livo

I'll be getting some reading material on diseases in birds. The trouble is that the symptoms are all so similar for many different ailments. I was lucky I already had some Condy's Crystals here at home. It was all I did have other than wormer and we'd done that 2 weeks prior. I will add that at the same time she was ill we had a wild bird (Water foul) chick very ill as well. It has since disappeared so presumed dead. Symptoms were not the same and I think it looked like Marik's Disease, but who knows. I once had a disease go through a flock of pre-laying vaccinated pullets. When I took one to the vet it cost me near $100 to find out nothing. It was around the same time they had to kill tens of thousands of chickens in the farms at Mangrove Mountain and I thought they would want to know. They wanted me to send birds to the CSIRO which is fair enough but when they told me I'd have to pay, I just euthanized the rest of the birds from that batch and stopped keeping chickens.

No. Well not exactly. The man said it would "clean her out". I do know that Condy's Crystals (Potassium Permanganate or Permanganate of Potash) was used by poultry and pigeon keepers but I'm not sure why. It has anti-fungal / antiseptic properties as well as worming effect so I suppose it is sort of broad-spectrum. I can't say for sure that it was this treatment that fixed the bird but she was pretty crook and got better, much to my surprise. Her feathers remained ruffled and she was not looking very good for a little while. The bird is back to normal and healthy after the 3rd day. I’ve just read that the dosed water needs to be changed 3 – 4 times a day as the crystal solution oxidises very quickly and so becomes ineffective. We only put it in her water once and saw her drink from it several times over the period of a couple of hours so we were happy that she did in fact get dosed. We removed green food and just let her have seed. She didn’t eat much for a day or two then on the third day went for her food with vigour.

Thanks for the reply. I'll have to look into having some medications on hand, going by how quickly this bird went from apparently healthy to very unwell. The good news is that yesterday she looked a lot better and today she is nearly 100% and back to her loud chirpy self. We left the condy's crystal water in her cage for a few hours on Saturday. She was drinking it but we weren't sure of dosage so we didn't leave it in for too long before replacing with clean water. We kept her under a light globe through the day and covered her at night. I was pretty concerned.

We put my son's budgie to bed last night and she looked fine. Only a young bird of 6 - 7 months. This morning, when I took her covers off, the feathers on her head are all matted and standing. She has spent the morning so far bobbing her head up and down, then producing a clear viscous mucus from her beak and throwing her head so it splashes up all over her face and head. She looks generally unwell. Any advice would be appreciated. I have her under a light globe for warmth but being Saturday the vets are not open until Monday and I'd imagine any consultation and treatment is going to add up in dollars pretty quick. A phone call to the pet shop and the guy told me to put some Condy's Crystasl in her water. I have put a small amount (couple of grains) in her water and she has drunk from it.

Straight wire of a suitable gauge is available at welding supplies in the form of either oxy-acetylene welding rods for mild steel and TIG welding rods for Stainless Steel. If you buy rolls of wire the best way to straighten it is to apply significant tension. You could do this by attaching one end to something solid and the other end to your car and then reversing it. Not too far or you'll stretch it to plastic deformation and possibly break it. Stop the car and let it remain under tension for a while and it should stay straight enough one cut into shorter lengths.

I realise this is an old thread. Any info on availability of cage fronts would be gratefully received? Are the ebay prices the best available?

CBC is part of the Hunter Branch of BSNSW. Simple numbered leg ring in Purple confirms bird is nearly 2 - 3 years old, as I thought, meaning the shop that sold it to the previous owner either had no idea or deliberately sold an older bird as a young one.

Thanks, I've tried to locate info about Cessnock Budgie (Budgerigar) Club, unsuccessfully. There is a post in this thread (http://forums.budgiebreeders.asn.au/index.php?showtopic=31039 ) by Maddy, where the CBC leg band is referred to so I assume it exists. NSW Budgerigar Society only lists Newcastle and Central Coast Branches. I am about to email the NSW Ring Registrar, Barbara, so I'll post here the result of this inquiry.

My 12 year old son has recently taken an interest in Budgies so we've been out collecting a few birds to start him off. A family had to shed two birds this week so we went to get them and were told that both birds were young. Less than 6 months old. The family originally bought 2 birds but one escaped so they went and got a replacement. This replacement bird is obviously a young bird. The other one seems much bigger and possibly older, plus it has a leg band. The pet shop where this bird was originally sold, informed the family that it was a young bird and the lady says that it was small when they first bought it just before Christmas so she is convinced that it is only about 6 months old. The leg band ring is Purple and has CBC 526 imprint code. The birds are from the Cessnock area so from my reading of other information on this site would it be safe to assume that the bird is hatched between September 1 2010 and August 31 2011 by someone in the Cessnock Budgie Club??? This would make the bird between 20 and 32 months old, not 6. What are the chances that the leg ring is wrong??? Did the pet shop proprietor mislead the previous owner??? It isn't a problem but we would like to know since he want's to breed and the age of the birds is important in that regard only.