Sailorwolf

Awesome feathers

She is doing well so far. her leg is a little slow. I plan on taking her to the vet sometime, just to get a general check up.

You should lock her door, so she can't open it. You can still call the vet and ask about your budgie at the very least. Tell your mum that your budgie is very sick and is more important than what she has got planned.

Oh yes he is in quarantine. He is on top of his quarantine cage in that picture. Saffy is also in quarantine with him, becuase when she hurt her foot, I had to put her in the carry cage I brought Emmett home in. Plus, being in the smaller cage means she can't move around as much. She helps me tame him too.

Well here are some (slightly) better pictures of Emmett, you can actually see his colour:

I don't know if you should take it away. Perhaps take it away for a week and then give it back and see if she still likes it.

You might need to give the baby extra feedings, and such to keep it happy and healthy. Do you have bedding in the nest box? Perhaps you could put some more in so the baby has a little more insulation to keep it warm.

These guys that are split for it, only show, a little hint of colouring, patches of it, or colour outlining their black stripes.

You can use bungie cords, with hooks on the ends

Aren't beans bad for budgies??? maybe that's it?

The stuff the zoos use is nylony. I think. Anyway, they stuff at our zoo is quite old, as it has lichen and stuff growing on it and it has stood up well to the weather.

Most male budgies these days are split to opaline. That is most male budgies bought from petshops. Both my oldest petshop males are split to opaline. When I was studying the biology of the cell, we were told one very interesting thing. It was that: Recessive genes do actually express them selves even when hidden by a dominant gene. For instance in sickle cell anaemia, when the genotype is (I'm not sure of the actual letters they use) Dd, the person will not get anaemia, but the express both normal red blood cell and sickle shaped red blood cells. This suggest that even though the recessive gene may not be seen overall in the phenotype of the animal it is still expressed. Thus in an instance where say a budgie is split to ino. It's genotype would be Ii. It would appear normal. The little recessive ino gene is still making a defunct protein, however the normal dominant gene makes enough pigment to cover the body and the effects of the defunct ino protein. When there are two ii ino alleles, both alleles are making the defunct pigment protein and thus no melanin is made as the protein made by the ino gene doesn't produce pigment. Just like the sickle cell anaemia in humans. Now getting on to opalines. I have noticed with both of my males that are split to opaline, small amounts of their body colour are evident on their wings. It does not cover their whole back, but in little patches they have body colour. One of their sons however has now body colour on his back at all. I would assume that he is not split for opaline. My previous two examples involving the ino and sickle cell anaemia gene, makes the point that in a male budgie split to opaline, his genotype would be Oo. The recessive opaline o allele is making some body colour appear in the wings, but the dominant normal O allele is making enough no pigment protein in most of the feather to cover it up in most areas. However yo will notice that the body colour tends to appear closer to the black line of the back and wing feather, this is most likely due to the fact that the black line is the area of pigment and is the barrier or pigment and no pigment and thus this barrier would most likely break down here. Thus I theorize that males split to opaline will tend to have patches of body colour in their wings, because the hidden opaline gene, still expresses itself even though it is covered up by the normal gene. Your thoughts please. I have noticed also that the coloured patches tend to only be in the V and saddle area of the wings and head like it would be in a full opaline. Well here are some pictures of my males that are definately split to opaline and you can definately see the small amounts of body colour in their wings: This picture you can especially see the blue on Izzy's shoulder: Here Arkady's green shows up alot on the back of his head:

Or instead of using wire mesh you could use a sort of flexible, plasticy nylon like mesh, that bounces when the budgies hit it, so they don't get hurt. They use it in the huge avairies in our zoo.

Yeah. Fuzzy rope got taken out immediately.

They are really good ways for runner budgies to keep fit. My Saffy (who is a runner) absolutely loves hers and is on it all the time. She is probably now the fittest budgie of the bunch.

Hi Mandy. You sound like a very good budgie owner. :oliveb: You are not being a pest, we welcome your questions. :ausb: Budgies generally won't breed as long as there is no where for them to do so. So don't put nesting boxes in the avairy.

I want a white based skyblue or violet clearbody opaline.

I wanted to post this right away, but lately I have been so busy with 2 tests and an assignment to do, that I didn't have any time to post this. Anyway, on Tuesdays I usually stay wait around at uni to play sport afterwards. But on that day I decided I would go home in between uni and sport to do some work on an assignment. I walked into my room and didn't notice anything unusual. Saffy was playing with the fuzzy rope, and the other budgies were having a ball. Then one of my flatmates asked how the budgies were and it wasn't till then that I took a proper look inside the cage. I was watching Saffy play with the fuzzy rope, when I thought her foot looked very dark. Saffy is usually a pinky toed thing. Then I saw it, bits of fluff from the rope had tangled around her foot and cut off the circulation!!! :oliveb: I supported her while someone ran to get some scissors. We cut her down and undid the twine around her foot. Her foot was deep purple!!!. I was so worried. Finally we got the bit of rope off. It was wrapped so tightly around her foot that it had cut into her skin. I thought she would lose her foot! :ausb: Slowly her foot returned to its normal shade of pink. Poor baby it looked so sore. It was bleeding and bruised. My friend who is also a vet student, but higher up than me, said that the foot will probably be fine, but to just keep an eye on it. We put her into the little carry cage, so that she wouldn't be able to move much on it. Unfortunately, it hadn't been cleaned since Emmett's arrival, so she is now in quarantine with Emmett. Which is good as it is smaller cage and she won't be able to move so much on her foot. Any way today it looks perfectly normal and she is using it properly and everything. My friend said that it is amazing how long blood can be cut off from something and the limb survives. I'm just glad I came home when I decided to, otherwise she would have been caught up like that for over 5 hours!!!! and she probably would only have one foot right now, which for a runner budgie would suck.

eek. Kaz I just read this now. You poor thing. i hope they all pull through okay.

Hey Nathan. I have 2 spare yellwface spangle males for sale. If you want to come down to New Zealand, you are welcome to them.

Yeah Saffy, didn't exactly let me choose whether or not to breed from her (Laughing out loud), she decided to do it herself. And she had 6 very healthy babies. (she actually had 10 in total, but 4 died due to squashing by older chicks, or not being fed and one got kicked out. )

awwe cute name. Welcome. When budgies first come home, they don't tend to eat, as they are a little scared, but she should start eating within 3 or 4 days. Some, like my Isis, can take up to a week to start eating.

I don't tend to clip my budgies, becuse I love watching them fly around and enjoy themselves, but i will clip, if their training requires it. For instance, when I got Arkady he was 7 weeks old and a real solcialite, He was tame with in 2 weeks, there was no need for me to clip him. However Emmett, my newest budgie, is about 4 or 5 months (I think), and has never really been touched by a human, so i clipped his wings, to make him easier to tame. Then I will let them grow out.

Elly, you are so onto it

Or you could use those flappy things that hang inside doors, like what they have in dairies. For those, you can keep it up the whole time on the inside of the door as budgies can't get tngled in it.