Elly

bumping this up, today is the last day

Aly they look wonderful, congrats

newbie question - why does wing-clipping help with taming? It helps with taming because you are not chasing the bird all over the room and completely exhausting it. When you finally can get the bird to perch they are usually panting, nervous, under stress and are only sitting there because they are too tired to move. You want to work with a bird that is calm, in a frame of mind where he will listen to you and not worried about what his next move is to get away from you. I have tamed both ways and I can tell you a wing clip makes a huge difference because now they are dependent on you to get around. If you work hard you will see the results within a week and by the time they get the lift to fly again which is usually within 2 months you will have a bird that considers you part of his flock and not his predator. Many people are against wing clipping (but just as many are for it) I believe each individual situation needs to be examined. If I saw an aviary of 10 plus birds all clipped that would be very sad but if there was someone that had 1 bird lived in a house with ceiling fans going all the time & doors open the most common sense thing to protect your feathered friend would be to have him clipped for his saftey. These are my views alone and why I feel this way.

how wonderful , do you have updated pics of Frisky?

Read the FAQ article about Taming Budgies. Training starts with building trust first so the first week you will be getting them used to your voice, face, putting the food in and out along with water etc...it doesn't mean putting your hand in that comes later. Once you can build your birds trust for you, you can proceed to the next step. As per your other post your one bird is very nervous by showing you signs of beak panting they can also twitch their wings or go to the farthest corner of their cage all behaviors you want to gradually overcome. You can do that by just taking it slow and being patient . I hope that helps. Side note, I got Pretty at 3 months and by that time if they have not had any human touch or interaction you will find that it takes longer to gain their trust especially when they come from a pet store such as yours did and so did mine. So do be patient every bird is different one can form a bond in under 2 weeks others such as my Pretty took 6 months.

excellent choice to bring it back to life

very sorry to hear this news

they are super sweet

The behavior that he is displaying is not from being hot but from being nervous and scared. I suggest that you keep the cage covered on all 3 sides for 3 days to help get him used to his surroundings. You will find that he will start to calm down and will do less and less of this. This behavior is also displayed if you just tried to touch a bird that is not yet used to human hands or fingers so if you tried to get him to get on your hand this is also why he is doing this. In the FAQ I wrote up a taming article and it talks about what I did for the first couple weeks to get Pretty adjusted to his new life at our house. I know if you read it you will get excellent points.

wonderful news, I am glad you took their advice

Wow throwback he is a gorgeous bird hopefully his chicks will be a clearcap and they will be gorgeous the first picture by the way didn't come up it is a box with an little red x in it if you want to fix that.

you got your questions answered but wanted to pop in and say he is very handsome

A feather duster is a budgie with a genetic disorder where the feathers continue to grow and grow (unlike a normal budgie where the feathers stop growing), there can also be other deformities to the clawa and/or beak. Feather Dusters require a high amount of minerals and nutrition and because of the excessive growth of the feathers it literally pulls all the nutrients from the birds body. Most feather dusters don't live to the age of 1 (there are few occasions wher they did live longer). Since it is a genetic disorder it is incurable.

congrats. they are very cute

I believe that, pepperment is a very strong smell

excellent you figured out the bath and since you are new to budgies before I would medicate for mites a trip to the avian vet to make sure he is okay is the perfect idea . They will let you know because I think sometimes we may not be used to how much they actually preen especially down there. They actually have glands down there so when they preen they can spread the oils all over their body. If your informtion is showing wrong you can fix that in your CONTROL PANEL located on the main page. So you know if he does get clipped they molt out about every 3-4 months so this is a good time to work with taming and what I have found is if you can form a good strong bond during this time you probably won't have to clip again unless you do it for safetly reasons only .

It is the sound when I swish around Merlin's seed he goes nuts (Laughing out loud) it has nothing to do with the smell, budgies smell is worse then ours and we can hardly smell the seed unless it was freshly open .

glad things are going well birdluv

how wonderful, one thing though is not to respond to the budgie angry talk because if you do you are creating a positive reinforcement to a behavior that will down the road drive you crazy she has to learn to be on her own and call you here and there but don't respond to that type of behavior it can turn into screaming. Glad things are working well.

well they do preen down there and they do preen a lot lets see what others say, I think he has a dirty bum from being in that pet store and those feathers will molt out nice now that you have him, have you offered him a bath yet?

are his poos normal?

eating the newspaper may have gotten her sick? Maybe it was impacted somewhere maybe not. Female budgies love to shred they are the ones that clean out the holes in the trees and arrange their nests so this is just a natural behavior and nothing to worry about. Continue to keep her quiet, warm for the next couple of days and continue to watch her behavior. At times budgies can rebound and then go down fast so I would suggest to still make that avian vet appointment.

they can smell but not well because their survival doesn't depend on smelling like a dog or a cat that is why they have better eye sight and are even know to see ultraviolet rays something we humans can't see...budgies are so neat

Hi Dossie, you asked this question in your How to Clean the Cage plus, we ask that you don't ask it 2x in different areas because then splits up the answers and most just want to answer it once ..so if you go back to that post you will find that myself and others have answered your question. Thank you for understanding.