Where to buy a budgie ?

Alun

A colleague of my wife's wants to get his daughter a budgie or something similar for her birthday. He lives somewhere near Marlay Park, so does anyone know a good petshop that sells budgies or other small birds in that general area? TIA.

Arcadian

As it's a childs pet i'd be inclined to buy direct from a breeder and go for a newly fledged bird, check out the buy and sell.

Alun

Arcadian wrote:

As it's a childs pet i'd be inclined to buy direct from a breeder and go for a newly fledged bird, check out the buy and sell.

Why is that, as a matter of interest? I should add that I know absolutely nothing about budgies myself.

boroughmal

if you e.mail me I will give you numbers of breeders we have in your area
Regards

Alun

boroughmal wrote:

if you e.mail me I will give you numbers of breeders we have in your area
Regards

Tried to email you but the link in your profile said you weren't accepting emails, so I've PM'ed you instead.

Arcadian

Alun wrote:

Why is that, as a matter of interest? I should add that I know absolutely nothing about budgies myself.

A young budgie or cockatiel is much more receptive to taming than an older bird. If the child is gentle and patient with the bird she can have a very tame pet. When i was a kid i got a young cockatiel who became very tame, he would follow me around the house all day, always on foot, even climbing the stairs one step at a time :rolleyes: He also used to ride around on the dogs back !

Alun

Arcadian wrote:

A young budgie or cockatiel is much more receptive to taming than an older bird. If the child is gentle and patient with the bird she can have a very tame pet. When i was a kid i got a young cockatiel who became very tame, he would follow me around the house all day, always on foot, even climbing the stairs one step at a time :rolleyes: He also used to ride around on the dogs back !

Thanks for that ... makes sense, I'll pass it on. I'm still waiting on a PM from boroughmal regarding phone numbers of breeders.

LegacyUser

If you choose not to go for a breeder .. there is a pet shop in Windy Arbour in Dundrum .. its on the same road as the Central Mental Hospital and the staff there are very knowledgeable as I've experienced so far with my pets.

Sigma Force

A budgie would be better than a cockatiel as a first time pet for a child. However parents must take full responsibility for the animals care and health.
If just getting the one budgie the bird will need a lot of attention, a younger bird is best. If you don't have a few hours to give the bird each day (yes hours) you would need to get two birds, two won't bond with the owner however.

Avoid those torture chamber ie round cages (they should be banned!) you would need to opt for a very large budgie cage, the larger ones on the market aren't that big either though and cost about 70 Euro.

You keep the bird in the cage for a week or two until he/she settles in and then gradually start to hand tame him/her, the bird will need a budgie proof, safe room to have free flight daily once he/she becomes more relaxed and tame (cover windows so they don't fly into them but keep the place bright).

They make great pets for older kids, younger kids (around under the age of 8) will need supervision at all times. They are small birds and can easily get hurt by accident, happens all too often.

With plenty of attention they soon become tame and bond very well with their owner.

Here's a site with more info.

http://www.budgieworld.net/budgie_advice.htm

Nala

My budgie was about 8 weeks old and completely terrified of people when I got him. Within 1 day, he was sitting on my shoulder playing with my hair.

That's how easy they are to tame, providing you get them when they are young. Baby budgies have no sense you see.

Another thing-pull down the blinds and cover mirrors when you let them out, otherwise they will fly straight into a window or mirror and could hurt themselves.

Liam90

budgies are cool i used to have one but it died last year, he was really friendly and used to whisle all day, we used to keep him in the living room cause thats where he would of got all the attention, and my bedroom is a quite a distance from the living room and used to wake up every morning to a singing bird is was very relaxing, although i didn't get annoyed i could imagine someone getting annoyed with a budgie because they do whisle all day, but i don't know where you could get one i got mine off my uncle because he used to breed them but hes not breeding them anymore, i also let him fly around the living room for a while, when we first got him he was quite difficult to get back into his cage but after a while he just flew back in himself, they are really good pets, good luck in finding one!

Sigma Force

Oh yeh lol forgot to mention the noise part, they aren't half as noisy as say a conure but they whistle and sing and yap away aaaaaaall day long from dawn to dusk. Although it's nice to wake up to it not so nice if you have 4 plus a cockatiel and you didn't get a good nights sleep lol.
They are sweet little birds though and if kept right make brilliant companions.

Alun

Yep, I know, I did have a budgie once upon a time for about a week before it drove me insane with it's incessant chirping all day long. It quickly found a new home