Are you tired of hand feeding your baby budgies and thinking when they will start eating normal seed mix so you can provide the same seed mix to all your birds and get rid of this hectic schedule of hand feeding the babies? Let us discuss in detail what age baby budgies eat the seed.
What Age Do Baby Budgies Eat Seed?
Baby budgies are fed by their mother budgies or if the mother budgie is not feeding the babies then you will have to hand feed the babies. Normally baby budgies start eating seeds after 2 months.
What is the Best Time to Feed Budgies?
| Budgie’s Age | Feeding Time | Feed Form | Quantity |
| Neonatal to 1 Week | Every 30 Minutes | Liquid Viscosity: 10.25 cP (Similar to Milk viscosity) | 0.5 ml – 1 ml |
| 1 Week to 3 Week | Every 1 hour | Liquid Viscosity: 250 cPs (Similar to Castor Oil viscosity) | 2 ml – 3 ml |
| 3 Week to 5 Week | Every 1.5 hour | Liquid Viscosity: 2000 cPs (Similar to Honey viscosity) | 4 ml – 5ml |
| 5 Week to 7 Week | Every 2.5 hour | Liquid Viscosity: 2500 cPs (Similar to thicker Honey viscosity) | 5 ml – 6 ml |
| 8 Week | Every 3 hour | Liquid Viscosity: 10000 cPs (Similar to Chocolate Syrup viscosity) | 6 ml – 7ml |
The above chart will help you in making the feed for your baby budgies. You can follow the chart to understand the viscosity of baby budgie feed along with the quantity and time of feeding.
Please note that formula feed for baby budgies will be made in lukewarm water.
The quantity which is mentioned above is just an estimation therefore do remember to check the crop of the baby budgie. 1-day baby budgie crop is small and if you overfed the baby then its crop might explode which causes the sudden death of the baby bird.
This is the syringe with a set of different needles. These needles are to be used at different ages of the baby. The smallest needle is used for a 1-day baby.
How Do I Know if my Baby Budgie is Hungry?
Baby budgie screams out to their parents when they are hungry but in the case of hand feeding you need to determine when your baby budgie is hungry.
Handfed baby budgies become familiar to the owner and when they see their owner coming near them with a feeding syringe/feeding spoon, they start screaming. There are 2 methods to determine if a baby budgie is hungry.
- Baby budgies start screaming after looking at the syringe to signal that they are hungry.
- You can view the baby crop where feed has been stored before digestion. The crop is almost transparent in a baby budgie as there are no feathers on the bird. If you see that the crop has no feed then you can know that the baby is hungry.
One more thing to notice, while feeding the baby budgie you need to understand when to stop the feeding to avoid overfeeding. While feeding the baby you need to give a little break to the baby when the baby’s stomach is full then it will not scream even after seeing the syringe.
How Do You Teach a Baby Bird to Eat on its Own?
Teaching a baby birds is important as how they can eat feed on their own. With the years of experience that I got in working as an aviculturist, I can tell you how can you teach a baby bird to eat on its own and when is the right time to teach the baby.
The right time to teach the baby is after 1.5 months of hatching out of the egg when the baby budgie has started weaning. We recommend you serve millet spray to the baby budgie.
Before putting the millet spray in front of the baby budgie, you need to show the baby how to pluck and get the seed out of the stem so their learning process starts and they get to know how to pluck the seed out by themselves.
After showing the plucking process you need to reduce the quantity of their feed which you are providing them by your hand so they remain hungry and initiate to try plucking the seed by their self.
You should also put green leaves in front of them so that they keep trying to use their beak and learn to forge the food.
When the babies get to know what the seed looks like which they used to pluck out of the spray millet then you can serve the seed in a bowl. Baby will figure out that this is the same seed hence it will come to eat on its own. This whole process takes around 10 – 20 days.
Conclusion
Baby budgies start eating seeds after 2 months of age however you can start training the baby to eat seed after 1.5 months. Train your baby budgies with millet spray as we have mentioned above. If you have any other query related to hand feeding then you can contact us or comment below.
