Latest Addition To The Flock

[SL26 0]

I got a new baby budgie on the weekend and I thought I'd show him to you. He doesn't have a name yet as we're waiting to see what sort of personality he has, so for now he's being called 'baby'.

 

[BudgieOwner 0]

If he was mine i would name him "Sky". Nice blue colour with white clouds.

[meeka 0]

He's beautiful!!!!!!!!!!

[Finnie 0]

He is very pretty. Is this the one you were worried about the French molt or mites? I see that his wings looked clipped. Or is that from feathers breaking? What is the condition of the rest of the feathers on his back? It's hard to tell from that angle if they are roughed up or not. He's a very sweet baby.

[SL26 0]

Yes Finnie, this is the one I'm worried about. The breeder clipped one of his wings but it had a full complement of feathers until yesterday. He's lost a feather from each wing yesterday and one of them bled a bit. The feathers appear to have broken and the shaft at the top doesn't look normal. As a result I'm taking him to the vet today to get him checked out. The rest of his feathers look fine and not deformed or stunted. He's hard to photograph as he's always on the go!!

 

[Finnie 0]

From this side he looks beautiful! I think it may have been the clip job on the other side that looked a little rough.

 

I don't understand why people clip just one side. I think in the past it was common, so people still do it. But it makes the bird lopsided, and able to fly, but not fly well. And unable to steer themselves. I wouldn't be surprised if that (clumsiness) was what is making him break off the new feathers that are trying to come in.

 

In the past the experts on here would always tell new people who came home with a budgie clipped on one side to have the other side done as well, to even him out.

 

But it sounds like this little guy is actually starting his molt, so now he could just grow in his new feathers on his clipped side and be fine, if the new feathers will grow in properly.

 

The vet will give you his opinion on all this. Good luck!

 

By the way, I once had a customer who temporarily called her chick "Miss Birdy" while she was trying to figure out a good name for it. Guess what the bird's permanent name became?

[SL26 0]

I agree, it makes them lopsided, so I'm going to clip the other wing and then let them grow back.

 

He's too young to start moulting as he's about 6 weeks old. The vet had a good look at him and is concerned that the feather shafts are abnormal. He thinks it could be either polyomavirus or PBFD. If it's the latter, I'm really worried. The vet said that budgies recover well from PBFD but its not good if you have other parrots around. I only have budgies now, but would like larger parrots in the future. It'll take about 10 days for the results of the blood test the vet took to come back.

 

He's name can't be 'baby' because that's what I call all my birds! He'll get a name but it usually takes us awhile to come up with one.

[Finnie 0]

Well shucks that the vet found abnormal feather shafts!

 

He looks very nice otherwise. Maybe he will grow all his feathers back nicely, eventually.

 

Lol, all my birds get called "pretty bird"!

 

Our four year old dog has a real name, but she is always called "Puppy". That is going to present a problem some day when we get a new puppy.

[SL26 0]

Well I've just received the results from the vet and it's PBFD. Apparently budgies can cope quite well with it, unlike other parrots. I'm going to have to try and rehome him to a budgie only house because I can't have this disease in my flock as I'm planning to get other parrots in the future.

[Finnie 0]

Aw, I'm sorry to hear it.

 

Did the vet say how long it would take until your home would be clear on all PBFD?

[SL26 0]

The vet didn't say but I'm going to talk to him next week about it. I have to find him a home asap before I can really disinfect the room he's been in. I've done a bit of research and it appears to be quite a difficult virus to kill as it stays in the environment for a long time. I've ordered some F10 disinfectant which apparently helps kill the virus. I'll have some major spring cleaning to do !!!!

[BudgieOwner 0]

I'm going to have to try and rehome him to a budgie only house because I can't have this disease in my flock as I'm planning to get other parrots in the future.

 

I am a bit baffled with your decision to rehome him to another home with budgie. I've read about the disease and even though the budgies deal with it better than other parrots doesn't mean other budgies should be exposed to this disease either. No parrot budgie or otherwise should be exposed to an infected one.

[trefto 0]

I have a rainbow lorikeet pair, that after first purchasing them, they had one chick in their first nesting, which proved to have the PBFD virus, it grew all its body feathers very well formed but its flights and tail feathers dropped out. By the time we found what was wrong with him, the lorikeet parents had a second clutch of eggs, I reluctantly let them continue with them hoping for a better result second time around. Proved to be another sad experience with the two new offspring similar to the first having the same PBFD feather deficiency.

 

So from there I shut this pair down from further breeding, dissinfected everything in their cage and nest box with the F10 SC, I had the parents tested for PBFD and they proved to be infected, not sure if it was both or just one of them, can't remember. So kept this pair isolated from other birds for about 6 months to a year, fed them well with good food and vitamin supplements as recomended, and then had them tested again for PBFD. This time they tested all clear for PBFD, so I was delighted, I then placed them back into a breeding cage and from then til now they have produced about seven healthy clutches of chicks 2 per nesting 14 babies total. The father lorikeet is split for lutino, and in all those healthy chicks has produced about 4 lutino chicks inclusive. So have had good fortune after the bad.

 

 

 

So this is proof that birds can throw off this disease even thiough they may once have been infected or just a carrier of the disease.

 

I have also proved that the disease is transmitted from feather danda and dust only, and not directly from mother or father through the egg embryo, as I recently had 3 chicks straggling in their parent budgies nest as the last hatched and so I adopted them out to this one hen bird and her mate who were clucky but hadn't layed. these foster parents raised these 3 chicks each from 3 other seperate budgie nests. The babies developed well although by the time they were ready to leave the nest their body feathers were very good , but their tail and flight feathers had all fallen out preventing them from flying, they typically showed signs of the PBFD virus, this proved to me that the disease isn't transferred through the blood, but from contact with another bird shedding the virus through its feather dust and dander.

 

This corelates with what the vet told me who first tested my lorikeets. So was interesting to have it proved as much as their has been speculation over the PBFD transfer mechanism.

 

One of those baby budgies as told above has since grown back its flights and tail about 3 -4 weeks since leaving the nest box, the other two appear to be slowly developing their tail and flights, I am still hopeful they may grow back that they could resume a normal life of flying.

 

Best to you SL26 with your new baby bird, He seems quite healthy and well looking from his photo's so hopefully he may well re develop those missing feathers and regain good health to be a happy flying bird, as the PBFD can be thrown off lets hope he does.

 

Cheers, Trev

Edited June 1, 2014 by trefto