This is the question we get asked more than any other on our Budgie Helpline, and there is a lot of nonsense written about it online. Here is the straight answer.
For most households, two budgies is better than one. Budgies are flock birds. In the wild they live in groups of hundreds and they are never alone, not for a minute. A single budgie can be perfectly happy, but only if someone is home most of the day and prepared to be its flock. If the bird will be on its own for long stretches, get two.
That is the short version. The rest depends on your household, not on a rule someone made up on a forum.
Is it better to buy 1 or 2 budgies?
Two, unless someone is home most of the day.
We have raised around 3,500 budgies a year for more than thirty years, and the pattern never changes. Birds kept in pairs settle faster, eat better, chatter more and get into far less trouble than singles left on their own. They preen each other, they sleep alongside each other, and they have something to do all day that does not depend on you walking into the room.
Single budgies can absolutely thrive. We have plenty of customers with one bird that is bonded, chatty and healthy. Every one of those people has the same thing in common: they are around. Retired, working from home, or the sort of household where someone is always in and out. The bird is genuinely part of the day.
If the house is empty from eight in the morning until six at night, a single budgie spends ten hours alone in a quiet room. That is no life for a flock animal.
Can I leave my budgie alone for 8 hours?
A pair of budgies will handle a normal working day without any trouble. A single budgie left alone for eight hours a day, every day, will not.
Give a pair food, water, a decent sized cage and a few things to chew and climb on, and they will keep themselves occupied until you get home. On their own, birds get bored, and bored budgies do one of three things. They scream, they pluck their own feathers, or they go quiet and withdrawn.
None of those are easy to undo once they set in. The third is the worst, because people mistake it for a calm bird.
If you are going to be out all day, either get two, or be honest with yourself about how much time the bird will actually get when you walk back in. Twenty minutes with the telly on does not count.
Is it cruel to keep a single budgie?
Not automatically. It comes down to whether the bird has company, and you can be that company if you are genuinely there.
What is cruel is buying a single budgie, leaving it alone all day, and telling yourself it is fine because it is not screaming. Birds hide distress the same way they hide illness. It is a survival instinct. A quiet, fluffed up budgie sitting still at the back of the cage is not a contented bird.
The RSPCA guidance on this is worth reading, and we have written about it separately. The short of it is that budgies are social animals, and companionship is a welfare need, whether that company comes from another bird or from you.
Will two budgies still bond with me?
Yes, as long as they were hand tame to begin with.
This is where the bad advice comes in. You will read that two budgies bond with each other and ignore their owner. That is true of birds that were never tamed in the first place, which describes most pet shop budgies. They were raised in a flock cage with barely any handling, so their whole world is other birds and you are the intruder.
Every budgie that leaves our aviary has been handled every single day since it hatched. They step up onto a finger, sit on a shoulder and take food from a hand before they ever go home with you. Two hand tame budgies will do all of that together, on the same hand. They keep each other company while you are out, and they come to you when you are in. That is the best of both.
Should I get two of the same sex?
Two hens, two cocks or a mixed pair all work. What matters more is that they go home together, or at least meet while they are young.
Two cocks generally get on well and are the easiest combination. Two hens can be a bit more territorial, particularly if there is a nest box anywhere near them, but they settle fine in a cage with enough room. A mixed pair will bond closely, and they will breed if you give them a nest box. No nest box, no breeding. It really is that simple, and it is the part most people do not know.
If you do not want chicks, do not put a nest box in the cage. That is the whole trick.
What if I already have one budgie?
You can introduce a second bird at any stage, and most singles are far happier for it.
Bring the new bird home and keep the two in separate cages side by side for a week or two, so they can see and hear each other without any contact. Then move them into the one cage. Make sure it is big enough for both, and that there are two of everything, food, water and perches, so neither bird can guard the resources.
Then give it time. Some pairs are inseparable within a day. Others take a fortnight of squabbling before they work out who sits where. Both are normal.
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Get two if the birds will be alone during the day. Get one if you are home and prepared to give it real time and attention, every day, for the next ten to fifteen years.
Do not get one because it is cheaper. The second bird costs very little on top, the cage and feeders are the same, and a bag of seed goes almost as far. What you get back is two birds that are properly settled instead of one that is only half a bird.
Free health checks, free wing trims, free dietary advice. That is what we do at Just Budgies, and it does not stop the day you take your birds home.
Garry
Telephone / WhatsApp 0412 993 334
garry@justbudgies.com.au
