How Many Budgies Can Live Together: A Comprehensive Guide
If you are considering keeping budgies as pet birds, you might be curious about how many can live together. To give a simple and exact number, you can have 2 – 4 budgies together in a cage.
However, it still varies depending on factors such as cage size, the social behavior of your budgies, gender, and maturity.
All these factors and aspects determine your budgie’s number to have them as pets. Through this article, I will provide a comprehensive guideline about keeping budgies as pets regarding different aspects, factors, and appropriate group sizes for cohabitation.
How Many Budgies Can Live Together
Budgies, also known as Parakeets, are modestly related to the parrot family. They are famous for their social behavior, as they are fond of socializing with humans and the environment.
You can have at least two in your cage if you are highly passionate about budgies. Single budgies will feel isolated and stressed as they are social birds if you put them alone in your cage.
Thus, the ideal number of budgies for you to keep them as pets is at least 2. However, depending on your cage size, the number can also be increased from 2 to 4.
Additionally, more than four budgies will be more chaotic and noisy for you to have. Even so, if you are passionate about keeping budgies as pets, you might need to follow some step-by-step guidelines and instructions if you have more than four budgies in your cage.
Let’s explore the factors determining how many budgies can be housed together.
Factors to Consider When Housing Budgies Together
If you consider budgies as pets, you must follow certain key factors and aspects. These factors include the size of your cage, their social behavior, their gender factors, and your budget. All these factors will also determine the number of budgies or parakeets you can keep as pets.
Cage Size and Space Requirements
If you want to keep several budgies, your first priority should be cage size and space.
As these budgies are more active birds and love to socialize and fly around, a small cage is a big no for them to keep because they are fond of flying and roaming around inside the cage.
If you buy a medium to small cage, even for the smallest pairs of budgies, they still require more space to fly around. That is why a medium to large cage is best and suitable for them, where they can conquer more space around them.
You must also remember to provide mini playstations, toys, and bird feeders inside the cage.
Hence, you must ensure sufficient space within the cage, including all this equipment, and allow them to fly actively inside it.
However, if you tend to have more budgies in one cage, the cage’s size will increase gradually in the future.
Social Nature of Budgies
You should also be mindful that budgies are social birds and love socializing with others. They are also wild and can be in pairs, small groups, or even large flocks.
These wild behaviors assist them in finding food and encountering predators by communicating effectively with each other even in dangerous environments. Hence, you can not keep only one bird in a cage.
You have to buy at least two budgies or a pair where they can communicate and socialize with their partners. If you keep only one budgie or isolate them with their pairs and their flock, they might feel depressed.
They will certainly be unhappy with their environments, which will lead them to harm themselves. Their depressed and isolated figure might tear their own feathers or pluck their feathers due to depression.
Additionally, they might avoid eating food, which can lead to feeling sick or having health-related issues. Therefore, you must keep them in pairs and give them companionship, which will help them maintain their active and playful nature.
Gender and Maturity
Again, the gender and maturity of your budgies are other factors you should consider when you tend to have budgies as pets.
If you are considering having budgies but do not know their basic fundamental gender differences, this will cause you to face some challenges as a budgie bird’s owner.
Male budgies have green or blue feathers over their body with zebra patterns wings and yellow faces. Female budgies also have yellow, sometimes white, blue, or orange plumage over their body.
However, to clearly distinguish between male and female budgies, you can note that males have blue cere. On the contrary, females have brown, nude cere. This visual difference helps to identify basic differences between male and female budgies.
Budgie maturity also affects the selection of budgies in your cage. Young male budgies are more playful, active, and open to new companionship. Nonetheless, old male budgies are less interested in new connections or pairs.
Budget
Budget is another important component to consider. If you plan to get yourselves budgies, you must fix your budget first.
Although budgies are inexpensive and budget-friendly, you need to spend a lot of money to buy their cage, monthly food products, toys, feeding stations, and other necessities.
Gradually, your expenses will increase if you raise the number of your budgies in your cage as well. However, if you have a low or minimum fixed budget, you can buy a pair at the initial stage, which will cost you budget-friendly and manageable expenses.
Therefore, you must prepare and ensure that you will first spend all these expenses as a caring guardian figure of budgie bird owners.
Introducing New Budgies
The last factor to consider is how you will introduce your new budgies to your old budgies or make them a pair.
You can start by positioning their cages side by side or together so that they can get used to a new budgie’s presence. You can also let them interact by leaving them outside their cage and securing your room security.
Moreover, you can put your new and old budgies in one cage with some toys and accessories so that they can interact with the new budgies in their territory.
You can also give them the energy to choose their house by keeping their cage door open. They will enter the same cage together if ready to move in.
You need to keep monitoring them to see if they are actively engaged with each other. If they are singing and playing together, that means they have accepted each other’s companionship.
But if you see that one is harming another budgie, that means they might not be a perfect match. Hence, you should not keep them in one cage or together.
Appropriate Group Sizes for Budgie Cohabitation
Apart from all the factors, you must consider how many budgies can live together in one cage. Therefore, you need to choose the appropriate cage size so they can fly around inside the cage and be actively involved in their activities.
Pairs (2 Budgies)
A minimum of two budgies is ideal for pets in a cage. So you can keep a pair of budgies in your cage. A pair makes a good interaction, companionship, and strong bond with each other.
However, you must know that a pair is not interested in interacting or socializing with humans. They keep themselves engaged with their own activities.
That is why do not try to disturb them by putting the pair in uncomfortable situations. This will create a unique, healthy environment for budgies to live and adapt.
Small Flocks (3-5 Budgies)
Now, if you want to increase the number of your budgies and want a small flock, 3 to 5 budgies at the beginning level will be appropriate.
By doing this, you are basically providing them with mini colonies where they can interact, socialize, chitchat, and be playful with their small colony members.
However, you must also monitor their behavior within the small flocks. Sometimes they might form a mini group and gang up on individual budgies.
You need to monitor these bird’s bullying behavior and take necessary steps if you see any behavior within the cage.
Larger Colonies (6+ Budgies)
If you are a passionate budgie owner and want to increase your budgies and make a larger colony, you can have 6 or more 6 birds in one colony or flock.
However, maintaining more than 6 birds sometimes becomes a hassle and complex situation to handle. You have to ensure peace in the colony, provide enough toys, feeding stations, and accessories for them inside the cage, and monitor their behavior.
You need to monitor them regularly to evaluate their behavior. This will help you analyze and detect the signs of aggressiveness, sadness, depression, or distress in your budgies.
You can make notes to remember their details and behavior. Keeping a larger colony can sometimes be more expensive and difficult to manage.
Conclusion
In a closing statement, I will conclude the article by stating that budgies are social birds fond of companionship. For a bird lover or enthusiast, budgies can be the best option as a pet.
However, as a bird owner, you must be careful about certain factors before housing budgies. These factors include cage size, budgie social behavior, gender, budget, and the introduction process.
All these factors might influence the number of budgies you can keep together in a cage. Even though I have suggested a pair, it is a good option for a beginner’s level.
However, you can gradually increase the number from 3 to more than 6 by making a large colony of budgies.
Hence, by understanding this article’s process, factors, and guidelines, you can create a healthy and harmonious environment for your budgies to live happily.
