christine

So sorry for your loss - he seemed lovely.

Ah!! I consider myself educated. As I said the markings on the wings and throat spots look chocolate brown to me in real life, but the cheek spots are blue so I must be deluding myself. Ah well, I still like her.

Thanks Libby - I know that in these photos the blue hen looks normal, but the patches and wings seem a lot more brown in real life. But given that her body colour is so dark does that preclude a cinnamon?

Here are my latest additions to my flock. One adult and two babies. Advice on gender and mutations gratefully accepted. Anne and Arbellla: Anne is the blue cinnamon and Arbella is a (??) Yellow faced blue spangle (???) Essex is beautiful - he (I think) is white except that his body is the palest of mauve. Excuse my ignorance but I don't know what type of budgie he is. I am delighted!!!

Oh! She looks like she is sucking her thumb!! All the best MB - babies are great!!

Ah!! My mistake!!

I am curious about your advice, Kaz. I have an aviary that is D 90cm x W 180 cm and H 180cm and was told this was only suitable for 6 to 8 budgies. Is there some sort of minimum size before you can go past this number of budgies?

So sorry for your loss. I lost two birds to our cats. I know the feeling of kicking myself; it is so easy to make mistakes. I really feel for you.

Welcome!! You're pictures are lovely, as are your birds.

Thanks for the advice Kaz. George has been throwing out all of the millet to get to the hulled oats, so I have moved to a big open plate that they can nibble from. I saw a similar arrangement in a thread here which looked good. I've also now added a couple of native seedlings for them to nibble on.

Here are the pictures. The aviary itself (sorry about the blurring) Some interior shots And a closer shot of the boys. George is up the back next to Fred (both courtesy of melbournebudgie) with Harry, the YF Blue and Ron, the voilet spangle. (Ithink I have my mutations correct)

Great - I was only after 8 altogether, so it looks like I'll have room. Daz, are you implying that I need to supply 8 perches with 8 birds in the aviary?

I finally have my aviary. It is much more humble than many I have seen on this site, but it is heaven for my four budgies and I think there is enough room for a few more. I'll post pictures later today, but the brief description is that it is 2.4 x 0.9, but 0.65 of the length is a bird lock. It is up on the decking, so I have put in a wood floor on top of the decking. To prevent needing to mop that too often I have a piece of weed matting that I put on the bottom of the cage to catch the seed and poos. I have several of these so that I can swap them around from time to time. Anyway, if the wood doesn't work I'll move to pavers, or move to the garden and put in concrete. There are several places in the garden that the aviary will fit. In addition to branches for perches I am also growing vegies in a pot for the budgies - at the moment it is spinach, silver beet and capsicum, the leaves of which they all love to munch on. I also put in native branches from time time - callistamen, eucalyptus, grevillia, wattle. Being on the decking it is generally a few degrees cooler than outside - mainly because of the elevation. It is about 3 metres off the ground. Anyway - with 0.9 x 1.75 m how many birds do you think?

I'm deeply impressed!

Can anyone give advice on ways they helped their aviary birds survive the heat. I am just thinking of moving mine to an outdoor aviary, and with the Bureau of Met predicting this as an increasing trend rather than exception I am interested to hear of possible solutions. Ideas that spring to mind are putting one of those little fountains in the aviary for fresh running water, or perhaps insulating the covered section - anyone got experience with this? Chrisg