Those who want to offer ant eggs can buy them deep-frozen or collect them in nature - but only in small quantities! In many countries, ants are protected by law, many species are endangered. Never collect nymphs of those ants! In Germany, where I come from, it is for example forbidden to collect the nymphs of the European Red Wood Ant (Formica polyctena) since it's a rare and protected species. Inform yourself on which species' nymphs may be collected without breaking the law in your country!

Please only take a few nymphs with you, don't endanger the whole ant state by collecting too many of them! Most budgies eat only a few nymphs, so it is enough to collect about five eggs per bird if you own a small flock. Budgies don't really need ant nymphs in their daily diet, they are pure luxury. It would be irresponsible to eradicate an ant state for something that budgies don't really need to survive!

Some of my birds love to nibble greenflies (green aphids, see photo above and on the right). The preferred way of eating them is picking the tiny insects from my finger. During the warm season, one can find lots of greenflies, e.g. on roses and thistles. I have also tried to serve black aphids to my budgies but they didn't eat them. It is certainly a question of personal dislike or preference of each bird which sort of aphids it likes best, so it's always worth a try serving it different species.

Don't be surprised or nauseated if you find your bird eating a small spider or a flying insect. In their natural habitat budgies also eat insects once in a while. My budgie hen Rhea was very clever at catching spiders, daddy longlegs and craneflies. In addition, imprudent small flies also had to fear the skilful feathered huntress. Rhea even got spiders who were running on the ceiling, no insect could ever escape from her! I never have seen any other of my birds catching insects like Rhea did. With her passion for insects, Rhea apparently was a rare exception among budgies.

This chapter in Turkish on muhabbetkusu.org