SunshineE

I was just wondering: can the chick get all the nutrients and minerals etc. it needs from it's dad or should I be giving Wonka supplements so that the get passed onto the chick? I've never had this situation before but I don't know if cocks provide the same sort of food as hens and I would hate to see the chick undernourished. I would foster it out but none of our other nests have chicks the same age, in fact we only have two left in the last box with chicks in it and they're about to come out.

He seems to be doing fine at both feeding and keeping warm. I guess he learned how to take care of chicks from his mum raising him in the bottom corner of the cage. Anyway, the chick seems to be fine and fed and warm each time I check and Wonka seems to spend most of his time in the nesting box when he's not eating.

Thank you so much, he appears to be doing fine so far and has been feeding the chick well over the past few hours, so I think you're right and he should be fine

One of my hens died today and has left behind one chick. As soon as I realised she was sick I put her into a separate cage with her partner and chick, as it only seemed like a minor illness at the time and her partner had been feeding the chick anyway. She died this afternoon and left Wonka and their chick behind. Wonka had been the one feeding both of them for the past day as she hadn't entered the nesting box for the past day. He seems to have managed raising the chick mostly on his own so far (she was never a great mother) but I don't know if he will continue to raise the chick on his own. The chick is eight days old and appears to be developing normally. Has anyone else had this happen before while the chick is so young? Will Wonka be capable of raising the chick on his own? I have no problem hand raising the chick, but I think it is always better for them in the long run if they are raised naturally. If it is best that we hand raise the chick please tell me. I will be checking often to make sure the chick is being fed, but if it isn't I will hand-raise it. If it is being fed properly should I just leave the rearing to Wonka?

Thanks all for the help. I put Boof back into the aviary this morning as he had looked fine for a week and seemed very anxious to get back to his friends. Hopefully he will be okay but I will keep an eye on him for a while to make sure he is completely fine.

I'm glad to know that other people think in a similar way. I would have done anything for Sunshine. I do know however that some people cannot accept the responsibility sometimes and cause unjustifiable suffering for animals sometimes. Our friend rescued fifteen adult budgies last year which ad just ben left by their owners who moved house. There were eight clutches in the aviary and four of the females were dead on the floor, the only source of food for their neglected flock mates, horrible I know. One of these rescued budgies also had a severe hernia, but died before we could treat her, so it is just a matter of care and attention in 99% of cases.

I can't remember exactly how much it cost, but I think it was around $220. The Stop-gap surgery would have been cheaper, and for a show breeder the best option is probably to euthanise, especially if the problem is like Sunshine's and the bid ends up needing a hysterectomy and is unable to continue breeding. However the option you choose depends on the relationship you have with your bird. I know this sounds cruel, but if it had been one of our later birds we probably would have euthanised them, but Sunshine was my original bird and we were very closely bonded, so it just depends on how you feel about the specific bird.

We have found that it is an easier, longer-lasting and more effective way of cooling our birds to hang a wet towel over one end of the aviary/cage so that any breeze blowing through the cloth or towel is cool for the budgies.

Just adding some more recent photos (and babies!) This is Boof with his partner These are the two most recent babies to come out: This is Star, currently in quarantine: These are the most recent photos (I'll put some more recent ones on soon) I have of our two young opaline chicks. The first is a normal cobalt opaline and the second is a skyblue opaline spangle:

Hi All, I have just been reading several topics hoping to find a way to comfort my dying budgie, and in the process I have come across several mentions of hernias and abdominal lumps in hens. The reason I was looking at these topics because my bird has what seems like a fatty tumor on her breast, but back to the subject! My favourite girl, Sunshine died two years ago. She was diagnosed with a hernia by Dr Tim Oldfield. Sunshine had what appeared to be a bulging sac just in front of her vent. The skin of Sunshine's hernia 'bulge' appeared to be yellowish, but it doesn't have to be yellow to be a hernia. She developed her hernia during the breeding season and at first I didn't notice it. I became very worried about her when she started not being able to fly properly, which, when half your insides are in a different place to usual, is quite understandable. We took her to Dr Oldfield and he was very honnest about her chances of surviving the surgery required to fix the hernia. He told me that because budgies are so small and have such a small volume of blood circulating in their system that she might not survive the surgery because it was such a large scale operation for her to have. She survived the operation (his first of the kind on a budgie) which involved a subsequent historectomy because her ovaries had become inflamed and caused the hernia to occur. Sunshine died a week after the operation. I don't know why and I have never been able to convince myself that I didn't look after her properly after the operation. For anyone who needs a description of a hernia: - A large, soft, squishy bulge just in front of the vent area - In severe cases, an inability to fly (reasons mentioned above) - If the hernia is caused by inflamed ovaries, a hen will not lay any eggs I do not have any photos of Sunshine's hernia, which I regret as they could have been incalculably helpful to anyone who suspects one. I was more worried about Sunshine than taking pictures of what she looked like. If a budgie has a hernia, there are basically four options: 1. Leave it: DO NOT IMPOSE THIS ON YOUR BUDGIE! Every living creature has a right to a safe, painless life, leaving a hernia untreated would result in a painful and drawn out death. 2. Euthanasia: This is sometimes the best option for an older bird or a bird with a long history of medical problems, personally, I would never have done this to Sunshine because I believe that she should have had the chance to every other curative measure and only if they had failed would I have euthanised her. 3. "Shortcut/Buy-some-time Surgery": This involves pushing all the organs back inside the budgie, sewing up and removing the excess skin. THIS IS NOT A CURE. This option will result in future hernias because the skin will just stretch again as the abdominal muscles still cannot hold it all in. This will buy a budgie some more time, but will not fix the problem and they will have to continue to live with the disabilities associated with it as long as they survive. 4. Full Curative Surgery: This involves replacing all the organs back in their correct positions and putting a small mesh in the place of the abdominal muscles to hold it all in place. Depending on the cause of the hernia it may involve aditional procedures during the surgery. This is the option I took for Sunshine because everything has the right to their best chance and I wouldn't have been able to bear watching her die slowly and painfully. I hope this is helpful to people. If anyone suspects that a budgie has a hernia I am happy to look at photos, however, I am by no means a vet and can only give my opinion from my experience so you should always consult a vet if you suspect something is wrong.

These are some of my cinnamons: This is our most recent baby and doesn't have a name as of yet. She is a cinnamon opaline hen: This is Star, she is a cinnamon spangle: This is Boof, my light green cinnamon boy with his partner Alouishious, a cinnamon hen (not sure of other mutations)

Sorry about the pictures, the colours are a little bit out, but not much, Star's markings may look grey in the photos, but they are definitely brownish, but the other photos are all accurate, it's just that star is still in quarantine and it's been hot lately so we made a "wet-air-conditioner" for them and the cloth made the light strangely coloured.

Finally! Here are some photos of our babies currently. These two are from the same clutch and the yellow one is the one I think is a cinnamon spangle. The other purpleish one might??? be an opaline. The colour has come into her wings, but I don't know much more than that. Advice on mutations would be appreciated. These two babies are from our other current clutch. Could they be opaline as well. I could tell what colour they are going to be before they even started to get body feathers because instead of white and black wings they have black and coloured (blue) wings. Also, just to clarify, this is my budgie Star. Is she a cinnamon spangle?

That's good to know because I wasn't entirely sure what was happening or whether I had it completely wrong.

i have another cinnamon spangle and the markings are visible much more clearly on that one than on the baby where you actually have to squint and look really closely to make out any markings at all. I don't know if this means that the baby is a clearwing, but in comparison to my other one it seems an explanation? We haven't had babies from this pair before though so I'm not sure. I can't upload pictures until the computer works itself out after the power went out, but if you could give me your opinion whn i do post photos it would be much appreciated!

okay. Update. The white baby is a cinnamon single factor violet sky blue with BRIGHT violet cheek feathers. She is going to be an absolute stunner. The yellow baby is a clearwing cinnamon spangle and also has violet cheek feathers, although not as bright as the other one. They are both absolutely gorgeous and I will try and get photos soon.

Yes, She was a bit of a savage budgie though. She murdered two other hens even out of the breeding season! She was absolutely stunning though. She was one of the first clutch to hatch on the floor! Didn't seem to do her any harm!

Yes, both of them survived. They hatched the day before my birthday and were absolutely tiny. They were about the size of my fingernail. There obviously wasn't much room for them in the egg and Wonka's spine is twisted but this hasn't affected his breeding ability. We gave his twin Columbus to a neighbour. This is Columbus after being introduced to to aviary: These are the three chicks from that clutch. Wonka is in the foreground and Columbus is hiding behind their sister, a cinnamon girl. You can see from this photo that we did have a nesting box in there but that the parents weren't interested and the chicks were reared on the cage floor. There is a picture of Wonka on my Flock topic, it illustrates his "severe scolliosis" (as we call it!) quite well and shows how well he has adapted: http://forums.budgiebreeders.asn.au/index....showtopic=27592

Could male's cere turning brown be a product of shock? We had a beautiful boy last year whose cere turned brown just like you described. It happened overnight. There was aparently a cat terrifying them late that night but Dad went outside and sent it packing. He said it had been clinging to the wire and I wondered if Smudge (the brown-cered boy) could have been so shocked that it caused his cere to change colour? I mistook him for one of our females with the same colouring at first but then realised that his cere had changed colour. Anyway, this is just a posibility, if anyone has an opinion of whether or not it could be the result of shock it might help. The only reason I say it is because it happened overnight, ie: bright blue in the evening and completely brown at six the next morning).

Thanks all. I don't think he's sick because I only noticed it this morning when I went out and he was fine yesterday. I think I heard some fighting before I went out so he might have been fighting and then got his foot caught.Mine also go down and nibble your feet when you're in the aviary, he's usually one of the ones to do that, but no one has stepped on him. I just checked on him and he looked fine, just not perching on that leg.Oops, I forgot to say: He doesn't have a poopy vent, that was the first thing i checked for because some of our budgies have had a mysterious disease and just died from it really fast, but they always seem really woozy first with a poopy vent. I was so relieve when he was clean, he's one of our most beautiful boys.As i said, he seemed fine when i checked on him just then, he had perched so he could sort of lean on the side of the cage while holding his foot up.

If fake eggs don't work you can always take one of the smashed eggs, clean it out and fill it up with mustard then put it back in the box. We have fixed several egg eaters like this an they have turned out to be the best parents we have.

I'm not sure what your budgies are like, but our first nesting pair hated the nesting box we put in their cage and never went near it. Spots just chewed up the newspaper in one of the bottom corners of the cage and laid her eggs there. She raised them quite successfully, one of the clutches she raised on the cage floor even produced a set of twins. Here are some pictures of her first clutch. We still have Pippin from this clutch. Sorry about the quality. Anyway. I wouldn't worry about them not liking the nesting boxes. Most likely they'll get over it, but if they do start laying on the bottom of the cage, don't change the age orientation as this disturbs them so much they will probably abandon the eggs. If they do and you have to change the bottom of the cage, just cut out a corner or leave a corner free and replace the eggs, but make sure the cage hasn't moved.

I went out to the aviary this morning and saw Boof sort or fall off a perch. He just sat on the ground once he was down there and seemed to be favouring one side. He sort of rolled onto one side and just sat there. I went in and picked him up and had a look at his foot. I put him in a cage by himself so that he doesn't get it caught on anything but I don't know what else to do. When I touched it and moved it he didn't seem to mind, but he just won't use it. I don't think he's in shock or anything, but I just wondered if there was anything else I should be doing or if there's something else wrong. At first I thought it was the same disease several of our birds have had. But he doesn't have any of the symptoms of that so I can only think that his leg is the problem Any help is appreciated.

I also thnk that it's rather unlikely that the cock is a fallow. He was must a run of the mill bird when we got him, we were actually looking for girls at the time but we got him wrong. The ino dea seems the most likely. We can now tell what the chicks' base colours are: one is white, however I think there are some darker marking feathers and the other is yellow with no obvious indcations of markings or green feathering, in fact it looks like the tail feathers will all be yellow. I can't wait to see how they turn out. This is the hen's first clutch and she's turned out to be on of our best mothers.

No, I know Boof is the father. Also, how do you tell if the pied cock is split for ino?