**KAZ**

The thing is a crop needle has a real blunt end...the word needle puts people off

PM Daz about which clubs are best for you in your area

Being shown and practising is the better way to go

I seriously doubt he is taking out his own feathers. If he arrived with no tail and you are seeing broken and bleeding flight feathers, then he is a french moult budgie. That means the feathers he is trying to grow through are breaking. He may never have his full flights or tail and he may be destined to become a floor dweller. Time will tell. BUT what you have described is typical of french moult budgies.

Pain and shock sounds like

Good idea about the budgie club liv

If you have an older budgie in your aviary, you can practice on that budgie.

Poor baby Check his upper beak mate in case its "loose"

A very valuable and necessary skill to learn for breeders and budgie owners alike. Its not just about feeding babies but also a valuable way to get meds into birds or emergency calcivet for eggbound hens too.

You really do NOT need a picture as opaline chicks have snowy white down and others have grey down.

We used to have both. We kept them in seperate aviaries. I am a believer that budgies should only be with budgies and no other birds.

I agree with Nerwen on this.

I wish we had mooses in Australia

I candle at 5-6 days

Daniela....do a for sale in our budgies for sale section and add some photos

what a honey of a budgie

Looking forward to more photos

They are looking A-okay to me Renee

Is there a budgie member anywhere near you that can crop feed Cricket ? Are you anywhere near Daz at all ? Your vet should have shown you how to crop feed.

Feather cyst on the preening gland most likely or a tumour. Lets hope its a feather cyst. If it was a tumour you would expect a lot more brown on his cere and also perhaps some paralysis of legs. Didnt sound like your vet was a full bottle of knowledge on birds to me. There doesnt seem to be any need for a dna test to determine sex. Any vet who knows birds well enough would be able to tell Sherbet is a boy. By the way.........welcome to our forum

Sherbet is a BOY budgie. Females with blue on their cere always have white with the blue not the full depth of blue colour Sherbet has. Is your vet a qualified avian vet ?

Great feather !! Just what I expect to see from you Open breeders You are going to have a good year, I can see it.

Fertility seems to come with a certain breeders birds I bought...all my Gary Armstrong birds have great fertility. But also seems to be a thing with spangles too, I have noticed.

You will know your opalines in the nest when they have down and no feathers yet as their down will be snowy white.

You will need to change the fact of the soil floors.............either concrete slabs under the aviary, brick pavers, old aviary mesh ...whatever you can do. You will need to get in there and do some digging and check whats in the soil as there can be nests of baby mice actually in tunnels in the soil. My dogs dug some up the other day and were eating the baby mice they found. If you want to deal permanently with the mice issue, you can temporarily divide the floor from the top of the aviary with some old aviary mesh......so in effect you have a suspended aviary section for the birds and the birds cant get near the actual floor, and down below you can put traps...once there is no more mice activity, remove the mesh.