An integral element of species-appropriate budgie keeping is to provide the animal
the opportunity of keeping social contacts virtually round the clock. That means spelled
out: a solitary bird must not ever be left alone, not even for 30 minutes when you got
to go get groceries, not to mention whole days 'cause there's a big family birthday party
for example.
In their Australian natural habitat budgies live in flocks of enormous size. Virtually
from the day of their hatching they are never alone, there are always many (hundreds
to thousands) fellow budgies around them. Because of this fact budgies evolved in the
course of time into very social beings who need permanent contact to other individuals
to stay mentally healthy. What disastrous results loneliness and boredom can yield for
a budgie's psyche is displayed by the many feather pickers amongst the budgies kept under
inappropriate circumstances.
As in fact no human can always be there for his/her solitary bird, not 24 hours on 365 days a year, the most important need of the birds is not even rudimentarily supplied. Therefore there is no way you can call solitary budgie keeping appropriate to the species. Only (at least) one fellow budgie can provide the permanent companionship, as the bird doesn't have to go to the barber's, to the bank or to work but is constantly there for its feathered friend.
Without any doubt the complex of topics concerning species-appropriate budgie keeping is by far not extensively explained with this. There are many more aspects which are touched in the different chapters of this whole website project.
German version of this text: Gaby Schulemann-Maier,
translation of this chapter: Tanni 
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