Hi there, and thank you for adding me to your website. I had a baby budgie fall from the nest or be thrown out by the parents, I'm not sure, I took him inside and tried everything I had been advised, feeding egg & biscuit, failing that using a syringe etc to no avail, the bird ended up dying as it would not eat or drink at all. This bird was fully feathered and I think about 5 weeks plus old. Now this has happened with 2 other babies, from a different set of parents. What can I do?

When a fully feathered baby leaves the nest, it's likely it fledged rather than being thrown out by the parents. I'm not an expert on budgie breeding, but I'll do some checking and post some more info shortly.

The internet says that budgies typically fledge (leave the nest) at the age of 4 to 5 weeks, and that the parents (or maybe just the father) will continue to feed them for about a week while they learn to feed themselves.

My experience is with cockatiels, and it's very difficult to teach a fledged baby to handfeed. You need to start earlier than that for them to cooperate. This is probably true of budgies too. So the best thing you can do is to put the babies back in the breeding cage or aviary with the parents. Put millet spray and other easy to eat foods on the bottom of the cage and hanging in places that will be easy for the babies to reach; my cockatiel babies learn foraging-style eating MUCH faster than they learn to eat from a bowl. A shallow bowl of water in an easy to reach place will give them something to play in, and they'll learn to drink the water while they're going for a dip. Keep an eye on the situation to make sure that at least one parent is tending the babies. The babies will see the parents eating and will copy their behavior, so being with the parents will help them learn to feed themselves faster.

My cockatiel parents sometimes can't quite figure out what to do with a baby that's down on the floor, so I put the babies back in the nestbox once every few hours because I know the parents will definitely feed them there. Until they learn to stand on a perch without struggling for balance, I also put the babies back in the nest at night so they can sleep in comfort.

I hope this helps! Please let us know how it's going.

BTW it's normal for just-fledged babies to be pretty incompetent at first. They have a LOT to learn, but they learn it fast and will be much more skillful in a few days. They may spend a lot of time on the bottom of the cage/aviary at first because they're not good at standing on a perch and fall off a lot. If there's a grate down there, you can spread a few layers of newspaper on top of it to give the baby a solid surface to walk on. They know the wing-flapping part of flying, but steering and landing have to be learned so they're not good at flying to where they want to be.

They will handle "grown up" foods with their beak but they don't really know how to eat it at first. But they will figure it out if you give them the opportunity, and budgies do this very fast. Provide some leafy greens, this provides both nutrients and moisture. They learn to feed themselves in a week, but it takes a month for cockatiels.

With baby birds that have been brought to me,
I usually feed with a spoon, baby bird formula, along with soft foods... scrambled egg, porridge,
I also leave millet, seed, and a water dish low down so the birds can reach it...
If you give the bird formula on a spoon a few times a day, its wonderful how the baby birds come so quickly... its a bit like a top up for them..

Thank you so much, there has been an enormous improvement. I tried to put them back with the parents but they kept ending up on the ground and I was afraid of them being there all night. I put a spray of millet in with them, some egg and biscuit with a little water added, some seed, and some broccoli so they had some choices. I found later the egg and biscuit had been partly eaten and the broccoli was mostly gone also. They struggled over a long period of time to eat the seed but certainly had a go at it. This morning they seem happy, stretching, chirping and eating, so far, so good. I think the greatest thing I've learned here is as you said, it's very difficult to hand feed the bird at this stage.

Great, it's such a relief to hear that they're doing so well! If you have a scale that weighs in grams you could check their weight daily to make sure they're holding steady. But budgies learn to feed themselves so fast that this is probably not as big of an issue as it is with cockatiels.

Once a baby has fledged it won't stay in the nestbox for very long because Mother Nature is calling them to come out and explore the world. I put my tiel chicks back in the nest periodically to make sure mom and dad feed them once in a while, but they're usually back out again within an hour or so. After a while they're skilled and smart enough to go back in the nest all by themselves when they want to, which is cute. The nestbox stays up until the youngest baby can sleep on a perch at night and then it comes down.

It's possible that your parent budgies might start on a new clutch now that the current babies are fledging. So you may have to decide whether you're going to let them do it lol.

Soft nutritious foods like whole-grain breads and cooked sweet potatoes will be easy for them to eat. You could also offer sprouted or cooked seeds and grains, which are fairly easy for babies to eat. There's info on sprouting at http://www.littlefeatheredbuddies.com/i ... uting.html Corn (either cooked or raw) is a great baby food for cockatiels but I'm not sure whether budgie beaks can handle it.

Offer them a wide variety of healthy foods, including pellets which are probably too hard for them to actually eat right now but they'll figure it out eventually. This is the time of life when they're the most willing to try new foods, and it's usually much harder to teach an older bird to eat a healthy diet.

Now is the time to start them on all the healthy foods, I'd use fresh if you can...
Pulses, peas, beans, sprouting beans, chick peas, lentils, cooked potatoes sweet potatoes, fresh fruits... lettuce, celery.. etc... if you start now the birds wont be picky eater later on... a good variety of all stuffs...
My budgie loves crushed nuts...all types.. no salt.
Good luck

Update on the twins, they're doing just beautifully. They don't stop eating, I'm getting them out and they're quite friendly and perching on my shoulder, looking happy and healthy.