There are a few ways that parakeets will go about the process of drinking water, which will depend on how its environment is laid out and how they fell at the time.

They could either drink water from within the bowl that you would probably provide, by splashing the water outside the bowl and drinking from the puddles that are formed, or by perching up on the bowl and bending over to drink. In the earlier stages of their lives parakeets may even drink out of water bottles too.

As for how parakeets drink water, they will fill their bill up with water and then tilt their head back, allowing gravity to push the water down their throat to rehydrate them.

4 different Way Parakeets Drink Water

Although some may struggle to get their parakeets to start drinking water, once they are ready and able to do so, they will generally drink in 4 ways below.

1. From The Bowl

In the beginning you might struggle in making your parakeet drink from the bowl as the larger size may confuse the little parrot into thinking that the bowl is a make shift bath but, once they do get used to the bowl, your parakeet should be fairly comfortable drinking from it whenever they please.

Do keep in mind that it can take anywhere from a few hours to a full day until your parakeet adapts to comfortable drinking from the bowl so, a little patience may be required until your little feathered friend will start drinking from the bowl.

2. Water Puddles

Another way parakeets may drink water is by splashing the water from within their bowl outside which in turn will form little puddles. After making the puddles, a parakeet will simply swallow the water using the gravity method where the scoop some H2O up, pull their heads back and allow the water to make its way down.

This behaviour is more likely to occur in cleaner cages as let’s be honest,  who wants to drink water surrounded by their own faeces? Although it’s possible some parakeets would be willing, most I imagine would not be so open to it.

3. Perching

Parakeets will often perch on a bowl or other objects that pick up water like leaves, rocks that have sunken in areas and other objects through which they’ll drink by perching on said object or finding higher ground to perch and drink the below them.

4. Bottles

The most common apparatus that parakeets drink water from would be their specially designed water bottles. These are upside down bottles with a little slim sized bowl that contains a part of the bottles water.

Just like with the bowl, parakeets will require a bit of an adjustment period to adapt to these water bottles but, most should be able to use it within 5 -10 minutes. With that being said some may take a lot longer to become comfortable drinking use this equipment so, do expect most parakeets to generally be comfortable drinking from the bottle.

How Much Water Do Parakeets Drink?

Parakeets don’t drink a lot of water when compared to other birds like finches or parrots but, relative to their body size, I would say that they are consuming a fair amount.

In most cases parakeets will drink between 3 – 5% of their body weight, which is normally spread out in 2 – 3 drinking sessions a day. As parakeets tend to weigh between 30 – 40 grams, they will often drink around 1 – 3 ml of water per day.

Do make sure that the water is switched out regularly and the apparatus in use is cleaned often too, especially in the summer months, otherwise mold spores could start spreading and forming mold within the bottle, bowl, etc.

Summary

The drinking process is more or less the same for all birds where they will sip up the water whilst raising their head, allowing gravity to take effect making sure that the water is consumed effectively.

This is down to the fact birds like parakeets aren’t able to create a suction force which allows them to down water using their throat (unlike us or a number of  other animals) therefore, gravity is a necessary force in their process of drinking water or ingesting any other food source.

If the right equipment is given to them, parakeets will drink water in the way most other birds do, with the some devices being far easier to adapt to over others (water bottles over bowls with water for example).