2pedersens

Right near a month. Just after he finished molting.

We have a 2.5yr old male budgie. He went through a fairly hard molt last month, but as of now we can't see any pins. Since then, he constantly has his feathers fluffed up. He is eating (no vomiting), responsive (although maybe not as active as he was) and flies with the other birds. His vent is clean, no discharge from his nares, no sneezing, no tail bobbing, no panting and there is no difference in his keel bone compared to the other budgies. His stool is normal looking. He has not experienced any weight loss. He is on a seed based diet that is supplemented with veggies. For the last week or so, we've been adding vitamins and idoline to the water. None of the other birds are displaying this fluffed appearance. We thought that it might be due to the winter months coming on, but he remains fluffed up even with the heater close to the cage. We're both at a loss, and we don't have any certified Avian vets in this area. Any thoughts? Thanks!

I was wondering if someone could help me figure out once and for all the gender of this budge. This budgie is the bully I referenced in my other post "failure to thrive." When we got him, his cere was completely pink. As time has gone on, however, I've noticed a lot of white around the nostrils depending upon lighting and if he has been flying. Now I'm not so sure. He is about 8 months old and his cere is still pink. Our other male budgies' ceres had started turning blue by this time. If he is male, is this due to his particular coloration? I'm assuming some kind of pied but not sure on what type or coloration. Thanks!

Well it was upsetting night to say the least. He had declined even more. When i got home late this evening he couldnt get up on to the perches even as he struggled to do so. Just laid on the bottom of the cage. He couldnt lift his head and was listing about to the left in circles. Had a very rapid heartbeat and respirations. He looked very distressed and we decided to euthanize him. Hopefully the necropsy will give us some answers.

my husband took Whitey to the vet today. The vet remarked on how weak he's looking. He did not want to attempt crop feeding for fear the stress would kill him. Stool sample revealed nothing. His crop felt fine. He's not sure what to make of it. He prescribed antibiotics and a nutritionsl paste twice a day for a week. If he's not better or showing signs of improvement within the week, the vet recommends euthanasia. His thought is perhaps it's genetic. He also wants a necropsy done when he dies. It's all so bizarre. He was the largest budgie length and weight wise we ever brought home.

Well, Whitey has had a noticeable decline over the weekend. He looks miserable. He is very lethargic and bumblefooted. We have heat on and have the ACV in his water. I read elsewhere on the site that adding some citrus fruit can also assist by making an acidic environment, so I added a slice of lemon. I really don't think that he is actually consuming much food. The food dish is changed out daily and there are lots of husks, however there is a lot of residue (for lack of a better term) that makes me wonder if he is just crushing the seeds. His keel bone is still palpable. I'm not finding this residue in the other birds' food dishes. My husband is going to call the vet tomorrow and see what the alternatives are. The vet had mentioned crop feeding, Prozac and "some other options." Any thoughts on this or suggestions that my husband could bring up? I'm having him ask the vet to do the stool sample and show him how to crop feed. I was reading up on megabacteria, but the pinned article mentioned it was mainly endemic to Australia and Europe. Is this a microbe that's seen commonly in North America? Thanks for the help.

Phoebes, I dont think it's ironic at all that your study of pesticides has made you leery. We try to stay away from non-organic fruits and veggies as much as possible. They go up to the broccoli and carrots, taste them and then shake their heads like they just put the vilest stuff into their mouths. Right now we have 4 males ranging in age from 2 yrs to 8 months. It's the young one who keeps causing the problems. We bought those two together and whitey used to boss pepper (the young one) around. Now the tables are turned. Maybe it's due to the pesky teenage hormones our maybe it's Karma.

Thanks for the responses. We offer fresh veggies each day. They aren't too thrilled with broccoli or carrots. They love herbs and salad greens though. They don't get lettuce. I had read the info on Vitamin A, so I started supplementing with vitamins. I'm thinking that a lot of this was the other birds picking on him. If one of the other birds flies up near his food bowl, he immediately goes down and starts eating. He is still sleeping more than the other birds, but seems more interested in them now. When he feels up to it, he'll go and talk to them through the bars. Hasn't expressed any interest in getting outside of the cage. Do you think that the separation is going to need to be permanent? I can't believe they turned out to be such little punks!

Hi everyone, I'm needing some advice. In December, my husband and I purchased two budgies. The first was completely white with dark eyes and difficult to judge age. The other was barred. The one in question (Whitey) we weighed at 36 grams. They were quarantined at my parents for about two and a half months. We noticed that he was a little food possessive so we added some other dishes. Flash forward to about a month and a half ago. Whitey has gotten more and more quiet and less active. S/he still has not gotten all of his flight feathers in. There is staining above the cere but no sneezing or coughing and I don't hear any clicking when I listen with a stethoscope. No clicking after flying either. None of the other budgies have had or have any signs or symptoms of respiratory infection. I started supplementing their water with vitamins and iodine, thinking it was perhaps a deficiency. We noticed that one of the other birds was starting to pick on him more, so we moved him to a separate cage on top of the main one. We also noticed that he is constantly eating and prior to the move, had to drastically increase the amount of food being given. We took him to the vet last week and he is down to 26 grams. The vet (the only avian vet within a 4 hour drive) examined him and determined that he doesn't have an infection. She believes that it is a case of him being picked on by the other birds and they haven't been allowing him to eat. She didn't really respond when asked about the staining above the cere. She stated that his stool looked fine as well. Her recommendation is to keep him in a different cage so he has free access to food, and if we don't see any improvement within 2 weeks, to call and discuss further measures to take. I'm just not sure what to think about this. He is spending most of his time sleeping or eating and also has a small amount of staining around his vent. I have noticed that there is a bit more "dust" in his food bowl, so I'm wondering if he is really getting much of the seed digested. Do you think that this sounds correct or is something more malicious at play here? Thank you for your help! Jen In case this is useful....

Thanks Kaz. Looks like we will be taking her in to the vet then and see what they say.

Hi, I posted a few weeks ago regarding staining above the cere in one of the hens we have. We started putting carrots in with their food and supplementing with vitamins in their water as one member suggested that it may be due to vitamin A deficiency. However she still has some staining. We don't have any perfumes, candles or air fresheners in our house. Do any of the other budgies look as though they have respiratory issues? I also have another question regarding breeding conditions. Wiggers' cere changed to that crusty brown color (which I assumed indicated she was going into breeding condition) for about a month. It's now regaining it's prior coloration, but the cere looks as though it's peeling and when viewed from a side profile the darker area on her cere looks like it's bulging. We've not experience breeding conditions in our hens before, so I don't know if this is normal. Thanks, Jen Here is all three of them. The flash washed out some of the discoloration on the bottom right hen's cere. She's also moulting so she's been looking scruffy. A closer view of Wigger's cere. You can just visualize the bulge of her cere. It's not incredibly noticeable until you are up close to her.

Dukie has had some faint staining above her cere for the past week. Today when we came home from work and school, it was very very obvious. The other bird on the left has just the faintest of staining and our yellow based budgie has none. I haven't seen or heard any coughing, seen any discharge and all three are active and flying. Any suggestions? Does this warrant a vet trip? Thanks!

Phew! I'm not completely incompetent then We dosed him with ivermectin before we even put him in the cage. Here are some more pics we took of him in daylight. We taped him when we first got him home. He was good enough to sit on my finger, but the poor thing was still stressed out.

So we got another budgie that we noticed was very playful. S/he kept climbing through these toy rings and would climb upside down from the ceiling of the cage. Very chatty too. We decided to get him/her as we liked this playful attitude. I couldn't see any white at all on the cere when we were at the store (we were there for almost 30 minutes watching them), and we were hoping for a boy buddy to eventually put with our other male. Now that we're home I'm seeing an almost faint white around the nostrils. I'm thinking of throwing in the towel when it comes to picking out a young male (or forking over money to fly one of you up here to pick out a male for me ). I'm hazarding a guess that this budgie is a skyblue clearflight pied? There is also the beginning of iris rings that are visible if you look closely.

So my husband and I were visiting pet stores today and ran into some really nasty things. This place had two obviously sick budgies. I'm not quite sure what is wrong with them but I took some photos hoping you guys might know. I believe it's something respiratory as the top budgie's cere seemed inflammed with discharge from the nostrils. Both budgies kept rubbing their beaks against posts. We hunted down an employee and informed him that two of the birds were sick. They are in two separate cages with other budgies and I pointed out that if it's something infectious, it's probably spread among the others. While we were watching, the sick budgies were being preened by "healthy" ones. I wish I had has a better camera on me. My phone camera doesn't do justice to the extent of the stains above the ceres as the stains are much darker in person. I'm not sure if I should call them up with my findings or go in person? On another note we were told that we couldn't take photos of any of the animals as a company policy. When I asked why, I was told that it's so someone can't come into the store, take a picture, and send it into PETA complaining of abuse and then sue the pet store. What a load of hogwash!

Hi all. I was wondering if you could tell me what my hen's coloration is. I tried to get a variety of shots cause it seems like her blue color changes depending upon what angle your looking from. She's finally molting and has a few patches of vibrant blue near her tail and I've also noticed that she's developing an iris ring but they're still very dark.. I'm going to hazard a guess that she's a sky blue and there seems to be no body color on her neck or back or wings. I'm not sure what to make of her wing color patterns. They seem to be lightening in color and have a greyish brown color to them. Is she cinnamon? Her flight feathers are all white as well. Thanks. Back in November '10 Taken tonight

Thanks for the response. The vet that we saw is supposedly an avian vet. I know that the feed store around here supplies ivermectin for horses and cattle for injection use (back in Dec). I wasn't sure about using an injection form so I opted to visit the vet. My husband went and said that the ivermectin she gave us is the cattle formula that is diluted. Said she doesn't carry ivermectin specific for avian use as the office didn't use it enough to warrent the cost of purchasing it. Is this ivermectin they have even worth going back to the store? She charged $25.00 for 1mL of the ivermectin. Is the injectable okay? I believe that there are a few other avian vets around in the area but they are only available once or twice a week. So for the spot on treatment, once on the neck and wait two weeks for visible signs of improvement? How do you know if you need to dose again? Thanks! Forgot to ask your opinion on the black on his beak. What do you think it is? Not sure what he could have gotten into in the cage that is black. Also forgot to ask when he would be considered noninfectious to the other budgies. He's not been too thrilled with his imposed exile in the living room.

Hi everyone. I posted about 6 weeks ago regarding my budgie who looked like he had scaly face mites. We received ivermectin from the vet (she said to spray his beak and feet) and began dosing him weekly per her instructions weekly. The first two weeks we didn't see any changes and then began including his vent during the spray. For a while his beak began to look better, but now I cannot tell that he is any better at all. His feet are still scaly and the edge of his beak is ragged. Its been about 6 weeks. We were going to take him in earlier this week but we had a family emergency and were gone for 2 days. When we came back he had developed black specks on his beak and had lost a toe nail which is now growing back. The vet is only in on Mondays and Tuesdays and I'm wondering what to do. Is it possible that the ivermectin we got was bad or we weren't applying it correctly? Is it something entirely different? Thanks so much!

Thanks for the responses. Went to go get the ivermectin from the feed & supply store and apparently the gal I talked to on the phone didn't know what she was talking about. They had ivermectin for cattle and horses with no indication of concentration. Went ahead and scheduled an appointment with the vet for tomorrow. He definitely isn't as robust energy wise as he was when we first brought him home and his cere around the nostrils are starting to look suspicious. Will ask for extra of whatever anti-parasitic medication they provide and dose the girls.

Thanks! I guess my other concern is about my other budgies. They are currently housed in separate ends of the house as he's still going through quarantine. They've not been in the same room together either. How hardy are these mites? Will they live on the surfaces if they don't have an available host? Do I dose him and then bleach everything in the cage? Just want to make sure he doesn't get a recurrent infection and my girls stay safe. Thanks

We bought this boy about two weeks ago. I noticed over the past week that his beak and feet are changing. He didn't use to have that brown edge to the bottom of his cere and his beak looks "flaky." His feet also seem to be more scaled. I was looking around the site and am wondering if it's scaly face. (Or am I hopefully just over reacting?) The pics I've seen on the site are of advanced cases, and I'm not sure what the start of scaly face looks like. He isn't hand tamed yet but managed to fly out of the cage when I was cleaning it. When I finally got him, his breastbone seemed more prominent than in our two females.The avian vet that is around here is only available on Tues/Wed. I've called around and found a feed store that sells ivermectin for small birds. Should I just wait to go to the vet? Wanted your expert opinions. I'm so glad that I found this site! Sometimes I feel like a nervous, first time mother with these little guys as I've never had birds before.

Thanks for the tips. I figured we would be ignored more once we got another budgie. Twice a week she would be alone for 6 hours while I was at work and my husband was at school so I felt bad. Just didn't expect her to get nasty and bite all the time. We let them out of their cages to meet and Duke made an incredible pest of herself, preening and feeding Wiggers. Wiggers finally took off and Duke calmed a little bit. No biting and not much squawking from either of them and now that they've been together, Duke has calmed more when we put our hands in the cage.

We recently put our two female budgies in side by side cages to get used to each other. Now our first bought hen is biting at us constantly. Any time we put our hands into the cage, she bites. If she's sitting on a hand and we bring a finger in from the side or from the front to have her step up, she squawks and then bites. She never bit us prior to introducing the two. If we take them out of the cage they totally ignore us and fly straight over to the other so we've been either removing the other from the room and taking the other out of the cage or removing ourselves and the budgie and leaving the other in the room. They've been up close together on either side of the bars and the first bought hen regurgitates and tries to preen the other. Is this normal behavior that we're going to expect? I also wondered about molting as they are both in the 3-4 month range. They are both still barred and there's been increasing down feathers in both cages, but no colored feathers. Any suggestions?

I don't think she's spangle. Greywing and opaline both tend to wash out wing markings, so when you have them combined, you can see a lot of wing feathers that look like spangle, so I think that is what you are seeing. Another thing about spangle to look for is that when spangle and opaline are combined, the bird will have body colored markings on its wings, instead of black (or grey in this case). A good example of this is the bird in Dave's signature, except you would need to find a better picture of Dumb (or is it Dumber?) in order to see the wings. Dave has lots of pictures of this bird around here. I will go see if I can find one for you. Here it is: Dumb Ah. I see what you mean. I read somewhere that the spangle gene is dominant so, if a bird does not have the spangle markings, does that mean that she doesn't carry the spangle gene? Her mother was albino - pure white feathers and red eyes and her dad was a brilliant blue, with darker markings than Wiggers.

My husband and I were perusing this site http://www.budgieplace.com/colorsguide.html about budgie colors and mutations and took it upon ourselves to see if we could possibly figure out what our birds are. I never realized how intricate budgie genetics were! I included my reasoning based off of the information on the site. Please let me know where I'm getting off base and the reasoning so I can understand this subject a little better. Thanks! I noticed that she appears to have a grey color to her iris that is not apparent in our other bird. We guesstimated that she is mauve (her sister and her father had incredibly beautiful, brilliant blue colors and on an off note, her mother was albino). Then I read a post by Daz on Understanding the Violet Gene and now I'm not so sure. Opaline is a little harder. She has more white than black on her head, but that might just be my perception? I also assumed that she's spangle since she has black stripes along edge of the body feathers. Is this correct? I'm also a little confused on pied. Is she dominant pied since she has the strip of white across the abdomen? I read another post that said you can have combination pied (Cause I need just one more thing to confuse me ) Very interesting subject, but I'm thinking it's going to take some time to figure it all out. Thanks for your help! Jen