Budgie Behavior

Question
Hello! I am 17-years old, and I have had experience hand-training a number of cockatiels in the past. Unfortunately, my home was poisoned by burnt teflon several years ago and both of my cockatiels died, and our later two we gave to one of my relatives.

It's been a while since I've thought about purchasing another 'tiel, or another breed in general, and recent spontaneity has found me with four budgies. Two belong to my mother (an albino, and an opaline) and two are mine; a spangled and a regular 'sky blue'.

Three of the four are too young to sex, and the other (which has been acting strange) I'm almost positive is male, it has a indigo/blue cere. I am only experienced in taming cockatiels, and so I'm unsure of how to gain these adorable birds' trust..but first, I'm worried about their behavior. What is the normal behavior of budgies? I know males are usually outgoing, and females are often more solemn, but all of ours seem quiet and rather detached..especially the blue male. He stays fluffed, and sometimes finds himself on the bottom of the cage, he can stay in one place for hours on end--as the rest of them do.

I've added a small amount of antibiotics into his water thinking it may be a respiratory problem, and have yet to see him drink. My tiels have always been outgoing, crawling around the cage, playing with toys, and I wonder what to expect from my new companions. Any advice would be appreciated.

Thank you.

Answer
Hi, Espen.  Thanks for posting.

If you have experience working with tiels, you shouldn't have any problem working with your keets...theory/principle is the same for both. If these guys are still too young to sex, you might be expecting too much out of them at the moment, especially since they've been moved to a new home.  They may be stressed some from the move and need some time to adjust to their new environment (depending on how long it's been since their move).  You need to remember that all birds are different...each has it's own individual personality just like humans do and you may have to deal with each one differently.  Since these are young keets, they may still be trying to figure out the world around them.  

You know these keets better than I do and you seem to have experience with other species of parrots...if you think any are ill, you need to take them to an avian veterinarian (not a cat/dog vet) for an evaluation.  Staying fluffed up on the cage bottom isn't normal and could be an indication of illness, but this depends.  Is the cage they are in in an elevated position where the keets have to stand on the floor of their cage in order to be about eye level with you?  If yes, this might explain why they stay on the cage bottom so much.  As far as staying in one place for hours on end...I don't find this abnormal.  Yes, they should play and interact with each other during the day, but they also need nap times (especially as babies), time to preen/care for themselves, eat, etc.  

I do not recommend the addition of antibiotics (or anything else) in their water for 3 reasons:  (1) why?  You don't know if they are sick or not (you may be treating something that doesn't exist); (2) over-the-counter drugs, even for birds, aren't very effective and are too watered down; (3) the addition of anything to their drinking water can actually have the opposite result because bacteria start growing when something is added and then your keets drink this contaminated water.  A respiratory problem would have symptoms, such as difficulty breathing, perhaps liquid coming from nostrils, etc.  The one keet may not be drinking the water because of the antibiotics in it...could have a bad taste or other.  

Give them some time to settle down, depending on how long you've owned them, discontinue the antibiotics in the drinking water and get them to the vet if you think they might be sick (better safe than sorry), spend as much time with them as you can, make sure the toys they have are toys they would want to play with (swings, stuff they can climb through/up/on), and give them a little more time to grow up and become more familiar with their world.  What type of diet do you have them on?  Hopefully, not an all-seed diet...seed is low in nutrition and too high in fat, especially for keets, who have the tendency to develop health problems associated with eating an all-seed diet.

My website might provide you with more information:  http://www.angelfire.com/falcon/birdinfo/index.html       

Come back if you need to.

Chrys