If you decide to buy yourself a birdpet, then before that, be sure to read the recommendations on how to choose a healthy parrot and how to care for it. If you have no experience in keeping birds, then it is best not to get large parrots. We advise you to pay attention to smaller ones - budgerigars. They are small in size, do not require special care, are very unpretentious and easily take root in a new place. In a word - an ideal option for beginners. So, which parrot to choose? Budgerigars have a cheerful character, bright colors, they are quite sociable and can copy human speech and the voices of various animals and birds. You can choose a parrot that already knows how to talk or you can teach it yourself, quite easily. Experience shows that parrots with green feathers are best trained. They can remember several hundred words, short poems and even complex phrases. Budgerigars come from Australia and can live in captivity for up to 15 years. Therefore, before choosing a feathered pet, it is worth thinking over everything again and weighing whether you are ready for such changes in your life. If your intentions are serious and you are ready to give your pet your love, take good care of it, then choosing a budgerigar will be the best decision. Before buying, we recommend that you buy books on caring for these birds, as well as study information on the Internet, talk to owners who have experience in caring for budgerigars. Giving recommendations on how to choose a healthy parrot, we first of all draw your attention to the fact that birds should be purchased in large pet stores or from professional breeders who have good conditions for keeping: fresh food, clean large cages and a staff of trained employees. When buying a bird from someone, you may not even notice the presence of a hidden disease in it.
Parrot Health
The choice of a budgerigar should be approachedresponsibly and before buying, take a closer look at its behavior. A healthy parrot looks cheerful, lively and briskly jumps around the cage. If it sits ruffled and motionless, then it is possible that the parrot is sick and should not be purchased. Be sure to check its eyes and nostrils. Cloudy eyes or caked mucus on the nostrils indicate that the bird is sick. To decide which parrot to take, also listen to the bird's breathing. Wheezing when inhaling and exhaling indicates that there are breathing problems. You should also pay attention to the size of the bird, since full-breasted, well-fed parrots are less susceptible to diseases. If the bird's breastbone protrudes at an acute angle, then this indicates exhaustion, which may be a consequence of some disease. The question of how to choose a healthy parrot includes knowledge of various bird diseases. For example, budgerigars suffer from the disease "French molt". In this case, the birds lose feathers from the tail and wings, so it is worth checking for the presence of two long tail and flight feathers, because if they fall out, they are practically not restored. A healthy budgie should have full dense plumage. The paws of the parrot should be without congenital defects and there are claws on the fingers. One of the delicate issues is checking the anus of the bird, but this must also be done. If it is red or smeared with feces, this may indicate intestinal inflammation.
What should be prepared for the parrot?
If you have learned the recommendations on howhow to choose the right budgerigar, now let's get acquainted with what should be prepared for your feathered friend so that he can live comfortably in a new place. Buy a spacious cage with suitable accessories. It should be at least 60 cm long and 40 cm wide. A rectangular cage is best, because if the bird is scared of something, it will hide in a corner and calm down there. A drinking bowl, a bath and a feeder are required. If you plan to buy a pair for the parrot in the future, it is better to immediately buy a larger cage. After you choose a parrot, take care of toys for it. This can be a ring, a mirror or a trapezoid. It is best to hang them on a string from the roof of the cage. When transporting the bird from the store home, use a special cage so as not to harm the parrot.
How to choose a young parrot?
It is best to buy a parrot that is not oldermore than 5-6 weeks, so young birds get used to their owners and new home faster. If you have doubts about how to choose a young parrot, you can use our advice, paying attention to the following signs:
- in young males there are distinct wavy bands on the forehead and anterior part of the back, which gradually disappear after the first molt (after about 3-4 months);
- in young parrots, the eyes are completely black, and in adult birds around the pupil there is a white ring;
- young birds have a shorter tail, which grows rather quickly and reaches standard sizes 2 months after the parrot hatches from the egg;
- with age in parrots the beak becomes more and more light, and the feathers acquire a much more intense shade.
Here are some simple recommendations on howpick a young parrot so that it will delight you with its companionship for many years. If you want to buy an adult bird, make sure that the parrot does not have the habit of plucking itself, since it will be impossible to wean it from this.
How to choose a talking parrot?
If you want to have a talking parrot, thenIts training should begin at an early age. How to choose a talking parrot? It is believed that males can master human speech best of all, and the most talkative of them are green birds. White birds have the worst abilities. The weakest chicks in the brood are also the best trained, and if you can raise such a parrot, you will undoubtedly be its leader. It recognizes your authority and will try to please you in everything, including imitating your speech. Knowing what kind of parrot to choose for fruitful training, you should also take into account the age of the bird. The most productive age is up to 8-10 months, although even then the birds can be trained. Budgerigars speak quite quietly in a creaky voice. At the beginning of training, you should pronounce words with hissing letters, since they are easier for birds to pronounce. It is necessary to repeat the same words many times until the parrot begins to pronounce them clearly. Personal contact with the bird is also very important. Now you know how to choose a talking parrot and you can consider the issue of their training in more detail, since tame birds are more capable of reproducing human speech. Say all words in a gentle voice, without changing the intonation. Parrots perceive and copy women's and children's voices best of all, and they also do exclamatory phrases very well. It is best to conduct classes daily with one person. After learning individual words, you can move on to small phrases. At this stage of training, you can already record individual phrases on a tape recorder and let the bird listen to them. If you do everything correctly, then by four months the parrot will talk.
How to choose a male?
If you want to buy a boy, then wewe will tell you how to choose a male. At an early age, it is difficult for a person who does not understand these subtleties to make a choice on their own. But if you want to choose a pair for a parrot, you should definitely know who you have - a male or a female. The sex of the bird can be determined by the color of the cere above the beak. In a boy, the skin in these places has all shades from pale blue to deep blue. In females, the color of the cere ranges from light cream to brownish. But in order to know exactly how to choose budgerigars, you should also take into account that during the molting period, the color of the cere in females can change from brown to blue. Usually, after 2-3 months, everything returns to its original state.
How to choose a parrot couple?
If you want to buy another bird, then,How to choose a mate for a parrot? Does the color of the female and her character matter or not? If you are not going to breed birds, the color of the female is not important, but it is best to buy a younger girl. We have already talked about how to choose a budgerigar. To begin with, put her in another cage and put her next to each other. Let them get acquainted at a distance and get used to each other. After a month of acquaintance, the female can be transplanted to the male. If your parrot has a calm character, then it is advisable to choose a girl with the same, otherwise the nimble female will torture him. Parrots are used to living in a flock and they have much more fun in a large company. Active birds mate faster, and when choosing a female, the parrot begins to court her. He sorts through her feathers and feeds his girlfriend from his beak. But it also happens that a pair of parrots do not get along in character and then they constantly quarrel. In this case, the parrots must be separated. In order to avoid the question of how to choose a mate for a parrot, it is sometimes more practical to buy both a female and a male at once. This option is best if the owners are often away from home. The parrots will have fun together. If you already have other parrots, the choice of a budgerigar may depend on their type. Budgerigars and cockatiels get along best with each other. If you have small children in your home, they need to be prepared for the arrival of a new resident. If parrots are purchased at the request of a child, adults should also remember that the main burden of caring for the pets will fall on them. And although budgerigars are relatively inexpensive, they require additional costs for maintenance, feeding and care. It is advisable to familiarize all household members with the rules for keeping parrots. We told you how to choose parrots correctly, where to buy them and how to choose a male parrot. But this is only the basic knowledge for acquiring birds. And after deciding how to choose a budgerigar, you will have to learn a lot, because you must know what you can feed the birds, when they can be released from the cage, what kind of feeding parrots need. You will have to learn a lot more, including how to protect parrots from other pets, find out what objects can be in the cage and which are better to keep away, how to care for a pair, and so on, because you are taking responsibility for the life of a living creature. Therefore, we sincerely wish you success! We advise you to read:
