Sailorwolf

I like to hang leafy greens from the cage bars and roof. Fruits and carrot I poke through the bars and pegs to the bars

You could try pretending to eat veggies in front of him and then offer it to him. Budgies that don't eat veggies will usually try grass and dandelion and green leafy vegetables like spinach.

That's awesome MB, but sadly it is not the case commonly. My oldest budgie was 6 years old now my oldest is 4 1/2 years old. I also got the foot holding one wrong too as I've seen my budgies hold their food before

Have you seen Una's aviary (don't know the post sorry), I think it's made from a converted clothes line with a shed on one side. You know those square ones that spin around? Just put 4 poles, one on each corner and then you can net it.

Thanks Chryso. Good luck to you guys too. I had one yesterday and I went it went okay

What a cutesy. She's so yellow now

I got 8/10 The question "how long do budgies usually live?" is unfair. Their answer was how long a budgie can live for, if kept healthy, and in captive situations this is quite rare, most captive birds only live for 4-6 years.

I love it when they are like that, but they don't stay that way for long. *Evil eyes Bacardi and Izzy*

Have to be careful that you don't reward her for biting though. Just calmly and quietly push her away when she bites, or put her on the ground. Now that she is clipped she won't like that.

I love it when they puff out their cheek feathers while flying cause they are trying so hard to concentrate! and they fly in all sorts of weird directions

He really sounds like he is a completely different bird. Are you sure he is the same bird? Have you told the vets how he has been behaving so deifferently?

I believe that euthanasia is the way to go when a situation calls for it. To me if an animal was faced with a long painful death and every day was *** for them, then I would euthanise them. Sometimes keeping an animal alive when they are in so much pain and they are not enjoying life is really only benefiting you. Many of you know I had to put Saffy my budgie down recently. She was old and had developed some sort of mass in her abdomen that was restricting her breathing and compressing on her organs. She did not play anymore and spent most of her time lying on the cage floor and only got up to eat. She had previously been to the vets before with a leg problem and egg binding and nothing was able to be found as the cause for her leg problem. She had xrays, bloods and surgeries done, as much as my small student loan could pay for. Then half a year later she developed the lump which quickly grew. Looking back on it now, her leg problem was probably a result of a kidney tumour which are inoperable in birds. We don't know what it was that caused the lump. Her prognosis looked very bleak. It could have been a liver tumour, ovarian or kidney. 2 of those are inoperable and the third (ovarian) is rare. I had the choice of getting more xrays done or an ultrasound and then if would definitely end in surgery to remove what it was that was causing the mass. I didn't want to put her through the stress of another surgery at her age, when what could happen is they open her up and then have to close her back up again because they can't do anything. This in itself is a very painful process and hard enough on a healthy budgie, but for a sickly 6 year old hen who is already in pain this would just be too much and I didn't want to put her through it, not when the outlook was so bleak and even if she did recover it could reoccur. I wanted her to die a painless death. At her age she is also a poor candidate for anaesthesia and could die on the table just from that. And yes money was an issue, I only have so much before I can't afford to feed myself. I opted to have her euthanised. To me, keeping her alive would be selfish and the likelihood of her pulling through xrays, ultrasounds, blood and surgery was so minimal that I would basically be donating money to the vet clinic as her outcome was likely to be only one thing. I felt horrible choosing to euthanise her. I mean what if it had turned out to be a completely operable ovarian benign tumour? That made me upset. You can go so far with trying to rescue an animal but in the end you have to ask the question, "Are you keeping them alive for them or are you keeping them alive for yourself?" I weighed it up, she was old, she was sick, she had a history of problems and she had no quality of life. It was hard enough to make the decision, I asked the vet what he thought and he said that if it was his bird he would put her down. And he is a vet that I respect and trust. So in the end I chose to euthanise her and i am glad I did, I couldn't watch her slowly die as immense pain ended her life. Some people say that animals are lucky, they have the option of euthanasia, but we don't. Daz and Kaz I am very sorry to hear about both of your situations and I wish the best for all. It is hard when you don't know the future. Could you save them or will it make it worse?

That was a very compassionate story Chryso. But I agree with what you did. I think you could have put it in the euthanasia topic. There are many long stories there.

What are his poops like? Get the vet to take a swab around his eye and see if they can culture it (This will tell if there is bacteria there). Get them to take a skin scraping from around the eye and look at it under the microscope (this can tell if he has mites or lice). Get them to do blood smears (This can give an indication of white blood cell counts and a general idea of the immune status, whether it is likely to be parasites, or a bacterial or viral infection of some kind and how the immune response is progressing). Get them to look at the poop under the microscope (see if their are any parasite eggs) and see if they can culture it (see if there are any abnormal bacteria). Most of these tests can be easily done in the vet clinic for a small cost, I'm amazed they haven't tried any yet. Listen to his breathing, is it wet?, raspy, clear or soundless? If problems here then it could mean respiratory infection. What colour is the skin around his eye? If he is not responding to antibiotics then there are two possibilities: 1. It is not a bacterial infection 2. The bacteria is resistant to many drugs, which unfortunately is a possibility if he was staying at a vet clinic

Haha. Hairy maggot fly. yes yes. Yes I have a lot of soft toys most of them still back at my parent's place. But they are soo adorable. I (shamedly) even have some pokemon soft toys from they were all the rage back then, they have been relegated to the closet now . All the other toys get fresh air though.

Haha I changed it cause I thought I had blabbed on too much, at least I made someone laugh. My sheep is cute he has a little sign hanging around his neck that says "doorstop", cause that is what he is. ( I could have put him in the Aussie section. He's a Suffolk so he can be English)

Echidnophagea - sounds like it eats echidnas

Halfsiders are called tetragametic chimerism. This is when two zygotes or embryos of two completely different sets of DNA fuse at a very early stage to become one animal. Chimera humans exist. They just have patches where DNA is different to other patches. Thus is it likely that a hermaphrodite bird could be caused this way then it would probably be sterile, but not necessarily. No reason for a halfsider to be sterile, they would still have the reproductive organs. The question remaining is: are their reproductive organs from 2 sets of DNA or 1. No matter what a gamete would only be one set of DNA, so a baby would not have halfsider written into its DNA, but could be more predisposed to it occurring or in its offspring. The lutino halfsider may not necessarily be halfsider, she could have a condition causing her to loose her pigment like vitiligo, or be a new kind of pied mutation. Pied is just large areas of absence of pigmentation. The first one is definately a halfsider though. The interesting thing would be that halfsiders may be more common than we know as there would be many birds that are halfsiders with two sets of DNA but the two sides happened to be the same colour. For instance both embryos were destined to be green budgies, but are different birds of course.

Teehee, you wouldn't want to know what I've dissected then!!!! Pharlap, that would be a New Zealand horse I believe. That is so cool Chryso. You should so get all the tack for it!. I used to have one like that that had a saddle and bridle, but I lost it. I just looked at the site. I want everything!!! I learned about Chrysomya rufifacies the secondary striker fly today and I thought of you.

I would say from the sounds of it that it is regurgitation. Was he doing it to a toy? or while singing and dancing? Regurgitation looks like fully formed food, whereas vomit looks partially digested. Sleeping on two feet does not necessarily mean they are sick. My birds do it all the time. Sleeping on one foot just means that they are most likely very healthy as they are able to do that, but just because he is using both feet does not mean he is sick. If you are truly worried take him to the vet

Birds can get fleas. There are at least 2 species that live on chickens and could probably move over to budgies quite easily as fleas have low host specificity. just studied it today

Yes, the beast with two backs. Exactly what he is doing. Boys will be boys and even boy budgies with lots of girls around will still pleasure themselves. My boy budgie did. You can't do much about it. At least he is having fun.

It is not draughts that harm your bird ( they are exposed to draughts when they fly!!!). However the cold does not help. Stick him somewhere warm. Sneezing and such is usually a respiratory infection. What other signs does he have, any unusual behaviours. Fluffed up or sleek? Active or Dull? Having trouble breathing or okay? If you are really worried a vet visit is always a good idea

A little but prions are considered not alive because they are just slightly mutated proteins. Viruses are considered un alive because they don't grow or eat. Most microbes you will find have preferred hosts because they will be adapted to them, although with some there is nothing stopping them from growing elsewhere as some are quite broad in their requirements. Bacteria are alive. The reason why we have more bacterial DNA in our bodies than our own is because mitochondria (the little organelles in our cells that produce energy) were originally bacteria that was either swallowed by or invaded a primitive cell and have thus been incorporated into our cells design and needs. You'll find that mitochondria have their own DNA (often they do mitochondrial DNA sampling for parentage tests and ID, I think). The other large amounts of bacterial DNA in our system would be those accounted to the many species that inhabit our gut and skin mutually.

Good on you for calling in the Snake catcher. The snake will happily eat cane toads for you