My boy, should he have a bird friend?

[McChirpy]

I need opinions on keeping my male budgie as a solo budgie,or adding another. I do know all about quarantining, preparing to keep them in separate cages if they do not get along, those type of things.

I bought him 3 days ago and he is just pure joy. He ate, perched and chirped within an hour or so and seemed unusually relaxed, to the point of me wondering if something wrong was him. I think he's fine, just an exceptionally friendly bird. He took well to the new cage change yesterday, but he is still semi afraid of my hand. I think he now realizes it is not in there to chase him or grab, but if I get tooo close, he will jump off his perch and sit at the bottom of the cage until I'm done, doing whatever it is I had to do. Returns to his perch and looks relaxed again. He bats his eyes and chatters when he is relaxing. He chirps when I leave the room. He chirps until I pay attention to him, but then when I look away at the tv or my computer screen, he gives me 5-15 minutes and chirps at me again,untilI pay attention. He sleeps just fine in the dark, but because I switched him to a larger cage, and he was higher up, I put a small night light over his cage so he could see where he was moving and not fall down.
He loves to chew his perch, preen and take baths in his water dish. He seems so gentle and friendly. But today he seemed sad.. and I thought maybe he misses birds, so I turned on the budgies on youtube, and he saw and heard them, perked right up and chirped, ate, explored his new cage in its entirety and tried to get out and onto my computer table. When I shut it off,he was fine,he relaxed and napped. I did this on and off throughout the day.

This evening he put his head in his back and just chattered.It is SO cute. Then he screeched, and chatted. I don't know if he was yelling at himself or what... he's just fine, chatting at me, and now eating.

I don't want to ruin what I have with him, adding another. But I read its cruel to keep them solo. Is it enough to continue to keep himalone,work on hand taming, letting him out to be with me and just let youtube play the budgies, or will he really need his own kind with him to be truly happy?

 

[finchly]

This is always such a struggle. A lot of it depends on how much time you can give him. If he’s gonna be your best bud, you/he may not want another.

I can tell you this. I got an English budgie for my English budgie, and she HATES him.

And I have a couple birds that are happier without a friend, and in fact because they were hand raised, they think they are humans, not birds!

And I have the other 90% of the flock that worked out just fine and are bonded, so they have someone that speaks their language, they don’t ‘need’ me so much, and they’ve got a playmate.

 

[McChirpy]

This is always such a struggle. A lot of it depends on how much time you can give him. If he’s gonna be your best bud, you/he may not want another.

I can tell you this. I got an English budgie for my English budgie, and she HATES him.

And I have a couple birds that are happier without a friend, and in fact because they were hand raised, they think they are humans, not birds!

And I have the other 90% of the flock that worked out just fine and are bonded, so they have someone that speaks their language, they don’t ‘need’ me so much, and they’ve got a playmate.

I definitely have the time for him, even pre covid 19, so its not as though this pandemic is the only reason. I just don't want him to miss out on what he may need. I guess I should just give it more time and decide. Thanks so much for sharing. I read that males tend to get along better than females.. so if this was a girl I probably wouldn't be so concerned.

 

[annafauna]

Considering this is a new bird pal for you, I would say wait and see. I've never had a lone budgie, and I can really see the benefit to having only one and being able to tame and bond with it *before* you get a second. There's no reason to rush into getting a second, especially with the required quarantine time. You'll just be splitting your attention between two lone birds for a month instead of being able to focus on your current boy. And the more you bond with and train your budgie, the more that will rub off on a second bird, should you get one. Let your guy settle in and get to really know him before you jump into anything more.