Expert: Chrys Meatyard - 5/6/2007

Question
hey,
  we have had a female budgie for nearly a year, we tried to tame her but it got to a point where all it was doing was stressing her out and we weren't getting anywhere. She is a very happy bird, she spends most of her time out of her cage during the day on her playgym, but we would like to get her a friend. would it be better to pair her with another female or get a male friend? She also never eats vegies or fruit we put out for her, is this a bad thing, she likes to eat grass we pick for her, but are worried she is missing out on certain vitamines etc.
thank you

Answer
Hi, Mirja.

Whether you get another female or a male depends on the individual personalities of the birds involved.  In my experiences, 2 females sometimes don't get along together when hormones start raging in breeding season.  However, if you get a male, chances are good they 2 birds would breed.  If you know nothing about breeding, I would not recommend allow 2 birds to breed until you are knowledgeable enough (budgies are very prolific breeders once they get started!).  If you choose a female, you would need to try to match their personalities, however, personalities change when hormones rage!  

If your bird is on an all-seed diet, yes, it's a bad thing!  Seed in high in fat and low in nutritional value.  Birds will not eat foods they don't recognize as food, so you just have to keep offering new foods every day until they learn that this stuff you are putting in their cage is food.  Also, most birds won't eat other foods at the same time seed is available in their cage.  Therefore, remove any seed while other foods are in the cage, then replace the seed when you remove the other foods in a couple of hours.  You just have to be persistent with offering new foods.  Try cooked brown rice with veggies and other stuff mixed in, corn bread, multi/whole grain dry, sugarless cereals, breads, etc.  Visit my website for more informatin on diet, etc.:

www.angelfire.com/falcon/birdinfo/index.html

Chrys