Everything posted by Sailorwolf
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Purchasing Budgies
I don't like this "nature knows what is best" idea. Nature does not know anything. Nature is not some sort of knowing force. Nature is just physics and chemistry. There is no "plan", it just happens. It is just a series of reactions. The fact that some birds bred at 12 weeks, doesn't mean it was the best thing for them just cause they could do it. They just did it because they could. Nature also doesn't care if those birds died from their breeding. Now we are intellectual beings, we have a consciousness. We form opinions (hopefully) by gathering information from the world around us and making an informed decision. Nature does not have a consciousness. It does not learn from experience, like we do. We have that ability and thus from our experiences and gathered knowledge most of us agree that breeding at under 12months (or around that age) is not the best thing to do if you want to have healthy birds. The thing people need to learn is that because nature has no consciousness, it does not care, and the world is not as happy and lovely as one would make it out to be. Things have to die inorder for other things to survive. Things have to breed or die out. It's tough out there. One of my favourite sayings is "Statistics do not matter to the individual"
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Swine Flu.........does It Affect Budgies?
The whole swine flu thing is interesting, to say the least. The 150 deaths in mexico were from suspected cases of swine flu or as it should be called Influenza H1N1. The actual confirmed deaths from H1N1 are very little. I think the number may have been around 8. But don't quote me on that. Influenza is actually a virus type that started out in birds in the viral family Orthomyxoviridae. It has mutated in order to pass on to pigs, horses, humans and other animals. Pigs are good at helping these diseases to break the barrier from avian to human diseases because (i can't remember properly, but it is something like) they have similar cell types to both birds and humans. However for your budgies to catch H1N1 from you I think it would have to mutate back inorder for them to contract it. So pretty much you would have to have H1N1 before your budgies get it and if that is the case I think you would be more worried about yourself than your budgies who would probably be fine. All the influenza stuff is a bit foggy for me as we did it over half a year ago and I've forgotton quite a bit, so I may not be completely accurate. But do look it up if you are interested. I think they mentioned that H1N1 is a human virus and they don't want to call it swine flu any more because it is harming the pork industry (you can't catch it through eating pork).
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Infected Foot
Poor little girl. Budgies are quite prone to tumours unfortunately, due to how inbred they are as a pet species. Here's hoping it is something benign.
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Does Ivermectin Treat Worms?
Neville is right, Ivermectin does some worms but not others.
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My Poor Puppy, Kacey
You should so submit this picture to Icanhascheezburger.com
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How Can I Breed Black Budgie
If we took that stance and applied it to technology, then technology would not have advanced at all, we would have no fire, no wheel. etc etc. If Thomas Eddison decided that, "well, there have been lots of clever people before me who have never produced an electric lightbulb and therefore it can't be done," then we wouldn't have lightbulbs! Worldfirsts are called worldfirsts for a reason.
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Infected Foot
Pus is generally a creamy white to light yellow colour and is viscous and not see-through.
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Infected Foot
Also different bacteria respond to different antibiotics. They reckon that antibiotics will be obsolete in the very near future as close as 50 years. That means that we will be back in the dark ages in regards to medicine and this is all due to indiscriminate and unauthorised usage of antibiotics. Our children and their children are facing a future where antibiotics will not work. In regards to the cut, keep it clean, you can use some water with a bit of detergent in it if you like. A little iodine/betadine or chlorhexidine scrub solution applied to the cut will also help with that. Probably not a good idea to squeeze the foot anymore too as that won't really help the tissue to heal. Swelling is a normal inflammatory response. What does the "pus" you squeezed out look like? If it was thin and watery and amber or clear coloured then it is most likely serrous exudate which is a normal inflammatory response in wound healing. Perhaps you could take a picture?
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Sicknesses
I think you'll be fine. The number of times I've ingested budgie dust and such, accidentally is probably way too many to remember and I haven't gotten sick so far. Yes Psittacosis can be transmitted to humans. It is a respiratory illness, however if your budgie is not ill he is very unlikely to pass it on. Avian coccidial species as far as I know do not infect humans as they are very species specific and even so specific that they can only live in certain areas of the bird's intestine! Common sense like washing hands after playing with the budgie and before you eat is the best and if your budgie is sick get him seen by a vet early on.
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Infected Foot
The last time you took a bird to the vet with a bunged up foot could have been a bird with a completely different type of infection. Also the other's replies have already pointed out my reason for posting. My suggestion is to take the bird to the vet.
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Infected Foot
Hopefully the baytril was at the right strength, was the right antibiotic and was necessary to clean up the infection.
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Kauri Branches
Personally I wouldn't try it. Kauri trees do secrete some toxins into the ground to prevent other plants growing around them too. Just Wiki'ed it. Here's the link: Kauri trees
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Mystery Illness
Yes. I wasn't referring to that. A comment was made previously slagging all vets. Just thought I'd say.
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Mystery Illness
I would just like to add comment that there are a few people in the veterinary field that frequent this forum. Something to consider.
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Different Egg Shapes
Pointed and round ones are not odd shaped. Odd shaped eggs are ones that are lumpy, or strange shapes and are not perfectly symmetrical. If this is the case then yes the bird would have issues with her uterus, possibly an edometrial infection. But with smooth rounded and symmetrical ones then she is most likely fine. Hipeeps description sounds normal to me.
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Help Please!
Don't spray it onto the eggs as the eggs are very porous and this could not be good for them.
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Different Egg Shapes
Different birds lay different shaped and sized eggs
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2 Females Nesting In The Same Box?
Birds have a pretty bad sense of smell in general
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Mystery Illness
Ask your vet about Syngamus trachea, which is a worm that lives in the trachea of birds and can cause gasping and weezing noises. It is not very common and is often overlooked because of this. I am not sure if it is in New Zealand, but do ask. Also get your vet to take bacterial cultures and test them for resistance, that way you can tell if they have a bacterial infection and what antibiotic is best against it. Has your vet actually looked down it's trachea to check for choke? If it is a viral infection then there isn't a lot you can do for it but treat the symptoms. Bacterial resistance does not take years to develop, it starts as soon as the surviving bacteria replicate which in ideal conditions is as short as 20 minutes. In alot of cases of animals with chronic bacterial infections resistance develops to a drug while treating the same animal for the same infection. $250 is not a lot of money when it comes to medical bills. You think about how much you have to pay the dentist and the doctor (roughly $50-60 per consult) and that is government subsidised. Vets do not get government subsidies. Not to mention the drugs are also not subsidised by the government either. In human drugs you can get the government to subsidise a prescription down to $3 when without that it costs about $60-$120. So what you are paying the vet for is mainly drugs. Plus they also need to be paid for their time so that they can actually eat and feed their family and buy petrol in order to get to work in the morning, oh and pay off their massive student loans. The equipment used is also very expensive. A refractometer costs upwards of $1000 and the xray machines into the tens of thousands. I resent the statement about how vets are out to prey off of your good will and love of your pets. Many vets actually undercharge their clients because they feel bad about charging them so much and the one to suffer there is the vet and many go out of business because of that. Vets are also in the business because they LOVE animals, why else would you devote the rest of your life to working with animals if you didn't love them. Vets also have to deal with people who neglect their animals, mistreat them, decide they know better than the vet and endanger their pet further, people who don't want to pay for their perfectly healthy animal, and thus it has to be euthanised, people who abandon animals, staying up all night to look after an animal, surgeries that eat into dinner time etc etc, all of which is very upsetting, especially when you hear a statement like that. Also many human GPs charge way more than that and can't cure you either. Medicine is not black and white, it is not an easy fix. Doctors and vets and dentists do not know everything, but at least your vet is trying. You said that the anti-inflammatories relieved the symptoms for a bit there? Well if that is the case then it was not a total waste of money because for that short period your bird was not in pain and may now be in less pain. Depends how much you value your bird's quality of life.
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Genetic's Help.
Ino genes are a type of albinism. Albinism is where there isn't actually any pigment in the animal to depict its genotype. So for instance you could have an albino dominant pied bird. The bird is basically pied however it cannot produce any pigment in its cells and feathers to depict its pied colouring. For instance if you have brown hair and all of a sudden your pigment producing cells stopped functioning you would have white hair, however you geneticially have brown hair, you just look like you have white hair, because your cells can't produce brown pigment any more. Basically they have the genes to produce certain colours, but they just can't physically make the pigment. Their pigment production is disabled.
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French Moult
We don't have french moult in New Zealand, so I don't have to worry about it. I know I have said this a thousand times before, but I will repeat it again: French moult IS a virus and is known as the polyomavirus. PBFD is a circovirus as Nubbly stated earlier. These viruses are believed to be transmitted by dust, dander and faeces and infects all age groups. In French moult visually unaffected birds can carry it and shed it to other birds. It is seen mainly in chicks because they become infected when they are growing new feathers and thus it affects their feather growth. Adults do not show so many symptoms because they are not growing new feathers at the time of infection and are able to either clear the infection or set up immunity to the virus if I remember correctly.
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One Eye Isn't Changing
No it is not all pupil. The iris itself is just black coloured. If it was all pupil (which it isn't) then you would be worried about CNS problems and damage to the retina and optic nerve.
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Worse Day Ever
Just hold the needle on to the syringe and use a less viscous fluid/food in the syringe. This is what I had to do.
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Some Questions
He is yellowface/ goldenface as he has a lot of grey on his chest. And you can see he is going through his first moult
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Goldenface?
It is possible for any bird to carry any gene, no matter what their base colour is or what other genes they have. Some genes just mask other genes. Cosmo is a blue series birds and will always be a blue series. Green series birds can carry yellowface, white face, goldenface, you name it. You think Cosmo is green? Take a look at Arkady in my signature. He used to be blue.