Hand-Raised Cockatiels

A healthy bird has bright clear eyes, smooth tight feathers, a clean vent and active, alert behaviour. Avoid birds that sit fluffed up at the bottom of the cage, have discharge around the eyes or nostrils, or show signs of laboured breathing or sleepiness.

Age matters too. Young birds (9 to 14 weeks) bond more readily with new owners than older birds. You can identify a young budgie sometimes by the stripes running across the top of the head down to the cere (the band of skin above the beak). These bars fade as the bird matures around six months of age.

There are many colour varieties available in Australia: standard budgies in green, blue, sky blue, cobalt, violet, white and yellow; spangles, pieds and rainbows; lutinos and albinos; lacewings and clearwings; crested budgies with distinctive head feathers; and English budgies, which are larger, fluffier and a little calmer than standard budgies.

Cockatiels are available in Normal Grey, Lutino, Pied, Pearl, Cinnamon, Whiteface, Albino, Silver & Fallow. 

Budgies are flock animals. In the wild they live in groups of dozens to thousands, and they rely on companionship to feel safe. A single budgie kept alone needs a minimum of two to three hours of direct human interaction every day to avoid loneliness, depression, feather plucking and excessive screaming.

For most households, keeping two budgies is the better choice. They keep each other company, behave more naturally, and still bond with their human owners, especially when both birds are already hand-tame. Two budgies don't need twice the cage size or twice the food; the additional cost is small compared to the welfare benefit.

Cockatiels seem to be more content when kept alone although after 60 years of keeping birds at 'Just Budgies', we have a personal policy of never leaving a bird alone, that is our personal policy, not a rule and we never try in force our own beliefs on customers.

Every bird that leaves 'Just Budgies' comes with a free health check and parasite pre-treatments, and a free two-month after-care guarantee provides you with any treatments that may be needed in that period (carried out at our premises). A free wing feather trim for safe handling indoors, and free tuition on how to handle, feed and care for your birds is also included.

Wing trims and basic health checks remain free and ongoing. Aftersales health check and care is one of the biggest factors in how long a pet budgie will live for and how well it bonds with its new family.

Hand-tame baby budgies (11-14 weeks old) are $65 each or two for $120. A complete starter package, which includes two hand-tame budgies, a 60 cm cage, 2 perches, 2 feeders, a swing, a ladder, a chew mat, and a hanging toy, is $198. Adding a stand on wheels with a built-in shelf is an additional $49. You can upgrade to the 76cm cage setup for an additional $30.

With cockatiels, a hand-raised bird will cost $275-$295 and the same cage setup as above but 76cm would be $98 plus $59 for a stand with shelf if required.

With all of our birds, you get to have your selected birds on your hand while you are here. 

Just Budgies is located at Whispering Pines, 31 Pinetree Court, Mudgeeraba, on Queensland's Gold Coast. It sits on over 8 acres of land with gardens, a lake and views toward Hinze Dam. The aviary is open six days a week (closed Wednesdays for restocking & training). If you would like to visit, we are open all day Saturday and Sunday from 9:00 to 5:00 without an appointment. However, if you'd like to visit on a weekday, just let us know a day and time that works 
for you, as we are occasionally out on deliveries. Garry can be contacted via text or phone call on 0412 993 334.

If you can't visit in person and require delivery, we can send 20 photos of available hand-tame birds for you to choose from, then deliver your cage and birdie setup to your door. Delivery (with a full cage setup and birds) is available to most Brisbane suburbs, Caboolture, Ipswich, Logan, the Gold Coast, Tweed Heads, Byron Bay and the areas in between. We do not ship birds outside this zone because of the the stress of long-distance transport, it just isn't fair on the birds.

Many budgies can learn to mimic words, phrases and sounds. They tend to have softer voices than larger parrots. Some budgies have been recorded with vocabularies of over a thousand words. Talking ability varies between individuals, but daily talking and interaction increases the chance of a budgie learning words.

A cockatiel can also learn to speak. Their voice sounds higher and more muffled than larger parrots like African Greys or Amazons. They are often better at whistling catchy tunes or phrases like "peekaboo," "hello," or their name than speaking full sentences. They are quite charming in their personality and love seeing you laugh at their sounds.

For two budgies, the minimum recommended cage size is approximately 60cm wide by 40cm deep by 40cm tall, but bigger is always better. Cage width matters because budgies fly horizontally. Check out our cage section, our Prince, Princess, King, Queen, Palace and Mega Palace cages provide comfortable space and room for exercise and all are fully compliant (having a minimum perch length of 60cm). Do not use round cages, hanging cages, cages with no wire bottom, cages with poor door access, or cages with rust on the bars which is highly toxic!

For cockatiels, our King, Queen, Palace and Mega Palace cages are perfect and the more space you can afford them, the more antics you will see as they enjoy their play time immensely.

Hand-tame budgies suit families with children because they are small, and already accustomed to being handled. Supervise children initially and teach them how to have a budgie on their hand; no holding or squeezing. Budgies' wing feathers can be trimmed (free of charge from Just Budgies) to reduce the risk of injury when flying indoors. Children under the age of four do not have the coordination skills to handle budgies on their own and will need supervision at all times.

Cockatiels similarly are handled very well by children and because they are a little larger, they tend to be more confident.

Many children on the spectrum of autism, find benefit from their companion birds and we have considerable experience in helping in this area.

A budgie's diet should consist of a quality low-fat seed mix, fresh vegetables (celery, silverbeet, broccoli, capsicum, corn, etc.), occasional fresh fruit like apples (although they are not big fruit eaters), millet sprays as treats, and constant access to clean water. Please don’t forget that if your seed does not say ‘low-fat ‘, then it is not 'low-fat', and if it does not give the fat content on the information provided, then there is something being hidden from you. Avoid avocado, onion, chocolate, caffeine and salty foods, all of which are toxic to budgies. Never feed 'honey sticks' or seeds stuck together with glue into a block. Keep it natural, a treat is a corn on the cob or a stick of celery or some seeded wild grass.

For cockatiels, they enjoy a much bigger range of fruit and veggies and their seed does not have to be as low in fat as budgies as they do not suffer as much with fatty liver disease. Make sure they have variety.

For both types of bird, protein is essential, either in the form for hard boiled egg, or use Just Budgies Protein Booster. Birds are animals and ALL animal (and humans) require protein to survive. This is one area that is so often missed in a birds diet and is often responsible for poor condition, over weight and shortened lifespan. 

Hand-tame baby budgies (11-14 weeks old) are $65 each or two for $120. A complete starter package, which includes two hand-tame budgies, a 60 cm cage, 2 perches, 2 feeders, a swing, a ladder, a chew mat, and a hanging toy, is $198. Adding a stand on wheels with a built-in shelf is an additional $49. You can upgrade to the 76cm cage setup for an additional $30.

With cockatiels, a hand-raised bird will cost $275-$295 and the same cage setup as above but 76cm would be $98 plus $59 for a stand with shelf if required.

With all of our birds, you get to have your selected birds on your hand while you are here.