Meet the Parakeet

Parakeets, which are also known as budgerigars or budgies outside the United States, are the world’s most popular companion birds. They are friendly, intelligent, clownish pets whose colorful appearance and talkative nature offer keepers both beauty and entertainment. Relatively easy to care for and tame, they are also a popular choice for people new to keeping birds.

The average parakeet is 7" (18 cm) from head to tail and weighs just over 1 ounce (28 g). In the wild, he comes in only one color (green), but pet parakeets are available in more than 70 colors and patterns developed through selective breeding. Parakeets typically have stripes along their backs. As babies, these stripes extend to their heads as well, but the head stripes disappear with age and are replaced by a solid color. The cere (the fleshy area just above the beak) is blue in adult males and pink or brown in adult females. In baby parakeets, the cere is whitish, pinkish, and/or bluish.

Young parakeets are docile and easily tamed. Once they get older, however, they may come to fear humans and try to flee or bite unless they have been properly tamed. In general, tame parakeets are loyal, affectionate, and vocal to their human companions. A fit and happy parakeet is quite noisy and active and spends his time wandering around the cage, eating, bathing, and socializing with his cagemates (if any).

Wild parakeets vocalize consistently around dawn and at dusk and continue to chirp frequently throughout the day. Your companion parakeet will do the same. A parakeet is an excellent talker—more so than most of the larger bird species or parrots—and can learn hundreds of words and phrases and say them clearly and interchangeably.

A parakeet kept on his own does best when he has a lot of toys and gets a lot of hands-on attention from his keeper. If you’re not going to be able to pay a lot of attention to your bird, you may want to consider getting two. Paired parakeets generally get along well and keep each other company by grooming one another, playing, and napping side by side on a perch.