My Budgie Flew Away and Its Devasting

frostman on 22/10/2025 - 21:14

I received a pair of budgies as a gift, they're around a few months old and can fly.
Loved these guys more than anything, every day I change their food, put them in partial sun, cover them at night in a quite room, place foraging grass and seeds at the bottom of the cage to make them feel home, give them a small bathing container of water, give them fresh organic spinach and lettuce, etc
Anyway, last week I placed some grass at the bottom of the cage and when I closed the cage, it had a little tab that you need to put force to fully close else it's open around 2cm high.

After a few hours I came to give them food and noticed one missing - devastating.
How will this baby survive on its own, food/water…spent the whole day wandering around the neighbourhood playing budgie sounds on a wireless speaker, placed notes on the neighbourhood trees. placed food and water at the front, no sign.
it's the 3rd day today, ive spend the last 3 days going around on my bike looking around, shattering

Pets

Comments

  • Xizor on 22/10/2025 - 21:35
    +1

    It's a life lesson. They happen. Similiar happened to me with a bird as a kid. Not much you can do but put notices up online, neighbourhood, and be prepared (net or whatever) to try and catch and if it comes around to visit it's friend. Mine did, but i could not quite catch him, saw him maybe once or twice but then never again.

    If it was properly tame you would have a decent chance of someone returning it. I recall some kind of parrot befriended my dad, it came inside he looked after it etc and found the owner looking for it online (need to be careful in verifying owners, lots of shady buggers out there).

  • MS Paint on 22/10/2025 - 21:57

    Decades ago I lost a pet mouse who escaped while I was cleaning his enclosure. I think about the little fella often. I also wonder what ever happened to the mouse.

    • Muppet Detector on 23/10/2025 - 00:14

      He's living in your pantry. No doubt, he's partnered up by now, had a few dozen kids and they're all happily living in there together.

    • jv on 23/10/2025 - 16:30
      +1

      Decades ago I lost a pet mouse who escaped

      …and became a Hollywood movie star…

  • El cheepo on 22/10/2025 - 21:58
    +6

    While they don’t tend to survive in the wild, day 3 isn’t quite game over yet.
    Personally I’d keep looking for another day or two.
    Odds are slim, but not zero!
    Keep trying and hope for the best

  • Far Cough on 22/10/2025 - 22:55
    +1

    I once had a pet baby chicken. It ate a snail, but we never noticed. It suffocated itself and died.
    I was devastated, however, I got over it

    • Muppet Detector on 23/10/2025 - 00:11

      When it died, what did you do with it?

      • Far Cough on 23/10/2025 - 00:37

        Mum said she buried in the backyard but I think she just threw it out

        • Muppet Detector on 23/10/2025 - 00:40
          +6

          At least she didn't cook it.

          My parents have farms. I had a pet cow out there (among others) when I was a kid called T-Bone.

          He didn't die of old age.

  • pegaxs on 22/10/2025 - 23:28
    +4

    Dude, I feel your pain… even though the wood ducks were not my pets, when their babies went missing from 8 and finally over a few weeks down to 5, I felt like I was losing my family members. It’s just the cycle of life. I am sure they are out there living their best life in the worlds biggest aviary, the outdoors!

    • El cheepo on 23/10/2025 - 02:27
      +1

      I remember watching some small birds build a nest bit by bit right next to my out door table under the veranda.

      I would literally be less than 2ms away and they just kept building it over a couple days.

      Then they lay two eggs and mum (presumably?) would mostly chill and be content with me nearby.

      If she left i use to check on them.

      Watched them hatch, get fed, grow.
      Unfortunately one fell and died while we were out, that was rough. But not as rough as coming home a couple weeks later to see a crow with the last baby (who was probably days out from flight) in its beak.

      I was gutted then and tbh, still gutted now years later.
      Natures savage.

  • Muppet Detector on 23/10/2025 - 00:04
    +3

    Best wishes OP.

    My heart literally goes out to you. It's always so terrible when you're worrying about your beloved pets, eh?

    You sounded like you were a great pet parent and you did and continue to do the very best that you can to look after the little fella.

    I'm not a bird person, but I do love my doggies, so completely feeling your pain with you.

  • bargaino on 23/10/2025 - 02:54
    +5

    Wait until you have children. They grow up, leave home, never call .

    I'm still at the "will they ever leave" stage, but one day …

    • pegaxs on 23/10/2025 - 07:50
      +6

      It’s funny with kids, you wish for all these milestones to happen and then when they do, you spend all your time lamenting it…

      I can’t wait till they start walking… turns into… why won’t they just sit down for 5 mins.
      I can’t wait till they start talking… turns into… why won’t they just be quiet for 5 mins.
      I can’t wait till they get their license… turns into… why are they never home/always taking the car
      I can’t wait till they finally move out… turns into… why do they never come and visit or call…

    • smartazz104 on 23/10/2025 - 11:11

      Maybe if you leave the front door ajar they might get curious…

  • morse on 23/10/2025 - 04:06
    +1

    It’s very easy for this to happen. Sorry this happened for you.

    Have you posted it on your local lost and found pets page or suburb group on Facebook? These groups are pretty useful. Also just the local community page and good old paper printed sign on power poles and local shopping centre notice board. People will often find and take budgies in as they know they’re not wild in most parts of Australia.

  • joka on 23/10/2025 - 06:34

    Probably taken for food by a predatory animal by now. It would have been a quick and painless end.

  • Spookware on 23/10/2025 - 07:57
    +1

    "spent the whole day wandering around the neighbourhood playing budgie sounds on a wireless speaker,"

    1800-come-on-now.

  • ozpat on 23/10/2025 - 08:13

    He might come back to the cage where his friend is. Keeping checking your yard.

    • GordonD on 23/10/2025 - 11:24
      +2

      Yeah. Great idea. Leave the cage door open too so it can get back in.

  • GordonD on 23/10/2025 - 11:47

    I feed the wild birds. So I surprisingly regularly get birds turn up that must have been escaped or lost pets. They're dirty. They're very hungry because they don't know how to feed themselves in the wild. They don't behave or react to alarm calls from the wild birds. Or they're a species that isn't naturally in this area.

    There was one story in the media that got me exasperated. It was some people who had a magpie come up to them in the street and make a lot of sound effects to them. They thought it was very entertaining. Didn't the idiots understand that it wasn't doing it to entertain them. It had been trained with food to make the sound effects, and it was hungry and was asking to be fed. A local seed and feed store has a corella like that. It came up to someone in the street and said "hello", so they took it to store because they though a seed store would know how to look after it, and its been there, in cage, saying "hello" to all the customers as they come in for 3 store owners in succession and 40 years. By her appearance she's probably 55-60, a lot more than she would have lived in the wild, which is at least some small compensation for living in a cage, never flying and never meeting another of your species.

    The lost pets who turn up at my place get fed. But I have no idea who to take them back to. Or whether they prefer life in the wild to life in a cage. Usually they either join the local wild birds, or disappear in a few days. I often wonder whether it because once they're well fed and strong they've found the way "home", or whether they haven't survived. No-one in the animal welfare field seems to be interested in finding a new home for a bird found in the wild, even if its clearly an ex-pet by its behaviour. They release them back into the wild.

    If you were a bird would you prefer the freedom of the wild, or the comfort and safety of a cage? Who knows? People who let them escape.

  • FezMonkey on 23/10/2025 - 11:48

    It might have left the cage but I'm not sure why you think it's outside the house?
    Could be behind/under a couch, etc.

  • c64 on 23/10/2025 - 13:41

    don't worry OP, your budgie lived his short time of freedom to its fullest. he got high on pollen, had a sex orgy with several other budgies, shat on numerous passersby from power lines, before being eaten by a cat

  • ihbh on 23/10/2025 - 13:49

    Do you also have a cat by any chance?

  • jv on 23/10/2025 - 16:26
    +2

    My Budgie Flew Away and Its Devasting

    Possibly budgie smugglers…

    • MS Paint on 23/10/2025 - 16:35
      +2

      Was expecting a link to Tony Abbott ☹️

      • jv on 23/10/2025 - 16:59
        +1

        I was avoiding being sin binned

        • MS Paint on 23/10/2025 - 17:17
          +2

          I'll take the bullet on your behalf

  • Mechz on 23/10/2025 - 17:58

    Good on it for escaping. Birds shouldn't be kept in cages or houses.

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