Last Updated on by Mitch Rezman
Etta wrote:
I brought a new parakeet into my home about three months ago. She was very young.
She likes to get in the food dish and sling all of the food out on the floor, window sill, water dish, and bottom of the cage.
I was wondering if any of your parakeets do this. I have had about 15 or so and have never had one that makes such a mess. The other parakeet then doesn’t have food to eat. If I put new food in the dish, out it goes.
She does this with the Leafy Greens and Herbs as well. Just curious. I love her and so does my little boy parakeet. Thank you.
Dear Etta
Sorry, you have one very messy budgie. They all are different.
We do find that they can be feeder hogs and require more than one seed dish AND even a second water dish.
With multiple budgies, you would not require a dish for each bird, but 2 birds, there should be 2 feed dishes and 2 water dishes.
We knew someone with 2 budgies and one died in the one seed dish and they didn’t notice this right away and the remaining bird was unable to eat.
Overall we found them to be irresponsible bird owners and thankfully they didn’t continue to have birds after that.
We do have a possible solution.
They are a walk inside feeder and they work very well to keep the seeds and the hulls inside the feeder.
As we have had as many as 12 budgies in a large cage, we installed 3 Tweeky Clean feeders.
They have a trough area in the rear to hold the seeds. You hold the feeder with the opening upward and pour in the seed, then tip the feeder upright and the seed will be in the trough.
Then hang it with the included cup hooks inside the cage on a cage wall. The birds hop in and stand on the perch, eat the seed and the hulls stay in the feeders.
Note: If your cage has doors that allow it, you can also hang the feeder on the outside of the cage over the open door. Just insert the included hooks in the holes in the front of the feeder.
I recommend less than 1/4 cup, or just enough to last a day. Reason being is I find that budgies eat and drop the hulls back on top of the seeds. Once the seeds are buried under the hulls, they stop digging thinking that there is no more seed.
At the end of the day, I will dump the eaten, or half-eaten seeds/hulls, etc into a small pie pan or bowl at the bottom of the cage.
This allows them the chance to pick through it before it gets dumped fully the next day.
Meanwhile, you then refill the Tweeky Clean feeder and hang it back up.
We love ours.
Catherine
Etta writes:
I am going to order a Tweeky Clean. I really appreciate your input on my “messy” bird.
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