Sailorwolf

Yes I intend to fill it up with more oneday, but for now it is their mansion. :oliveb:

Una how do you cope with all of the poos around the place? Or do they only go in their cage? My budgies are little poo machines :oliveb:

What is my budgie then? She looks like a lutino, however her eyes are black and she has a white iris. Her cheek patches are white. You can see very very very faint markings on her wings and she has a slightly darker yellow around her throat and her flight and tail fathers are white. Her cere is normal female colour brown. Sorry the pictures are a bit blurry.

hehehe

Once Arkady did this giant sneeze and as he did it he shook his head and sprayed me with snot!! Then just after I recovered, he did it again. Arkady was highly amused, but I wasn't. :ausb: :oliveb:

I just bought this awesome cage from this auction site for only $255. It is 89cm x 89cm x 165cm. It was such a good bargain, I couldn't believe the size of it when I went to pick it up, it looked so much smaller in the picture. My budgies love it. Now they'll get lots of exercise :oliveb: I'll make all you guys jealous now :ausb:

I give them a big dandelion leaf every few days, which they love

It's so true

After deciding that my budgies need a healthier diet, than seed and dandelion, I decided to buy them some new food. I bought a packet of Kaytee Fiesta gourmet diet. Which has lots of differnt kinds of seeds (more kinds than normal budgie food) with pellets and vitamins. I did the usual conversion process of, giving them their old food and increasing the portion of new food everyday, until they are completely eating the new diet. I did this over the time of one month. However the budgies tend to pick out the seeds from the mix that they used to eat and leave the rest of it. I have tried leaving the pellets and stuff in the morning and feeding them the seed in the afternoon, as one book suggested doing. Unfortunately this doesn't work and they prefer to starve themselves until the afternoon and whats more Saffron and Arkady bully Izzy out of the seeds so he is only left with pellets and he has lost a lot of wait recently. I noticed this and immediately increased their amount of seed to pellet ratio and he is fine, (he sings heaps and doesn't look sleepy, however he was slightly fluffed, but is better now, plus I think he was fat anyway), but I just can't get them to eat this healthier diet. Should I just continue to give them the kaytee diet as it is mostly seed, and just wait until they get used to it? Will they take awhile, or will they never eat it, or is there something else I can do? Thank you so much for your help.

Hi tiki and welcome. It sounds like he is either bored or stressed. Have you changed anything in his environment recently? Sometimes feather plucking can become a behavioural problem. Some people have hung feather dusters with real feathers in the birds cage, which sometimes works as the budgies attention turns to those feathers. However if you do hang up a duster, make sure there are no parts that could harm your bird. I'm just looking at this veterinarian book here, and it say that all underlying problems (such as stress or boredom) should be addressed first. It might be a good idea to just get him checked by a vet because some medical illnesses can contribute to feather picking, these diseases can be Endocrine diseases, infectious diseases, poor nutrition and food allergies, So what do you feed your bird? It also suggests here that birds that have been moved into a new home or are handled excessively can become stressed and become prone to feather-picking. How do you handle you bird? How large is your cage? Where is it positioned in your house? Does he have a friend? Hopefully someone else with more experiance will be able to help you too.

My budgie is called Saffron and she is THE Saffron, this place ain't big enough for two of em. She will happily tell you that her self :budgiedance: :(Laughing out loud):

That thing above the nostril is called a cere . A male's cere is blue and a female's cere is brown when they are adults, when they are babies (up to 3-6months old) the male's cere is pink whereas the females is purpley white with white rings around the nostrils. Glad to help :budgiedance:

I'm having trouble posting, A forbidden access keeps coming up You said you had natural perches in your cage. Make sure that they are only fruit tree branches such as apple or eucalypt branches. This is because budgies like to chew their branches, so any other kinds of tree can be poisonous. When you do get natural branches, make sure that you wash them first with vinegar and leave them in the sun to dry and kill off any bugs or diseases that wild birds may have left behind. In regards to the sleeping question: as well as sleeping at night budgies also like to sleep during the day, especially in the middle of the day becasue this is when they are least active. Also budgeis typically live in the desert so they don't drink very much, but they doo drink and need that constant supply of water. In regards to taming them, jus put your hand inside the cage every day and when they aren't scared of that put your finger up to their chest and push gently, the budgie should hop on if not just repeat, but remember to move slowly with confidence and do not react to bites. Do this for about 10 minutes at a time up to 4 or 5 times a day. Once they are used to that you can move on to the next stage of hand feeding them. Just remember only do one stage at a time and only advance onto the next one when you feel they are ready. It is also best to wait until they are stepping up on to your finger and are tame inside the cage before you let them outside to play, because chasing around an untamed budgie will just make it more stressful for them and make the situation worse for you It took two weeks before I let my new budgie out to play. Sorry about my novel By the way, do you know if they're boys or girls or which ever? And don't forget to check their seed bowl for husks, which can fool you into thinking that they have heaps of food, when they don't as budgies dehusk thier seed when they eat.

He is soooooooo cute!!! I want him!!. He is so beautiful. Like eterri said, both wings should be cut because it is also safer for them, because the budgie can at least control the direction he flies and lands in.

Perhaps it is for the heavier birds, such as macaws and cockatoos, because they find it harder to fly. The book did say that smaller birds are harder to clip because they are lighter and can fly with much less effort.

Yeah I don't agree with stripping the feather either, but clipping everyother feather sounds feasible. Apparently that works by not allowing the feathers to cling to each other and make a solid wing. Inorder to fly properly the feathers need to cling to each other to make a solid plane, and by clipping every other feather it supposedly makes the wing ineffective, as each feather cannot work by itself: they work best together.

Last night I let the chinchilla have a run round the room, while they were out and Arkady decided that the chinchilla could do with a ladder, so he pulled it off his outside perch and dropped it just in front of the chinchilla (Choo). Choo appreciated it very much by giving the ladder a thankyou nibble.

That looks really cool Ausmoz. Your budgies look like they really enjoy it. I still haven't finished mine yet

I read it in "The Illustrated Veterinary Guide, Second Edition" Very interesting book When you strip the feather I forgot to say that you strip it by cutting the fluff off rather than pulling at it. Sorry

Today Arkady's quarintine finished and in the anticipation of his move in I changed everything around, added new perches and rearranged their gyms so that it would be new for every one and here is the result: Here they are all enjoying themselves Arkady's come over to see his new roomies Discovers the joy of the swing This is my favourite one, he was hanging on to the swing and flapping at the same time so that the swing would go round in circles. Soo cute Nice one of Izzy. Sorry about all the photos, I couldn't help myself

Welcome to the forums I just got a new budgie recently and he took a little while to calm down, but now he's fine and has just moved in with his mates

I was reading up on clipping wings. There is a method where you can clip every second primary feather, this is so that the feathers don't cling together and enable them to fly. You can do this the same way, but instead of cutting every second primary feather you can strip it and leave a shaft. And if you do cut a blood feather, you must pluck the feather immediately and apply pressure to the skin around it till it stops bleeding.

Here are some updated pics of my budgies :fear Arkady Having a good munch on top of the cage Izzy wants some food Finds his food and shares a special moment with Arkady. (Usually Arkady is trying to pull his feathers and stand on him all in the name of baby fun :(Laughing out loud) Izzy and Saffron I love em to pieces :fear

Yeah, I would say they're all girls. Sooo cuuute. I love it when they fluff up

Here are some pictures of my budgies on it. They're not oo keen at the moment because it is on the ground, but when I'm finished it'll be put on a table so that it is nice and high for my little lords.