Budgie

[Jules001]

my daughter's budgie died last night - he had seemed perfectly ok normal twittering and chirping and then when I was out of the room, I heard about three loud strange sounds (almost like a pet squeaky toy). I went back into the lounge and my son said the budgie had just made a strange noise. I could see he wasn't on his perch and when I went over to the cage, he was on the bottom obviously dead. I called my daughter and we lifted him out but obviously nothing could be done. My daughter wants to know if he was in pain, I have told her that as he wasn't ill and it was so quick, I doubt he felt any pain. Can anyone explain why he made this strange noise?

[bigmamma]

Hello , first of all I am sorry your little budgie has died , they are cute characters . I can say though that I had a rabbit for 10 years who never made a noise except a sort of talking squeek just before lying down dead .

[wolf63]

From what you say it sounds like a 'sudden death'. I would say that he wasn't in pain or if he was it was for a very short time.

I am sorry to hear about the budgie - I remember when my budgie died when I was 8. Instead of being truthful and telling me that he had died my mum told me that he had flown back to Africa. This led me to consider all sorts of horrible things that were going to happen to him.

[cruella]

Jules
It is so sad when any of us lose our pets.
A friend of mine lost her budgie in the same way.
Seems it was a stroke that killed it and it too was over very quickly.
I really don't think the budgie suffered but sorry to hear about it. x

[Jules001]

thank you for the positive responses, I have told my daughter what you have said and I think it has helped to know that other people have been through this too. It was her birthday yesterday too, so it was doubly hard to deal with as she will always have that association.

[peb9]

sorry to hear that jules, i can totally sympathise with you as my wee lassies hamster died this mornin, awe bless, they can keep each other company in pet heaven lol, hope your wee lassie is bit better now.

[wildwood]

I can not speculate what your budgie died of as I have not seen it, but I can tell you what others die of.

The fast majority of pet budgies die of a sudden heart attack. This is the result of gross overfeeding and lack of exercise. This type of mismanagement is prevalent amongst many well meaning but ill informed budgie carers.

The biology of a budgerigar is made up to cope with many miles of flying every day to waterholes and feeding places.
To expect this bird to live happily in a small cage is not reasonable. Letting it out for a wee fly around the room at night is good but not anywhere near enough.

The daily feeding of a good quality mixed budgie seed of no more than one teaspoon per day per bird and additional greens is plenty. This seed should be provided in a sprouted condition at least twice a week. Feeding a pot full for the whole week is out in a cage situation as they will scoff it all in a few days and go hungry for the rest of the week.

Finch type birds are a lot more suitable to live in a cage condition as they are constantly on the move hopping about.