Nurturing budgies is quite tricky as their fragility keeps you questioning whether you’ll scare them or not, but once you become the parent of a parakeet handling these tiny creatures is no big deal. If you want to know “What do baby parakeets eat?”
Baby parakeets enjoy a wide food variety. A varied diet gives an interesting twist to your baby parakeet’s diet. However, keep that in mind that all your budgie’s favorite treats might not always be healthy. But what makes you understand the nutritious diet for them?
What do baby parakeets eat?
Prior to their feeding stage, a pet owner should know the time when the baby will be out from their nest? Additionally, before feeding, you should know the stage of growth; it will help you to know when the will parakeet open eyes and when it is ready to come out?
Baby Parakeet Stages
1st Week: In the first week the process of when the baby will come out of the egg and starts stretching out occurs, all this time their digestion is very slow unless the morphosis will reach a point (7th day) where it starts to hold its head for a few seconds. On the 6th day, the baby will open its eyes.
2nd Week: It starts showing the color of hair. It can now hold head for more than 30 seconds and even move the feathers but still unable to come out of the nest because of weak internal structure. It is still being fed by its parents.
3rd Week: Day 17, baby will be out from the nest. It is the time when the baby parakeet can be fed through pipette or syringe yet try it gradually as the baby is not used to it. Allow mother to let its child learn with time. It can even sit properly for the first time.
4th Week: This is the time when the baby will have complete feathers and is able to run around with amusement. Now it is the time you can take them from momma and hand-fed them easily. All weaned, can now eat by himself too.
The organic source, healthy and likeable budgie foods are listed below
Treats to offer
Once your parakeet reach the 8th week you can introduce some treat
1.Millet Spra
Spray millets are the most nutritious seeds, high in carbohydrates and calcium. It provides a lot of nourishment to the young ones to finish developing. It is the preferred form of a treat given by pet owners. It is often recommended to feed sprays in 1-2 days to avoid contamination and spoilage otherwise it will lose its nutritional value.
2. Fruits and Vegetables
Providing them with fruits and veggies on alternate would sound great, as they are fond of change in their diet. Fruits such as apples, mangoes, cherries, currant, melon, and bananas are good variations to the usual seed mix.
You can also include vegetables such as carrot greens, spinach, kale, mustard greens, parsley, mint leaves etc. Make sure to thoroughly wash fruits and vegetables and be given raw and un-cooked
3. Cuttlebones
Do these parakeets eat bones? No, it is not bone. These are the calcium-rich internal shells of the cuttlefish.
Baby parakeet is in need of these calcium and mineral-rich hard shells to sharpen up and polish the beaks. They are quite attracted to these shells as they have a different texture than their usual food.
4. Sprouts
Sprouts are known for their healing and nurturing properties. Any raw seed which is whole will sprout easily, including oats, rice, and other grains and cereals, beans, peas, lentils, etc. It is an inexpensive yet convenient way to feed fresh greens to your birds on a daily basis.
Homemade baby parakeet food
Given recipes are some of my personal
Quick Egg Recipe
All you need to do is take an organic egg along with its shell put it in a blender or mixer and mix thoroughly add some herbs and diced vegetables. Serve immediately and refrain from storing it.
Sprouting at Home
You need to take seed mix, and they should be fresh otherwise it wouldn’t sprout well. Soak them overnight and rinse thoroughly in the morning until it starts sprouting. A spoonful of sprouts would be enough for the baby.
Bean mix recipe
A very simple formula for the growth of a baby is bean mix, you just need to have 2-3 kinds of seeds like adzuki beans and mung beans. Mix them all together and you are done.
Do parakeets eat their babies?
Parent parakeets can even attack babies when mating. If the baby comes around the nest when the mother is laying eggs the mother might attack them. Remove the babies from the cage, otherwise fights will increase. It happens with the mother with the change in hormonal level during laying of the eggs.
Young and inexperienced mothers when left to spend more time with the male budgie tend to mate early leaving their babies on their own when they are unable to feed themselves. So, it might happen that they will die of starvation and loneliness. This is why you need to stop your budgies from early mating.
How to take care of baby parakeets?
Here is a guide for you to understand the different factors regarding the essential care of your budgies.
Accommodation
Budgies are in need of spacious cages. It should be furnished with perches, feed, and water bowls.
Avoid changing cages from one place to another as this would cause the parakeet laying eggs to break them.
Health
Baby budgies can die from diseases without showing symptoms, apparently due to not fresh, less organic and sugary content in their diet. It may also be due to unclean cages.
Safety
Be cautious when you let your budgie out of their cage, as you will find them tangled in within something like a solitary stray piece of thread, can fly through an open window etc.
Avoid these by supervising your budgies when they come out, double-check anything you put in their cage.
Takeaway
So, the basic needs and requirements are mentioned above. Let’s summarize it a bit.
Try to keep baby budgie priority and never let any symptoms shown by them go unnoticed. With regards to the feed, never offer the baby budgie a new type of food without first ensuring it is safe for parakeet consumption.
Sometimes budgie owner kills their budgies unintentionally. For example, due to heat stroke and too much chilly environment, because you are unaware what is optimum temperature for your budgie, you might leave them near heat source or in direct sunlight or maybe outside when raining.
Certain toxins might harm them too, for example, strong fumes of paint may affect the health of your budgies.
Budgies require clean and fresh water which needs to be changed twice every day. They may mess the water, so keep a check on budgies water. Or else they will die due to dirty water or dehydration.
