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Introducing Vance – our new flock member

Toby passed away right at the end of February and we were almost certain that we didn’t want to leave Kelly as a solitary budgie, unless she seemed to be 100% happy. To be honest, it’s pretty hard to tell whether she’s happy. I love her to bits, but her mood can most commonly be described in a range from irritated to downright irate! In the weeks following Toby’s death, Kelly was more annoyed…

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Coping with loss and planning for a new friend

Coping with loss and planning for a new friend

Unfortunately, one loss has followed another, and our girl Toby passed away a few days ago. I know that parakeets hide their illnesses well, but it has been hard not to second guess whether I should have seen that something was wrong leading up to her passing. Looking back, I can see that she was quieter, which I chalked up to a couple of factors. Everything was quieter after Kevin died because…

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The Grate Debate - using grates in budgie cages

The Grate Debate – using grates in budgie cages

Parakeet cages tend to come with a grate for the “floor” of the cage. This often sparks a grate debate as parakeet owners weigh the merits of keeping the grate in the cage against the potential benefits of removing it. Here are some pros and cons of using the included grates. Pro Grate: Not necessarily a pro, but the grate may be critical to the structural integrity of your cage; or removing the…

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Flock update - how the girls are doing without Kevin

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Parakeets and human hands - how our flock reacts

Parakeets and human hands – how our flock reacts

Parakeets and human hands, or rather the parakeet’s relationship with human hands, is a fascinating and varied topic. We have three budgies, and each of them have wildly different personalities. I’ve been thinking about that  lately, and how their personalities are reflected in their behavior around our hands.

Toby takes first dibs on eating the shredded carrots

Toby is our first parakeet, and…

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Celebrating Toby's Fifth Gotcha Day

Celebrating Toby’s Fifth Gotcha Day

I can hardly believe it, but today we are celebrating Toby’s fifth Gotcha Day! For anyone unfamiliar with the phrase, a “Gotcha Day” stands in for a birthday, as the day you brought your pet home. It’s especially useful when you don’t actually know the date your pet hatched. Since Toby came to us by way of Petsmart, all we know is that she was under three months oldwhen we got her, because she…

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There are many differing opinions about the best diet for parakeets, but one thing we can all agree on is that fresh vegetables and fruits are an important part of a budgie’s diet. Parakeets and fresh produce has been a major source of concern in my household lately, since the beginning of the pandemic.

We used to grocery shop weekly, typically on a Sunday morning and I would be sure to stock up on fresh produce for the flock. Usually this would include something for them to bathe on, like a big bunch of cilantro, parsley or carrot tops. Additionally, we would pick up a broccoli crown, and maybe some celery and whatever else looked good that week to have them try. Then, throughout the week I would make them a vegetable snack when I got home from work for the day. Some days they would eat it and others they would either ignore the vegetable or play with it, but at least I knew I was always giving them the option, and providing enrichment in one way or another!

During the pandemic, this got significantly more difficult. Instead of grocery shopping weekly we started going just a couple of times a month. This meant I had to plan meals for a longer time frame and was bringing in less fresh produce overall. I am sure part of it was panic, but I also focused more on shelf stable foods like pastas and soups, just in case there was a longer period where we weren’t able to get out to the store.

As we moved through the first few months of the pandemic and started feeling like we needed to get out of crisis mode, I realized that we were already having another crisis of parakeets and fresh produce, or lack thereof! We didn’t really want to go back to the grocery store every week, and there’s only so much frozen peas and corn you can feed a parakeet (seriously, as they are starchy and sugary, respectively).

Additionally, we realized that we humans were also in a crisis of fresh produce, so this meant we had a household-wide problem to solve. Enter Misfits Market, a subscription-based service delivering organic produce that’s been rescued from being garbage and only occasionally looks a little funny. Note: this post is not sponsored by Misfits Market and I am not being compensated for this post. They have a couple of options and as a family of two (plus three budgies) the smaller Mischief box has been perfect for us.

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Misfits Market weekly mischief shipment

The fruit and vegetables we received this week from MIsfits Market

Every week we get a pretty hefty shipment of fresh fruits and vegetables, all organic, and many of them sharable with parakeets. Of course some of it doesn’t work for our budgie pals, like citrus fruits, onions, potatoes, etc., but they love celery and they’ve tried so many new things because of this box (and so have we humans, incidentally!).

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Kevin again proves he will eat any leafy vegetables like a caterpillar

Kevin and Toby dig in to some fennel fronds. Kevin wasn’t too sure at first.

We all love celery greens for a snack and an occasional bath.

Kevin also got to try beet greens, which he loved immediately.

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The Mischief box is $26 per week/box, initially it wasn’t helping us reduce our spend at the grocery store, but I found that I just needed to adjust my meal planning to include more of the good fresh stuff, especially after being in more of a shelf stable or frozen food rut.

Now I’m enjoying an afternoon smoothie instead of reaching for potato chips, and the budgies are chowing down much more routinely on new fruits and veggies in addition to their old favorites. If you have any questions about Misfits Markets let me know! It’s certainly been a game changer for my parakeets and fresh produce supply.

Please note: if you click any of the Amazon links in this post and make a purchase I will earn a small commission as a member of the Amazon Affiliate network. Thank you! 

Parakeets and fresh produce – making sure we are stocked year round There are many differing opinions about the best diet for parakeets, but one thing we can all agree on is that fresh vegetables and fruits are an important part of a budgie's diet.

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Budgie cage placement - separate room or middle of the action?

Budgie cage placement – separate room or middle of the action?

A couple of years ago we decided to move the parakeets’ cages into what is intended to be the master bedroom in our house. We decided to change our budgie cage placement for a couple of primary reasons.

The first was that our oldest girl, Toby, had become really fixated on my husband. She was territorial about him and loved nothing more than to sit on his shoulder, scream in his ear and fight…

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Transitioning parakeets to new food

Transitioning parakeets to new food

One of the first things you will likely purchase as a new budgie owner is a supply of food for your new friend. Depending on where your budgie came from, you may want to change his food pretty quickly from a low quality seed mix to something with added dried vegetables, fruits and herbs. Transitioning parakeets to new food is not as easy as making a swap and crossing your fingers, there are some…

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Petco budgie toys unboxing

Petco budgie toys unboxing

I recently went into our toy cabinet, typically a treasure trove of unused budgie toys, and found that the cupboard was empty! I’m not sure how it escaped my notice that we’d run out of new toys and the cabinet was just full of random spare parts, plastic chain and extra perches. Of course this wouldn’t do at all, so I resolved to restock immediately.

Typically I buy budgie toys from Amazon, but…

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How much time out of the cage budgies should have every day

How much time out of the cage budgies should have every day

So, you’ve had your parakeet for a while, he’s pretty much tamed up and is one of your best pals. Now that the hard work is done you might be wondering how much time your budgie should have out of the cage every day. The answer depends on your schedule and your individual budgie.

If your budgie is still on the edge of being new then the answer is how much time can you devote? For the first…

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Photo tour of our paraket cage set up and play areas

Note: this post contains affiliate links. If you click them and make a purchase I will earn a small commission.

As you embark on your journey of parakeet keeping you may find that your flock’s territory expands further and further throughout your home. We welcome the flock into most rooms of our house and have employed various methods to help them feel like they have a space just for them.…

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Pet Parakeets and COVID-19

Note: this post contains affiliate links. If you click them and make a purchase I will earn a small commission.

When I wrote my most recent post giving advice about working from home with budgies for coworkers I had no idea that I would end up in a mandatory work from home situation! But, here we are, due to attempts to slow the spread of COVID-19 I’m in my home office for the foreseeable future.

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Working from home with parakeet colleagues

Working from home with parakeet colleagues

Note: this post contains affiliate links. If you click them and make a purchase I will earn a small commission.

Working from home is a great perk that’s increasingly available to employees. Creating a good environment for a full workday can be challenging in any situation, but when you throw in a flock of noisy budgies there’s a whole extra layer of careful planning to make. I only work from home…

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Never fear, we're all still here!

Never fear, we’re all still here!

After a one year delay, I’m sure that even our semi-faithful readers must have thought that some tragedy befell the flock. Fear not for the lives of our intrepid budgies, it’s merely my laziness that has kept me from posting.

To be honest not much has changed since I wrote Kelly’s two year post, except for the fact that she’s three! Toby, Kelly and Kevin have not been joined by any additional…

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A letter to Kelly on her second Gotcha Day

A letter to Kelly on her second Gotcha Day

I cannot believe it has been two years since Kelly came home with us. It simultaneously feels like no time at all and forever. Celebrating a budgie gotcha day is a good time to pause and reflect on what your little friend has brought to your life. I wrote a letter to Tobyon her second gotcha day and thought I would continue the tradition with Kelly. Given all the time I’ve spent writing about…

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NutriBullet Rx Review (and how that has anything to do with budgies)

NutriBullet Rx Review (and how that has anything to do with budgies)

When Patrick had his tonsils out we knew he’d be on soft foods for weeks and that he’d probably get sick or starve to death trying to eat popsicles and fro-yo the whole time! So, my mom and stepdad were kind enough to loan us their NutriBullet Rx and I began looking up Smoothie Recipes that would be good meal replacements. Leading up to his surgery we started using the NutriBullet Rx and testing…