Hagen Living World Budgie Buddy, Interactive Parakeet Toy, 81695

We purchased this bird for our two little budgies. Of course, at first, they were scared to death of it and stayed as far away from it as they could. After a couple days they ventured over to sit by it and look it over. Now, they both will sit very close to it and be a little flock together. If one budgie needs comforting and seems to be having a tiff with the other he will go sit up close to the plastic bird. The bird comes with a battery and switch in the ballast hanging below it. The budgies are interested when the switch is on and motion causes the bird to 'sing'. Only a little bit of movement will cause it to trill so we mainly keep it switched off. It does not sound like a budgie, but it's a little trill that isn't too bad to hear for awhile. This plastic bird is very well made and painted beautifully. In fact, it's an exact duplicate of one of our budgies! It would be ideal for a single bird to have as a friend and comfort companion.

We adopted two baby parakeets about 6-1/2 years ago and they've been best buddies ever since. Lemon, the yellow one, passed away about a month ago. Gabriel, the blue one, missed him so much - searching the aviary cage for him, not singing, losing weight. I was really worried. I purchased this singing parakeet in an attempt to help him through his grief. Guess what? It's working! We even recieved a yellow/green one that looks enough like Lem to startle us. The head is oversized and the song box hangs below as a counter balance, but I'm so satisfied. As others point out, the singing doesn't sound exactly like a real bird, but it is close enough that Gabe is satisfied. There is an on-off switch, which is very handy. I've had guests over that thought it was a real parakeet. Gabe is gaining weight, sits next to "Rob" (short for Robo-bird), and sings along with him. He even smacks him in the head every now and then, just like real bothers. :-)

APPEARANCE:From the neck down, it is a good representative of a parakeet. However, the eyes on this thing are HUGE making the whole thing look like a Japanese comic book character. We named it "Samurai". It will fit on a variety of perch diameters since the bottom containing the batteries, speaker and on/off switch act as a ballast to keep him upright.DAY1: My parakeet (Mr. Peepers) was scared to death of it! Who wouldn't be with those giant eyes looking at you. Mr. Peepers huddled in a corner.I thought about removing it, but gave it another day.DAY2: Mr. Peepers would scoot, scoot, scoot along the perch, give Samurai a peck on the head and scoot, scoot, scoot back to the safety of his mirror. This went on all day.DAY3: I finally turned the "chirping" on. This did not amuse Mr. Peepers. Samurai chirps at the slightest movement. If you walk by the cage, off he goes. At first, the sound did not annoy me as others have indicated, but by the end of the day it was getting on my last nerve and I turned it off. Samurai was chirping constantly!DAY4: Samurai sits quietly while Mr. Peepers tentatively tries to get a response from him. Mr. Peepers does not think this is a particularly friendly companion.DAY5: Samurai is forever ignored.

Think its a great idea and was hoping the product kept my budgie company after losing his forever friend recently. Sadly, my budgie was not feeling it. Was more scared than anything else. I have taken out of the cage and try to interact with the bird more. You may not get the advertised (green) color - mine came blue and there was no option to select otherwise. In addition, the fake bird looks kinda/sorta disformed in the face (maybe that is why my bird is suspect?) and makes a unnatural 3rd machine gun tweet. You'll need a smaller perch to slide the device through. All in all, its really depends on the bird and like anything will either like or not. It's a 50/50 shot.

The media could not be loaded. We bought this for our parakeet because she has not been as active since we lost our other parakeet. We placed this in the cage and for the first couple of days she wasn’t sure about it. In her own time she kept getting closer and closer. Now they are the best of friends and often sit together and chirp to each other. The sound is a little mechanical however our parakeet doesn’t seem to notice. This was a great solution for company for your parakeet.***It does come with batteries and it ready for set up out of the package. Very easy to install. The ring fits on a regular sized perch. We had the large braided type perches and the ring on the bottom of the bird was too small so we bought a live branch forked perch and it worked perfect.

I guess should have taken a moment to read Lucy's review above. One star is generous. I apparently just wasted my money on this worthless piece of crap. I initially thought maybe I just got a bird toy with a jacked up sound mechanism. After I read Lucy's review, I see it's more likely just a cheap plastic toy with a poor design that doesn't perform as advertised. It did its peeping thing a couple of times, but I pretty much had shake the crap out of it to make it peep. And, now I can't get it to peep at all. And if I can't get it to make the sound, my parakeet darn sure won't be able to. The sound is pretty much the only reason I bought it. I could have saved a few bucks if I was looking for a fake parakeet bird toy that just sat there. DON'T WASTE YOUR MONEY ON THIS WORTHLESS GARBAGE.[Oh, wait... I just discovered the secret to getting it to work. You turn it off, turn it completely upside down, then rotate it back to right-side up, and turn it back on. If you do this, it will peep exactly ONE time before you have to do all of that again. It's all very simple. My parakeet will surely master this skill in no time (insert sarcastic tone).]