Is Your Parakeet A Boy Or Girl?

When I got my two new Parakeets they were young and hard to tell if they were male or female. Well they are now old enough to tell. A male parakeet will have a blue cere, and female will have a white, baby blue, or even a brown cere. The cere is the area at the top of the beak where the nostril is at. At a certain age, it will be easy to tell if you have a male or female. If you have a young Parakeet and want to know if it's male or female, look at the cere and see if there's any trace of white. If you see any white on the nostril area of the cere, that would indicate to me you have a female. I have 3 males Parakeets and 3 females, and my females are pretty aggressive birds, unlike my males.

Giving Your Parakeet A Bath

I had a long hot day outside yesterday, and I decided to take all my Parakeets and put them in one cage and take them outside while I worked. It was hot, so I put a bigger water dish in the cage, and the water spray bottle to mist them when I saw they were getting hot. I kept my eye on them, and noticed they were more playful then normal outside. Sure they chirp and sing more outside, but they were all having a great time. I decided to walk over to the cage and see what they were doing, and they were taking turns getting in the big water dish washing theirselves. They were so wet, they didn't even look like Parakeets. I thought to myself I been giving them a bath one by one for months now, and all I had to do was put a water dish in their cage and take them outside. I'll have to do this more often.

Parakeet Seeds

Over the past several days I been trying my Parakeets on a new brand of wild birds parakeets seeds. These seeds have vegetables and fruits, things Parakeets need. I have only 1 bird that gets choked on some big stuff that comes in alot of seeds and I'm leaving him on the Hartz Seeds. I did give him alittle of this new wild bird parakeet seeds and he seemed to beable to eat it real good, but he seems to perfer the hartz seeds the best, where my other 5 like the new seeds. This wild birds parakeets seed isn't expensive, I paid just alittle over $2 for a 2lb bag, which isn't bad.

Parakeet Update

I thought I would give an update on my new Parakeets. They are doing great, and have really come around. One of them was alittle tougher to tame than the other, but she has made a big improvement. I let them out most of the day to let them play on their play gym, and that has really helped build trust. I stand at the window with them and let them look out, and that helped get my new female Parakeet come around and began to trust my hand.

I have blinds over my windows, so after they each have their few minutes of looking out, I let the blind back down, so neither of them will fly into the windows. I'll keep you updated on their progress.

My Parakeets PVC Playgyms

I finally got new batteries for my Digital Camera, but for some reason the batteries will not hold a charge very long. They did stay charged long enough to get a couple of pics of 2 of my Parakeets PVC Playgyms.

This pic is not a very good pic, but you can see the unfinished playstand I'm building for my Parakeets. Before I got finished with it, they were already wanting to play on it. I let them sit on it for a few minutes, and now can't keep them off of it to get it finished, but I will post an finished pic of it soon.



Full Size Pic of PVC Playstand
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This next pic, is a small playgym I built for my Parakeets, which did have a rope toy, and ladder, but the ladder got broke and the rope toy wore out. Either way the playgym isn't very small, it's 30 inches long, 16 inches tall, 13 inches deep. I line the bottom of the playgym with paper towels, and have it setting on old table chairs. I put plain black and white news paper under the chairs to keep mess off the floor. I use a water bowl to put their water in, and a small plate to put their seeds in. In the small resized pick you can't really see my Parakeets in the pic, but you can see them in the full size pic.



Full Size Pic of Playgym and MyParakeets
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My New Parakeets

My new Parakeets have finally got into the routine with my other birds. When I first let the new birds spend time with my other birds, they were accepted, but they didn't understand where the food and water was next to the playgym. I was always having to put them in and out of the cage to eat and get some water to drink, but today they saw my other Parakeets eating and they went to see what they were pecking at. When they got next to the seed dish, they decided to try it also. Well they now know where the food and water is, so now I can let them stay out the whole time my other 4 is out.

The way I got my room set up for the birds to keep from having a mess to clean up, is I have 2 playgyms I built, one small, and one large. I have an eating section made onto the big playgym, with plastic mesh. I put newspaper under the playgyms, so everything drops on newspaper. This works out great! My new Parakeets are kinda messy, so setting the room up like this has been a big help.

Parakeets and Music

My Parakeets love music. I let all 6 of them out yesterday, and forgot to cut the radio on for them. I started working online, and realized they were very quiet. I started to wonder, so I got up and went and checked on them. They were all sitting on their play gym looking at me like didn't you forget something. Time I turned the radio on, they perked up, and started chirping and bird dancing a cross the gym perch. Maybe I got my Parkeets Spoiled, I'm not sure, but my birds love music, and not picky about what they listen to. Try playing music to your birds and see if they get real excited. They are fun to watch, expecially when they are trying to dance. I wish I could explain how this bird dance looks, but the only way I can describe it, but no words can describe the way it looks. My Parakeets are not themselves without their music.

Sand Perches For Parakeets

I bought some sand perches a while back for my Parakeets to see if it would help keep their beaks and toe nails trimmed and they work very well. Your birds beak and toe nails will need trimming as they get older, and these sand perches are a very inexpensive way to keep your Parakeets well groomed.

You can also get a cuddle bone I mentioned in an earlier post to help keep your birds beaks trimmed.

My last 3 Parakeets are still real young and their toe nails are not very long, but they still love to rub their beaks over the sand perches to keep them shinny and trimmed.

I think buying these sand perches are alot better than trimming the toe nails and beaks myself. I can trim their toe nails and beaks, but they love to get very sqirmmy in my hands, and that can cause a mistake, so I looked for a better way to keep my Parakeets groomed. With the closet Avian Vet 2 hours away, I've had to learn to do the grooming stuff myself, but note: If my birds get sick, I don't hesitate to get them to the Doctor.