bourkes pet quality??

[whitewing]

I have bird experience. But I am still living in an apartment and don't think it would be right to have a loud species like a Lory or Caique (which is what i have been wanting).

I think I want a Bourkes.

Are Bourkes as loud as budgies? Louder, quieter? PLEASE TELL ME!

Are only the males pink?

Are they terrible as pets? I know they are ideally aviary birds but people do keep them as pets.

Bourkes owners, please post here.

[Jessie Skiffen]

Bourkes are very quiet. They do have a little "song" but are not laud. They come in many colors besides normal. Sex has nothing to do with color. Do a search on them, I'm sure you will come up with some pictures.
Jessie

[Jessie Skiffen]

I forgot to say that a handfed bourke makes a great pet. Even a parent raised is easy to handle and tame.
Jessie

[huntress]

Oh when Bourkes fly they sing a bit like a canary chirp. Its soooooo pretty and they are VERY quiet. Scarlet Chesteds are even Quieter. I raise both and the only time I here them is when they fly - -LOL they probably get drowned out by all the p'lets!!!

[buddabelly]

I love my Bourkes, quiet pretty song and never seem to shout like all of the others do.. Mine are messy though, they seem to scatter more food than the Redrumps or the Budgies. One of todays projects is to screen the feed areas in the hope of reducing the waste and mess. Beautiful and sweet little critters though.

[huntress]

On my grass keets - since they naturally like to scratch around like chickens on the ground- I took the floor grates out of my flights and change the papers more. I put food in a flat tray in the middle of the floor making sure not to place favorite perches directly above. When I feed this way I also scatter a little fresh hay on top of the feed so they have to work in and around it. They also chew the hay. This is way more natural for them, they seem to like it and since the food is on the floor in the middle they make way less mess too. Its just a benefit I discovered while trying to create a more natural foraging expirience for them

[whitewing]

The thing is, I was lead to believe that having a single bourkes was just like having a single budgie. How true or unture is this?????

I really appreciate all the responses especially huntress. Very helpful. Except I do not plan on an aviary of any kind, nor do I plan to breed. I was planning on keeping the Bourkes the same way you would keep a single budgie. As a pet. Is this realistic? Please tell me.

With such a small bird I am not truly worried about noise so I don't even know why I asked that....I just want a PET bird.

If I were to get a Bourkes, it would be just one.

I'm just trying to find out if I'm crazy for considering a Bourkes as strictly a PET. Is this an aviary bird that I should leave alone? I just want more honest answers .....

[Jessie Skiffen]

I know of people who have a single budgie. Is there supposed to be something wrong with that? I don't see anything wrong with having a single bird. The thing is---most people can't stop at one.
Jessie

[huntress]

There is nothing wrong with a single Bourkes. And I just got strarted with my own pairs over and above my Parrotlets. My intentions are to rasie Highly handled and Socialized singles for just that - single pets. From what Ive seen they are so mellow you could most probably keep a pair real tame too if you wanted. Your not crazy to get ONE as a pet. I would like to see them become more popular as quiet bird pets!
Here is my Rosey pair

And here is my Scarlet Chested pair, the female was hand raised and is a nice little bird

she is the muted one one the swing.

[Syaoransbear]

I have a Bourke's parakeet, just one, and he's the most adorable thing in the world. I love his tweets, they are so quiet. He started imitating my cockatiels, but his version of a cockatiel call is so quiet and gentle that it sounds really pretty instead of annoying. If my Bourke's parakeet tweeted all day I wouldn't mind at all, I just love it. My Bourke's parakeet is fairly tame. He likes shoulder's and he'll fly/jump onto your hand. He usually flies off onto the floor though after a while because he loves zooming around on the carpet.

He's kind of uninteresting in the cage. He sits in one spot pretty much all day and I hardly see him groom. But when I talk to him he gets all excited and chirps and hops onto all of the perches and eventually falls off one of them. It's so cute, although I had to take the grates out of the cage. He broke off most of his tail feathers falling off the perches

Bourke's are awesome pets. What I like even more about my bourke's parakeet is that my black capped conure absolutely loves him. My conure is very aggressive towards all the other birds, so it's really cute that he's teamed up with my most passive bird.









A single bourke makes a great pet. I absolutely adore mine. They are so pretty, too!