Today we fuss over them and those which would normally have died in the wild, survive to perpetuate more problems. Much of our medical knowledge about bird diseases has been obtained from studies of poultry problems. In the budgerigar hobby we are remarkably ignorant, particularly concerning the area of budgerigar nutrition. I find it quite remarkable that when one consider the budgerigar has been in the United Kingdom since 1840 and there has been a Society in existence for the best part of this century that we still do not really know the correct nutritional requirements for this species. From the beak, the main tube down to the crop is called the oesophagus, the crop being the first holding region for any swallowed food or liquid.
Budgerigars do in fact have two stomachs of which the first part is known as the proventriculous.
The proventriculous of the budgerigar produces what is known as crop milk for use by the hen when rearing her young. Crop milk is not produced by the cock. When a cock bird is feeding young it is only processing semi digested seed. The gizzard, or muscular stomach in seed eaters, is a highly developed muscular organ, possessing a horny tough lining. Within this structure, the budgerigar retains a quantity of soluble and insoluble grits which grind up the undigested food for absorption later in the process.