Here is a snapshot into my daily budgie routine and what it is like living with nine feathery fellows.

This is not a cleaning day this is an average day.




The pinging and whistling starts

[caption id="attachment_1374" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="blue boy says per ping"][/caption]

pings the bars and Sky Whistles until I uncover their cages.

I uncover all three cages, Budgingham Palace (Roswell, Jerry and Custard), The Summer Palace (Monty, Snowy, Lilek and Sky) and Balmoral (Hector and Blue-boy) open the curtains.

At this point Blue-boy and Hector will be preening eachother with Blue-boy intermittently running back and forth pinging the bars.  Roswell will start flinging himself about and doing acrobatics in anticipation to leave the cage, while Custard follows Roswell about and Jerry hops from perch to perch.  Sky will start harassing Snowy following him about and showing off to him. Lilek will be up on his shelf playing with his keys and waiting for me to scratch his head.

[caption id="attachment_1384" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="lilek likes his head scratches"][/caption]

Monty will probably be sitting on the cuttlefish preening.

I go to the kitchen, get the freshly washed soap-dishes and Green and Blue cat balls, I then put these onto the Balcony Door-Windows with a ball in each.

Release the hounds!

I open their cage doors one by one - placing the little hoop under Blue-boy and Hectors doorway and securing the cage door back.

Blue-boy flings himself out of the cage enthusiastically and flies to the top of the racks above Budgingham Palace, Hector follows immediately.

[caption id="attachment_1339" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="hector preening blue boy"][/caption]

I put my mask on and get the newspaper ready and fold it so that I can neatly tuck it under the tiles on the top of each cage, I also put a layer at the bottom of each cage.  Back to the kitchen to retrieve the freshly washed and dry seed pots, I fill them and put them on top of the Summer Palace.

As soon as I put their seed-pots down most of the budgies fly over and start stuffing their beaks with Trill.

[caption id="attachment_1362" align="alignnone" width="300" caption=" 9 birds eating"][/caption]

After cleaning and re-filling each water bottle, I clean any droppings from perches and shelves.

Their climbing frame will be situated on top of Budgingham Palace along with a few other sundry toys.

Time for our breakfast



I put the kettle on and make coffee and toast!



Lilek and Sky mob me and my husband for some of our food. Sometimes when we have finished we might let them have a few toast crumbs.

Lunchtime

In the afternoon around 12 I change their seed again and perhaps chop up some vegetables for them (today it will be baby corn and mange tout). The budgies always get their lunch before us!

[caption id="attachment_159" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="Throw vegetables everywhere"][/caption]

It's also possible that they will get a bath in the afternoon if the day is not too cold.

I take the vegetables away after a few hours to make sure they don't eat anything bad.  I also change the layer of paper underneath the plate in case any vegetables fell onto it - I can guarantee that they did because the budgies are very messy!

Change their seed again at 5-6pm for din dins, sometimes I'll change it again later on, they tend to eat more when it's colder out.

The day

We have the radio on for the birds for most of the day - thankfully we are not daytime TV watchers - no Jeremy Kyle or This Morning for us.  Monty tends to prefer a bit of Rock Music (Nirvana, Guns n Roses, Queen and Aerosmith are faves) so we have Kerrang on but if it gets a bit boring in the evenings when they play more obscure music we might switch to Heart or Heat.

Sometimes the budgies are so loud that we can't hear the music on the radio or each-other, we have a cordless phone so at least we can go to the bedroom to take or make phone calls.
9pm - time for budgie bed time to begin

Put the mask back on, get a bin bag, baby wipes and more newspaper (we make a special trip every week or so to get free newspapers!)

Remove the newspaper from the bottom and top of each cage - wipe down the bottom of the cage removing any feathers/dust - there will be no droppings because of the way that we place the newspaper in the cages.  place fresh newspaper on the bottom of the cages. Wipe down any bars that need it, remove, wash and replace any perches that are stained or have droppings on them.  Change the water again.

When all budgies are safely in their bunkers (believe it or not this task is a lot easier now that the buds have set groups that they bunk with, nine birds three cages 4,3 and 2 in each cage) I sweep the floor and remove any droppings with a baby-wipe.

I get the budgie bed-covers and a step ladder so that I can reach the two higher cages then place their covers on, all this time Blue-boy will be pinging the bars telling me he wants bed time NOW and Lilek will be beckoning me to come over and scratch his head.

When the covers are on (but not down) I turn the radio down (It'll be on LBC which is a talk radio station that is on 24 hours a day) and put the lamp on.

Then I'll go to the kitchen, shut the door and wash all seed pots, soap dishes and toys that they have played with that day and put them on tissues to dry.

I go to each cage and tell the budgies it's time for budgie bed time and put their cover down - usually Blue-boy and Hector first as they are the most keen to be covered.  Then Monty and his gang, pausing to give Lilek a head-scratch and making sure Monty is on a comfortable high-perch or he'll climb around the cage when I pull the cover down.

When I get to Roswell, Jerry and Custard we have to make sure that the nightly dispute over Custard Corner is settled.  We created a little girly corner for Custard with colourful mirror, perch and olympic rings and they all seem to want to sleep in it so usually we have to make sure they don't fight over who does!

[caption id="attachment_1350" align="alignnone" width="286" caption=" custards corner"][/caption]

Night night budgies, budgie bed time, bed time for budgies

Now that they are covered up we can hear them grinding their beaks and settling down to sleep re-energising ready for it to start all over again tomorrow..

What is your day like?