BIG BAD BUDGE -RI-GARS! RRRRRRRR!

Budgies are commonly referred to as parakeets but the word parakeet actually describes any small parrot-like bird with a long tail. The term budgie was derived from the word budgerigar, which is based on a similar sounding Aborigine phrase that means, "good eating" and refer specifically to the species Melopsittacus Undulatus. The average lifespan of a budgie is generally 2-7 years. There are budgies that have lived to 13 and ever older, and there are budgies that die before their first birthday. There are many factors that can affect the lifespan on a budgie. American budgies generally live longer that English budgies, and breeding budgies often have shorter lives than those who never raise chicks. Many budgies die from natural causes like tumors (Budgies unfortunately are very susceptable to them), Budgies, like all pet birds, need to have a cage that is minimally big enough for them to stretch and flap their wings without hitting the walls or any hanging toys. A good rule of thumb is, the bigger the better -- generally no smaller than 12"x18"x18". The most important thing to watch for when buying a cage is that the spacing between the bars is no wider than 1/2-inch wide. Any wider than that and a budgie could squeeze through the bars and escape, or try to squeeze through the bars and get stuck. In general, the color of a budgie's cere is the simplest indicator of sex in adult budgies: males are blue, and females are white, light beige, reddish, or brown. While it is fairly accurate, the color of the cere cannot always be used to sex a budgie. With some color varieties, like albinos, lutinos, fallows, and some recessive pieds like harlequins, both males and females have beige or pink colored ceres. Other visual sexing methods include females having an almost invisible, whitish rings around their nostrils, and males having more rounded, bulbous ceres, both of which are often hard to recognize to the untrained eye. And many people also say that females bite harder than males and that males have rounder heads while females heads are more flat on the top.