In normal times, budgies should not have an offensive odor or any odor. However, sometimes you may find your budgie and its cage that smell bad. A bad smell can have many reasons that you haven’t thought of yet.
Remember that budgies always clean themselves and stay clean. But keep in mind that even for a healthy budgerigar, bad odors can occur from time to time, and you need to check the causes of the bad smell.
Dirty Cage
A dirty cage is the most common and alarming reason for bad smell in budgies world. When a budgie owner encounters any foul odor, she should first suspect the hygiene of the budgie cage.
A budgie cage can accumulate over time small particles that are small and smell bad that the human eye cannot easily catch. It would be good to keep in mind that it will take more than a wet cleaning cloth to prevent these small particles.
A typical budgie cage has parts that can dismantle to clean the cage bottom. Even these parts can accumulate some foul-smelling substances.
Even if you clean the bottom of the budgie’s cage and wipe the cage wires, bad odors may continue to spread due to small substances that emit a bad odor.
Poor Body Hygiene
Poor body hygiene is a common cause of bad odor that is directly caused by the budgie body. Body parts of budgie such as feathers and skin may smell bad.
Budgies may have dirty body skin and feathers that are caused by many reasons, including a lack of cleansing instinct and fluid.
A budgie owner should check and understand the reason for the bad smell of the body and feather to prevent the nasty smell of the budgie.
For example, poop that accumulates in the vent area of budgies often smells bad. This situation is underestimated when it comes to bad smelling. But, a dirty vent area of a budgie can make the entire room smell bad.
In addition, budgie feathers can pick up bad odors from the environment, including cigarettes and cooking. In this case, the feathers of the budgies can carry these scents for a while.
Keep in mind that a regular budgie bath can keep the dirty vent area clean.
Food and Diet Changes
Any change in food and diet can cause your budgie to smell unpleasant. We call it unpleasant odors because not everybody likes the same odors as other people.
Budgies may smell like they’ve eaten recently. This can be a problem for some people. For example, if your budgie eats broccoli, his breath will smell like broccoli. If you somehow like broccoli-like scents, this will be fine for you. If you don’t like the smell of broccoli, you have an issue.
Sickness
Sickness conditions are another cause of the bad odor. Besides, a sick bird can have bad-smelling breath and poop that emits an extremely foul odor.
Many times crop infections (sour crop), infections in the mouth and throat, and excessive population of candida can cause bad breath in budgies.
A sick budgie may also have extremely foul-smelling poop. In addition, in cases such as diarrhea, the smell of poop may be even more severe.
In such cases, the best thing to do is to go to a veterinarian as soon as possible.
Hormonal Cycles
Hormones control everything in the budgie’s body. A diet change only may cause a slight change in hormonal activities. But, when it comes to mating seasons, all hormonal activities increase.
During the mating seasons, your budgie may have a different and unpleasant body and poop scent. This is a normal situation.
Keep in mind that the hormonal activities of budgies will increase when a rainy and warm season is just entered.
Rotten Food
Rotten foods are one of the underestimated reasons for bad smelling in budgie cages.
We love to give our budgies new kinds of vegetables and fruits, and seeds. Also, we often allow the food we give them to be fresh.
After the budgies fill their bellies with fresh foods, they ignore the leftover pieces of fruit and vegetables. All leftover vegetable and fruit scraps rot and begin to smell bad over time.
Rotten fruit and vegetable residues can also accumulate over time and cause more odor.
Excessive Pooping
Budgies poop all the time. We cannot stop them from pooping. But, sometimes budgies begin to poop excessively.
Excessive pooping causes a sudden and sharp poop odor. This may be caused by hormonal changes, excessive food intake, and sickness.
Humid and Warm Environment
A humid and warm environment can cause a bad smell, and also causes the existing bad odor to become more effective and increase.
A budgie cage shouldn’t stay under sunlight or in a humid and warm environment for a long time.
A humid environment lets bacteria easy to increase their population. The bad odor caused by bacteria increases as the population increase in any environment.
