**KAZ**

Hi This one will need longer than a few months to be old enough for breeding. She is a baby. Wait ten months. The fluffed up one is sick, not just fluffed up due to cold or they would all be looking like that. Did you buy them all from the same place ? The blue hen is nice PS quarantine is AWAY from all others in another room, in another airspace, not with cages all in the same room.

Sounds EXACTLY like the breeding season I am having Splat. Its terrible

Here he is as a chick and adult

I am waiting for the photos

If you are colony breeding and the male has got two hens nesting, he will choose which hen to support...........he cant support and feed both indefinitely and the chicks as well. So one of those hens is going to be on her own and that will endanger her nest of chicks. Colony breeding is not the best way to go about things. Read this http://forums.budgiebreeders.asn.au/index.php?showtopic=28294&hl= The term "sex addict" is a human invention. Budgies are not sex addicts as such. But when you breed them almost in a wild colony fashion their instincts will kick in and the cocks will try and reproduce as much as they can. In the wild, so much goes wrong that percentages of successful hatchings and fledgings are reduced. The more fertile eggs he can make the more chance of babies produced. The only difference here is aviary colony breeding isnt the same as colony breeding in the wild. There isnt the space to get away from the others and be safe from nest raids and other feral hens wanting the best nesting spot...hence why a lot of eggs and chicks get smashed and killed in our aviary colony breeding. We think we have made them safer than breeding in the wild..........safe from external predators ...YES. But not safe from each other. We have limited their territory.

In my experience all cinnamon have plum eyes. Sometimes it just down to interpretation of what you see BUT there is a definite difference between a plum eyed chick and a black eyed chick Plum eyes chicks at hatching can be recsssive pieds, cinnamon, and df spangles

If all other signs are good, and all you are worried about is a few fluffed feathers on her back, I would say she's going to be okay. I have had the odd chick or two that wouldnt eat upon fledging. One just like yours. I was sure was going to die. I reduced it to a top up crop feed only one a day in the evening and expected to see it dead the next morning everyday I went to a budgie show one day and looking at that chick before I left I was sure I would find it dead when I got home. I got home in the dark and went to the bird room to remove its body as I was sure it would have died. It was perching and feeling its crop it had seed in its crop. The chick never looked back from that moment on. He is one of Omelettes babies, a cinnamon grey cock and has won best in show a time or two. I am constantly in awe of him still being in my aviary and looking so good considering his rough start in life. There will always be chicks who refuse to eat and wont thrive. I used to think I could save them all. Sometimes now I just look at them and say "Alright then....die if thats what you want" and its these ones that seem to try and prove me wrong by pulling through. Others will die just because they wont eat once they leave the nest. Parents stop feeding them knowing they arent quite right. ......and the old rule of the fittest surviving kicks in.

I agree with a lot of what RIP has said. Additional to that a ring on a budgies foot identifies it and can be checked against breeding records. Its the way to show its heredity, family line, parentage, age etc. Without it all you have to go on in most cases is what you see.

and hibiscus...........which grows everywhere

Metropolitan Budgerigar Club Auction Western Australia Click link ( updated catalogue 13th June 2011 ) https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0B0_0vRjrcsuMZDM2NWM1NWYtZWY1OC00ZWFjLWIzOTktYzE2OGNjZjJhNmFl&hl=en_US&authkey=CNe_nJoI

The reason you are seeing a difference in both the iris rings ( eyes ) and the cheek patches is due to the pied gene at work.

Dont pick up any roadside branches...council often weedsprays around roadsides. Dropped branches from trees further in from the road might be safer. Check anyone you know for hibiscus.

Yellowface grey dominant pied.

If you can see down still or bare patches under wings or around legs or butt and tail isnt decently grown ............put it back.

If it isnt totally and fully feathered you put it back in the nestbox. A lot of baby budgies fall out by accident or come out too soon. If its fully feathered and over 4-5 weeks old it should be fine in the breeder cage with the dad feeding it. Give it an upturned icecream tub to be in with seed all over the floor of the cage. Dont remove the chick from its parents until you see it eating all on its own for at least a week without begging food from its parents.

Mine dont snuggleup to keep warm either Finnie

Hi Art....welcome to our forum. Your budgie is lovely and you are doing all the right things with him so far. Enjoy

The heat mat sounds good Vicky

You dont need the pedicure ones The rope ones are fine Persevere and get some natural branches................you can use gumtree ( legal schmeagle ...sheesh ....just find some and go for it ) also bottlebrush, hibiscus ( available everywhere ) , peppermint tree. Hope this helps

Me too........based on the video ..............BOY

Talking about cold Vicky.............its been 1 degrees centigrade at night here lately and the birds in the aviaries look just as happy and chirpy as usual when the sun comes up. They are desert birds in their genetic makeup..........extremes of temperatures from high to low. They adapt.

Put notices anywhere that sells bird food,..............pet stores, pet and garden centres etc. The first thing people do when they catch someones bird is go to get it some food. Notices also at vets, with the RSPCA too. We once lost a princess parrot on a friday and got it back on the monday by leaving word with the rspca.

and too quiet is a sign of danger to birds. It makes them fearful and apprehensive.

I think the presence of the white on the cere despite the overcast of the other colour may indicate female. The photos arent real good. I am sure you can get some better ones later. Remember to use your macro setting on your camera

Last photo does look GIRL-ish