Christine P

Maddy, thats what you get when you let your friends name your birds haha (even though the friend that named him Hedwig is the biggest harry potter fan i know....) Thanks for the feedback everyone

Here are a few pictures of some of my budgies I'm not really into knowing the different varieties, but I am curious to know what I have, so feel free to comment if you have any ideas, Also some of my birds aren't named (the pics without captions are of the ones without names) so if you have any cool names for them I'd be glad to hear them Snowy (blue) and Sunny Hedwig Snowy and Sunny Buster Hedwig Angel (No zoom used on this photo. she is actually blind in this eye, which is why I could get so close without her biting my fingers off!) Snowy (she has about 3 missing claws from fights. you can see the claw is missing on her second claw on her left foot. she is also approx. 10 years old and still going strong) Hope you enjoy

thanks to everyone for the advice I have now chosen not to get lovebirds at all and to build a small aviary (not walk in) and get a pair of turquoise parrots. These have already been approved by my mum so I just have to wait till the breeding season starts, which will hopefully be early next year

We used to use the larger size wire (I'm not sure of the exact size but I'm thinking its the 12mm) but we had a small python get in, get into one of our nestboxes and kill the babies but was so small it was unable to even eat them so it just stayed curled up in the nest box with the dead babies until we found it the next morning. Since then we have bought a roll of the smallest wire you can get (around 4 or 5mm) and have fitted the bottom half of the cage with that, with the bottom of the wire actually cemented in, and the top half of the cage with shadecloth we have learnt not to take chances with any wire bigger than the 4-5mm stuff, which you can't even fit the tip of your pinky finger into. I think thats the only way to go if you want your cage snake proof (even though its about $200 a roll...)

Hmmm... Anyone know how to keep a lovebird in the house without anyone else knowing about it? I could only get a lovebird on the condition it didn't live inside the house, and with pythons, minor birds, hawks and butcher birds hanging around outside, that's not an option either haha

Hey everyone I'm a newbie to these forums, and not sure if I'm posting in the right section, but I wanted to get everyone's opinions/experiences. Also, I apologise in advance if this has already been covered as I was too lazy to have a proper look around before posting! so here we go... One of my highschool friends owns a pair of lovebirds (yes, I did just hear you all mentally groan ) which have just lain 4 eggs, three of which hatched in the last week and a bit. I own budgies, and have done for nearly 7 years, and keep them in an outdoor walk in aviary thats approx. 2.5 x 2.5 x 2m high. It houses 13 budgies and it seems empty to me, even with that many in there. Although I havent read every post about lovebirds and budgies, I've read enough to know that what I want to do is probably the stupidest thing I could ever do to my birds, but I wanted to ask everyone what they're experiences have been (good or bad) with mixing lovebirds and budgies in a large (well I think its large) aviary. I was only thinking about getting one lovebird, and it would be hand reared, and from parents that are both tame (not sure if they are hand reared) and not aggressive. Are the chances of the budgies and the lovebirds bonding good, or so bad its not even worth thinking about? I would also like to point out (so that everyone knows I'm not just going to mix them and leave it at that), that while my idea is stupid, I'm not (well...not very ). I would take the time to get to know the lovebird before its mixed with the budgies, get them all used to each other (maybe having the lovebird in the house at night and while I'm not home and having "bonding sessions" during the day?), and only fully introduce the lovebird to the budgies when I feel that I know how they all feel around each other, and then continue to monitor them constantly after that. And I know its practically impossible to tell what will happen if they are mixed, but any advice is good advice, and I would love to hear what everyone has to say Thanks!