we also have a quaker, ringneck and a cockatiel residing with us.
The budgies had the first chance to be let out of their cage ever and they too love it.
They also can be destructive we have found and we only let them out when we can watch them. I also find that if we do not let them out too often, they do tend to prefer their cage area to the wild blue yonder (our loft living space) so that is not a such bad thing.
They managed to damage some blinds before we realized and then the screens behind them. This has resulted in our ordering some 1/4″ stainless steel screening that we plan to build protective screens out of that can be installed over the regular screens.
Prior to that, we had been given two budgies that were part beaver. They could whittle down wood perches and even a 10 x 6 x 1/2″ thick wood bird shelf in their cage within a matter of 2-3 days.
We had to replace the shelves with metal wire shelves due to this. Sadly, it also appears that their high-fiber diet took them down as they both passed over the next year.
We have no idea what their living environment was before we had them that caused them to be such ravenous wood chewers.
Yes, budgies chew, All parrots do to some extent and need to keep their beaks in good shape, but yes, they can overdo it.
There are sprays that help repel birds and other pets from nibbling on them, but we have found that due to a bird’s low saliva levels, they are not affected by the spicy ingredients in these formulas and unless freshly applied and still moist, will do little to nothing to deter them from nibbling, chewing.
Decisions need to be made, either keep them in a large wire aviary cage so they have a lot of room to fly around or even a very large room-size cage that you can walk into.
It is your home and you want to preserve it.
Best of Luck
Catherine
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