Table Of Contents

What Does Your Parakeet Need?....4

Parakeets And Naming....6

Species....8

In The Wild....9

Always In Flight....11

Whats In A Name?....12

Plain And Simple....13

Human Links....14

New Breeds....15

Royal Blue Parakeets....16

What And What Not To Feed Your Parakeet....18

Wing Clipping....20

Parakeet Gender....22

What Does Your Parakeet Need?

-Cage

-Perches

-Food Dishes/Water Bottle

-Toys/Swing

-Food/Pellets/Millet

-Cuttle Bone and Mineral Block

-Coconut House

I highly recommend the Vision Bird Cage. It comes with Perches, Food Dishes and Water Dishes. You can also buy Vision Cage Brand Parakeet Toys and Accesories. It is good to have a variety of toys so you can rotate them out once a week to keep your Parakeet entertained. They love Swings too!

Parakeets

A Parakeet is any one of a large number of small to medium-sized species of Parrot. In multiple genera, that generally have long tail feathers.

Older spellings still sometimes encountered are Paroquet or Paraquet.

Naming

The name Parakeet is derived from the French word Perroquet.

Perroquet means Parrot in French. While the French word for Parakeet is Perrache.

Species

The Australian Budgerigari also known as the Budgie or English Parakeet or Keet, is probably the most common Parakeet. It was first described by zoologists in 1891. It is the most popular species of Parakeet kept as a pet in North America and Europe. The Term "Grass Parakeet" refers to a large number of small Australian Parakeets native to grasslands such as the Princess Parrot. The Australian Rosellas are also parakeets. Many of the smaller, long-tailed species of Lories may be referred to as "Lorikeets".

The vernacular name ring-necked Parakeet refers to a species of the Psittacula genus native to Africa and Asia that is popular as a pet and has become feral in many cities outside its natural range.

In The Wild

More than three hundred types of parrots live in Africa, Asia, North and South America and Australia. The Parakeet we know as a pet comes from central Australia. Huge Flocks of Parakeets, often with tens of thousands of birds, fly over Australian grasslands.

Many different species of Parakeets are bred and sold commercially as pets, the Budgerigar being the most popular pet in the world, after Cats and Dogs. Budgerigars are great companions for any age and can be easily trained if bonded very closely with pet parent.

Life Span: Up to 20 years

Color: Blue, Green, White, Red, Yellow and Purple.

Interaction: Social

Sounds: Chatter, Whistle, and can Talk.

Always In Flight

Wild Parakeets eat grasses and grass seeds, eucalyptus leaves, berries and sometimes insects. In dry conditions of the Australian Outback, Parakeets are always moving from place to place looking for water and fresh supplies.

The only time Parakeets stop traveling is when rainfall has made many plants grow and there is plenty of food. Then the Parakeets stop to breed.

Parakeets do not build nests of sticks, they lay their eggs and raise their chicks in the hollows of trees. Because the whole flock breeds at the same time, all the chicks are ready to leave the nest at the same time.

Then the flock flies off again.

Whats In A Name?

In the United States, a Parakeet or Keet is a small bird from Australia that is kept as a pet. In the United Kingdom, the same bird is known as a Budgie.

Plain And Simple

Compared to many unusual members of the Parrot family, wild Parakeets are not flashy-looking birds. They are green with yellow faces, and they have black markings on their wings. All wild Parakeets have the same coloring, and they are smaller and thinner than pet Parakeets. Breeders today have produced Parakeets in a dazzling range of colors, and their birds are still hardy and easy to care for.

Human Links

British sailors who had been to Australia told stories about pretty green birds that flew in such large flocks that they blotted out the sun.

When the birds landed on the branches of a dead tree, their brilliant green plumage made the tree look as if it had come back to life. When early settlers in Australia met the native Aborigines, the settlers asked what the birds were called. The Aborigines answer sounded like "Betchery-Gah" so the settlers named the birds "Budgerigars". Later, when the Aborigines word was translated, Westerners discovered that the word meant "Good to Eat".

New Breeds

English explorer and Naturalist John Gould returned from a trip to Australia in 1840 and brought a pair of Parakeets back to England with him.

The plain-looking, green birds, which were about 4 inches ( 10 centimeters ) long, interested breeders. The first pure yellow Parakeet, bred in Belgium in 1870, caused a sensation. After that, breeders became more and more competitive in their attempts to produce new colors and new varieties of Parakeets.

Royal Blue Parakeets

The first Sky-Blue Parakeets were bred in England in 1910.

Members of the Japanese Royal Family were so impressed they paid a huge amount of money to import a pair of blue Parakeets for their own breeding Program. Soon, Japanese nobility started a custom of giving blue Parakeets as love tokens. At first only wealthy people owned Parakeets, but as the birds became more common, all kinds of people adopted them as pets.

When Europeans emigrated to the United States in the early part of the twentieth century, some took their favorite pets with them, including, the Parakeet.