My Parakeets Won't Drink - The Water is Gross

User Question
I have 2 parakeets and they always make kissing sounds...The sounds I'm hearing are not on the site. Can u tell me what they are doing when they make those sounds? Another thing is that do parakeets drink alot of water? When i change the water its always full and and full of poop. Ive had 2 parakeets for 2 months and they still are kinda scared of me. They wont go on my finger so I cant let them fly around. How can I make them trust me more? The cage is near the window and the cage is medium its like 25 inches high or so. Thanks for everything.

Lisa's Answer
That's not one question. That's like four!!

First off, I don't think I've ever heard parakeets make kissing sounds. Kissing sounds in humans are made by the lips creating suction. Parakeets don't HAVE lips or anything even remotely close to make that sort of a sound. Are you sure you don't mean they ARE kissing? I have a video of parakeet courtship -

http://www.lisashea.com/petinfo/articles/bird_videos.html

Parakeets 'touch beaks' when they court but it's not kissing. They are passing food back and forth as gifts or doing that symbolically.

Next, I have to ask you a question. If someone took you to a toilet with poop floating in the bowl and told you to "drink that", would you drink it??? Parakeets are VERY clean animals and it is a horrific thought to them to drink poop-filled water. You need to be changing the water DAILY and have it in a place where it is crystal clean. My page on healthy water for parakeets is here -

http://www.lisashea.com/petinfo/articles/bird_water.html

Let's see, what next. If the parakeets won't even go near your finger after 2 months then you have not been working on hand training them. I have step by step instructions here -

http://www.lisashea.com/petinfo/articles/bird_hand.html

Please read through my website - it probably answers every question you've got so far :)

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