As budgies in the wild live in flocks they have a need for social activities. This means that even if you are home most of the time and are able to give your budgie regular time out of its cage with you, you would be better to get another budgie for companionship (or
two or three…it can be hard to stop with just one).

I strongly recommend you do not keep one budgie on its own. It is now known that budgies can die of loneliness. Budgies in the wild, live in flocks and are very sociable creatures. If you take a young budgie who has always had other budgie companions away from them and put it into an environment where it will never see or hear another budgie, it can have a detrimental effect on its health. Every bird is different and some can cope with this loneliness better than others. However In approx. 40% of cases, this shock to their system can result in their body functions shutting down. They go into a depressed state where they do not eat or drink and are sleeping constantly. They can die literally over night or in some cases over a period of weeks or months.

It is usually best if keeping two budgies together to keep a male and a female or two males. (Two females may quarrel ). Keeping a male and female together is fine, as even if you do not want to breed them, as long as you do not put a nesting box in their cage they will not breed. On very rare occasions they may mate and the female may lay some eggs but as long as there is no nest box the female will not be able to incubate the eggs. If you just remove the eggs from the cage the budgies will eventually stop mating.