broken neck?

Question
Sadly i found my budgie dead this morning and he was alive and well at 5a.m. At 9a.m he was found. It looks from the way he was lying, that he fell from his perch and broke his neck. Is this something i could have avoided and did he suffer at all? Many thanks

Answer
Oh my God, I'm so sorry!  Thankfully, he would not have suffered at all.  When the neck is broken, if they do not die immediately, all signals from the brain to the body stop.  This prevents any feeling, and stops the heart and shuts the lungs down.  If he survived the fall at all, it was only for a few painless seconds.  He didn't even know anything had happened.

There wasn't anything you could have done.  If he was alive and well just a few hours earlier, and there was no warning, you couldn't have possibly predicted that this would happen to him.  Even if you had taken him to a vet, they probably would have told you that he was fine, and couldn't have done anything.