We Found a Lost Parakeet - Texas

User Question
Hi! I’m in a unique position and desperately need some advice. I’m a backyard birder, and recently found that a bright yellow parakeet (budgie?) was visiting the seed I had placed on my fence. I live right outside of Houston, Texas. The first time I saw him he was being attacked by sparrows - he flies very well. I thought he was a goner for sure, but the next day he showed up for breakfast. Over the next several days, he seemed to work out a truce with the sparrows (remarkable). Anyway, I thought I would try to catch him because I worried he wouldn’t last very long in the wild. Long story short, my husband backed him into a cage I had duct taped to the fence, and we caught him two days ago. I purchased a nice cage and bought many amenities. We had a bit of initial trauma - my husband accidentally knocked his cage over (while he was in it), and I didn’t do a very good job transferring him from the cheap cage into the good cage. None of that was good for any trust building - obviously.

Well, I’m not set up to have a bird - meaning, I have cats - so he (she??) has to stay in a room by himself, and I can’t dedicate a lot of time to him. He can only be described as despondent at this point. He is eating and pooping, and I’ve lured some of the outside birds to his window, and he talks to them (squawks), but he won’t talk to me like he used to when he lived in the wild. He sits in one place, and shows no interest in any of the toys, mirrors, cuttle bone, etc. . . I’m not sure what to do. Of course, I would like to find him a good home, but I’m not sure what the possibility of that is.

In truth, I’ve been wondering if I shouldn’t let him out again. I feel soooo bad about caging him up, and maybe there’s something to be said for quality of life . . . If I don’t let him go, I’m thinking of getting a second parakeet, so he can have a friend to bond with. Ugh! I tried to do the right thing, but - you know - he seemed to be doing pretty well outside - as long as I was putting seed out. He had survived a few storms . . . Anyway, sorry for the length of this story, but if you have ANY advice, I would be grateful.

Lisa's Answer
I wouldn't call him despondent as much as settling in to a new surrounding. It's always scary to any creature to have to adjust to something new! But it sounds like this was a lost budgie that you were able to get back into a cage, which is a good thing. With only a few exceptions, parakeets really can't survive in the wild in the US and especially one that was raised in a cage will have a great deal of trouble making it in the outdoors amongst other birds who were trained from birth to eat and live in these areas. Parakeets are meant to live in Australia, with completely different foods and environments.

I do think that having the bird in a room by itself is a bad idea. Parakeets are flock creatures and need love and affection. I would definitely get him a friend or two to play with! I have cats and my keets are still not "locked away" - the cage is simply put somewhere that the cats cannot get to. The birds are only let out when the cats are safely locked away. I know many, many people who have parakeets and cats so there isn't a big problem there.

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