This might not be the right place for this question

[Duer 157099]

or it might be exactly the right place, we'll see.

It's about my pet parakeet -- he has recently started "squeaking". To me it sounds like the typical distress noise, but he's doing it ALOT lately, and while he's doing normal stuff, like just standing there, or eating, or whatever. He's old, I don't even know how old exactly, but I'm going to say probably in the 7 year neighborhood (is that old for a budgie?)

Is this an age-related thing?

[semillama]

1. You could check here to begin

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budgerigar

But it sounds to me like it might be a social thing - the wiki entry does recommend not keeping just a single bird.

[Duer 157099]

2. Thanks -- I think it was a social thing

We used to have 2, but this one never really liked the other one, plus the other one died several years ago (coincidence? hmmmm...)

But, I think I solved the problem. When the weather turned cold, I had put one of those warm fuzzy things into his cage so he could snuggle up to it if he wanted to (he likes sleeping on top of one of those type things that hangs from the top of the cage -- it has an opening that they are supposed to go into, but he just likes standing on it, I guess to keep his toes warm). Anyway, I put one on the side of his cage to keep any drafts out, and I took it away a couple weeks ago, thinking that maybe it was distressing him. Turns out it was, apparently, since he has pretty much stopped the squeaking. Guess it was a distress sound after all. Poor baby, too bad it took me this long to figure it out!