Expert: Chrys Meatyard - 4/19/2010

Question
Hello, We just got an 8 week old budgie from someone who thinks it is female (not positive).  We watched a video that said if you aren't home during the day you should have 2 birds because they get lonely, but that if you have 2 birds they won't get really tame!  We want the bird to be tame and plan to work on this over the next weeks, but we don't want the budgie to suffer!  Can you tame 2 budgies at once?  Also, what if we are wrong about the sex?  If we get another one of the same sex, would they fight a lot? The bird is still young but the ceres is mostly blue and little pink now.

Answer
Hi, Paige,

I just found your question in the question pool.

You cannot correctly identify the sex of an 8-week old budgie (American parakeet).  Parakeets need to be about 3-5 months old before you can attempt to identify sex and, better yet, have gone through their first molt, which normally occurs around 6 months of age.  In addition, cere color is only one characteristic that is used to judge a young keets sex.  Overall feather coloration is important, too, but again, color can change with the first molt (unless you have knowledge of the parents of this bird).  Just to be sure, a young budgie/parakeet, one that is less than 3 months old, will have black looking "lines" across it's forehead.  This area looks like lines, but actually are feathers that are tipped in black.  These feathers are replaced by feathers without the black tips when the bird reaches about 3 months old.  I recommend you wait until you can correctly identify the sex of your bird before thinking about buying another bird.  Also, read the rest of my response before making a decision to purchase a second bird.  I also have a website that might help you with your decision (has more detailed information)...www.angelfire.com/falcon/birdinfo/index.html.

The second part of your question is difficult to answer because the answer depends on the personalities of the individual bird(s) involved, your skills/knowledge in taming aves, the amount of time you can devote to the bird(s), etc.  To begin, birds prefer other birds to humans.  Normally, the best pet bird is a single bird in the home.  While I agree that a bird can become lonely during the day if left alone, there are ways to overcome this by ensuring the bird's environment (inside the cage) is filled with mentally and physically stimulating toys, good food, fresh water, various-sized perches, etc.  I've found it helps to leave a TV or radio on during the day when you have to be gone (I worked FT during the day for over 20 years and had many birds over the years).  You want your pet bird to want YOU as it's companion, not another bird.  After a settling-in period, your new bird will be thrilled when you come in the door because your bird will want to spend time with you.  What the video might not have told you is that a bird has "things" of its own to do during the day!  Besides nourishing itself during the day (a keet's tummy is small and needs filled up often), a bird naps quite often during the day, preens/cares for its feathers, plays, investigates its environment, etc....s/he doesn't just sit on a perch and stare!  You may have a birdie bath in its cage.  Bottom line - if you set up your bird's environment properly, your bird will not get lonely during the day.

You need to give your new bird time to become used to its new environment and get used to you/your family first.  The amount of time this takes depends on the individual bird involved.  In your favor is the fact that this bird is so young and s/he doesn't have much history in the world/with humans.  Once your bird appears to be comfortable in its new home, then you can begin the taming process.  If your bird was handfed by the breeder, s/he should already be tame.  Handfeeding by a human imprints a bird to humans.  

Having said all the above, it can be possible to have 2 tame budgies/keets, however, this depends on the individual birds involved, sexes of these birds, and you have to know what you are doing.  I recommend you start out with one bird right now.  You don't want to get in over your head and end up with 2 untame budgies.  

Some same sex birds get along and some don't.  I hate to sound like a broken record, but when it comes to birds (or any other animal), it just depends on the individual birds involved!

Chrys