The Diet.

The diet that you give your Budgerigars will in many cases mean the difference between good clean healthy Budgerigars and total disaster.

The feed mix is vital for the health of your birds and should resemble the natural diet of the Budgerigar as much as possible but be modified to suit the larger birds of today.A basic mix of 40% canary seed, 20% millet, 20% panicum and 20% oats (In the winter months I like to increase the amount of oats) a small amount of cod liver oil or wheat germ oil can be added to the seed to add more protein if needed.

Keep the water fresh.

Keeping the water fresh in your birds drinkers can be problematic as you will tend to find that green algae will start to grow on the inside of your drinkers after a while this can cause problems with the health of your birds so what I do to solve this problem is to add a very small amount of raspberry cordial to the drinking water this I found stops the problem from starting as the algae cannot grow due to acidity in the cordial.

If you are thinking of breeding your Budgerigars then it is a good idea the breeding pair some “ Soft Food ” or “ Egg Food “ as it is sometimes called as a supplement to there diet this also makes it easier if you need to introduce medicines to your birds as it can be mixed into the egg food.

Egg Food can be purchased from your local pet shop but as ever I like to save those pennies and make it myself you can do the same by following the following recipe.

Take a packet of rich tea biscuits and crush them into a bowl then add a hand full of dog biscuits that have been crushed in the blender ( I use dog biscuits as they are high in vitamin b7 ) to this add two handfuls of Budgerigar seed two millet sprays and two capfuls of cod liver oil mix all this together in the blender until a rough texture is achieved and store it an air tight container ( I use a biscuit tin ). When you want to feed it to your birds just add a small amount of water to your egg food until it starts to hold together without being sloppy and then its ready to be fed to your birds

If you breed with your Budgerigars make sure that the nest boxes that you intend to use are clean and if they have been used previously by another pair of birds it is always a good idea to use a pesticide spray to eliminate any chance of contamination by red mite or any other little nasty creatures before you put the nest box on the breeding cage. (I do mine outside so as not to cause any ill affects to my birds.)

Green food such as the leaves of lettuce and cabbage is also very good for your Budgerigar and I have found that my birds really like the young sprouting shoots of the seed I use to feed my Budgerigars I cultivate this in seed trays and feed it to my birds when it is about 3 inches tall.

Grit is very important for a Budgerigars diet as it helps them digest there food I buy in my grit from my local pet shop and supply it to my birds in a separate dish.

Another very important part of any Budgerigars diet is calcium this can be attained through various methods which include cuttlefish bone of a calcium block that you fasten onto the inside of the cage these can be purchased at your local pet shop for a few pence, But I like to save the pennies so what I do is I save all the egg shells from the kitchen ( and the neighbours ) and grind them into a powder using a food blender and give it to my birds in small finger draws.