Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I've had a beautiful female parakeet for about 5 months now and the school year will be starting up soon and I have spent so much of my summer spending time with her that I'm afraid that once school starts up again, she'll be very lonely. When I first got her, I was still in school and she became used to me being gone during the day. Since school has been out we've been bonding more than ever, and she get's sad/mad whenever I even leave the room now! It's so heartbreaking when I go out with friends and have to leave her crying out for me and I can hear her chirping down the hall when I get on the elevator to leave my apartment.

I'll be getting a job soon, too, so I'm afraid that during the week and even on weekends I'll hardly be home! I'll definitely make sure to spend a good hour a day with her and she'll see me eat meals and come and go but that's just not enough social time. I didn't consider this when I bought her because I, personally, needed a friend to come home to. I live alone... but I will be getting a roommate in December when my lease is up.. but we'll both have school and work.

I want to buy her a friend, a male friend who's talkative and will entertain her, but I'm worried that they'll mate. I will definitely not have time to take care of baby parakeets. Would it be cruel to keep them in seperate cages but decently close to eachother so they can communicate? Should I let them play together if I take them both to the vet and they are determined to be disease-free?? Should they even be around eachother because of the disease-aspect??

Thanks so much for your time and input,
Timothy

Well...try a mirror, or they sell plastic fake parakeets for birds like that. If that doesn't work then try the friend, you could try two separate cages for them, and let them play with one another when you watch them. I hope this helps...

First I must ask, why a male? Despite what you have heard, females have just about the same personality as male. The first rule of thumb when getting another bird, is to get the same sex.
I advise you to get a female bird.

Okay back on track. Budgies are flock members, whether or not your there all the time they would enjoy a friend.

Now your right about the vet check, and about the seperate cages.

When you get the bird keep it in another room to insure it is not sick, once to you take it to the vet, you can house the birds in the same room, but sepperate cages.

Let them get to know each other from the bars in the cage. Then you can move on to letting them both out of the cage, to let them meet and greet each other. Once you find that they accept each other you can move them to the same cage.

Budgies thrive physical touch from each other, they love to preen each other. So keeping them in sepperate cages isn't the way to go, if you know they will get along.

I hope I answered everything, if I left anything out tell me.

-Parakeet