Rainbow

If you intend on breeding you can go on and add a nest box. The male will bring the female into condition with his attentions. Some breeders on here say the best time to pair them up is right before the female's cere becomes real dark. In my limited experience, the hen had a very dark cere already so I can't vouch for that one way or the other. If you decide to breed them, please make sure you have homes for the babies before you put in the nest box if it is not feasible for you to potentially keep all of the babies.

Welcome! I love that white leg on Phantom! He is a pretty cat. I used to have cats many moons ago, very different than having a dog, that's for certain. Moose looks like a big baby. Don't you just love having animals in the house? Petey-bird is very pretty, and it's great he is seeking out your attention so much already. I look forward to seeing more pictures.

I thought he was just missing most of the tailfeathers...It looks like he has one long one and one about halfway grown out. The mottled look doesn't signify anything, I don't think, except a bleedthrough of the yellow feathers. I think it is unusual and pretty.

Ditto what Lovey said. Since your profile says you have 4 budgies now, I guess you are somewhat familiar with the physical differences between male and female budgies, and just pretty new to keeping multiple budgies. A few more things you can look for if your new budgie is out of quarantine and in with the other ones already: 1. Guarding the food dish. A favorite hen budgie pastime. 2. Wanting the space another bird occupies for seemingly no reason whatsoever, and at completely random times. 3. Not wanting to give up said space if another bird wants it. 4. As a general rule hens will be quieter than male budgies. Hen budgies will sing and warble some, but most of their calls will be one or two syllable chirps and whistles. Male budgies can string together long sonatas that go on for minutes and minutes on end. Hens can too, but usually do not. 5. Hen budgies tend to have flatter, boxy-looking heads across the top. Male budgies heads tend to be rounder at the top. Even when the bird has his feathers raised, males will tend to raise the ones nearest the cere, and hens will tend to raise the ones from the cere all the way back to the back of the head, creating a square look. Hens can and will feed each other. I currently have four hens, and they occasionally feed each other, and will head bob and make clucking or "tut-tut-tut" noises at each other, while pinning their eyes and shaking their heads "no". They will preen each other as well. All female budgies ceres will turn brown when they begin to go through puberty, and when ready to breed. The brown color is determined by the amount of estrogen the bird's body is producing, and this is why even birds as yound as 5 or 6 months of age may get a brown cere. As lovey said, cere color should not be used to determine whether a budgie is old enough to breed, and that is the reason why. Sometimes the cere color change does not occur until the bird is close to a year old. One of my hens was like that. Hopefully this helps some, and I'm sorry for not welcoming you in the first sentence. Welcome! We love pictures of everyone's birds, so if you can post some that would be awesome. It would also help us determing whether you indeed have a hen or not.

Bea, the closer I looked at Squeak's picture, I noticed it looks like he has blue feathers running throughout his shoulders also. It is so pretty. Bubbles, if that is true about violet skyblues, then that means my Skittles is the one with the violet factor, as her tail is turquoise at the quill, and gradually darkens towards the tip. And I never would have guessed it was her that gave me the two violets! I thought it was Rainbow, but wasn't 100% sure since I didn't know either bird's background. She doesn't look like anything other than a regular type 2 yellowface skyblue... Bea, what kind of tail feather does Squeak have?

Yeah, I don't think Butter is recessive. I would say doublefactor dominant pied. He reminds me a lot of my Sunny. Which means if you ever breed him to a normal hen, all babies will be pied. I think Popcorn is recessive though. How old are they?

I don't know if it is random or not. Arctic had violet on his shell wing feathers, and he was not opaline. I don't know if it is due to some other hidden gene poking through or not. Especially these two, you can see the violet through the upper wings and across the shoulders. The last picture shows a blue-ish tint through most of the wing feathers. It should be all white there. How many molts has Squeak gone through?

Are the birds in your sig the ones in question? If so, I can't see the cere of the bird on the right, but the bird on the left looks male. Can you still post some pics up of the ceres? It's best if you can get pictures without using the flash, in a brightly lit room.

The actual egg-laying does not take long at all, although my hen always laid her eggs at night so I never actually timed it. If I had to make a guess I would say no longer than 15-20 minutes, max...but if anyone has timed it I'm sure they'll post. If it took much longer than that, the hen would probably be worn out or in great distress. She then needs immediate attention. I say that because generally if you have an egg-bound hen that home care does not resolve the laying of the egg within an hour, a trip to an avian vet is called for so that she does not die.

Hello and Welcome to the forums. :ausb: What a pretty budgie.

Awwww, Sophie looks like my Sky. I can see where Hunk gets his name too. Can you ship Vixen my way??????? :ausb: And I'm not even going to start on the cuteness of all the puppies, good grief are they all adorable.

That sounds opposite of what usually happens, as the female is the aggressive bird in a pair. Fighting for perching spots and over food is a hen behavior. Most hens do not willingly give up anything without a squabble, especially not to the male of the species. It is possible you are confused about the gender of one or both birds. If you are sure of the sexes of your birds, and know the male is the aggressor, I would start by adding food cups to the cage, and making sure there is more than one high perch for them to choose from. Then monitor your hen, as she may be ill and the male may be taking advantage of that situation. On second thought, if the hen is that passive I would seperate them now and monitor her behavior over the next day or so for illness. Better safe than sorry. Hopefully she is not sick.

Good point, Daz. If the bird is flecked, the black coloring on the forehead feathers is always there. In a pin feather, the black tip will disappear in a few days.

Birdluv, I think Butter (the yellow?) is a doublefactor dominant pied and not a recessive pied. I'm not sure about Popcorn without seeing her back markings. My favorites are blue series pieds, with any additional genes (opaline, clearflight, etc) a bonus. Add a few full bodied greywings. Kinda like these:

Very nice Daz. What are the dimensions?

I would still pay the fee and have the bird looked at by the vet as ivermectin is very toxic if not applied in the correct dosage. The dosage is normally tailored to the individual bird and there are several factors (like weight) that go into the determination of the correct dosage.

No. If they look fat and feel fat they probably are fat. Egg production in budgies takes roughly 18 hours (give or take a few) to be completed beginning to end. Hence the laying of an egg every other day. They do not produce all the eggs at once and carry them. A little bit of a bulge around the vent area the day of/before each egg is laid is really all you should notice physically.

Before you get much more stressed out, have you actually had the bird diagnosed with either French Moult or PBFD? It might be a possiblity, but to me the baby looks very plucked. With only one chick and no other birds around, coupled with the fact that this is the first clutch in what I'm guessing are untried parents, it is not surprising they are not quite sure what to do with him. In a clutch of baby budgies, the first one sometimes is not fed as well initially because the noises of the babies are what seems to drive the parents. With only one chick that condition is not met. He looks like he is being fed, but if he is 4 weeks old, within the last week the parents probably began planning for the next clutch. In their (parent budgies) eagerness to start a new family, sometimes babies get plucked. He looks like he has normal feather growth on his head, and the down is regrowing in. He does have normal looking feathers on the wings too. I do see the blood, and as you said in your original post if he has injuries and blood spots on him invairiably one or both of the parents is/are the culprits. Also you say you are finding his feathers in the nests box. This indicates to me he is capable of growing them normally. French Molt will not cause bodily injuries on the bird. A few questions before you go much further off the deep end... 1. How old are the parents? 2. How often do you check the nest box? 3. Has anything at all changed in their immediate surroundings? 4. Has anything happened that could be termed a stressor as far as the parent birds are concerned? (other pets - ie cats or dogs in the house that might be allowed near their aviary?, or being near a window where they can see outdoor cats or hawks?, or any construction going on in the house or outside?) I'm sorry to hear that your first attempt has resulted in some difficulties. Don't let it put you off the hobby - if it truly brings you joy give yourself a chance to get a little more knowledge and another plan of action if things don't go well the next time around. It is true you will not get rich breeding birds and might be lucky to break even. If you are able, please post pictures of your setup and parent birds. Maybe someone here might be able to see something you are not aware of and give some more suggestions. If you haven't already, I'd at least call your avian vet and explain what the baby looks like and that you believe the parents are plucking him, but that you are concerned about French Molt or PBFD and ask if he needs to see the baby. I agree with everyone else that you do not need to cull the birds. In the meantime, try to keep the temperature where he is a little on the warmer side, as he will become chilled more easily without all his feathers. If he will eat on his own, you could also try keeping him in a cage by himself (you can put it in the aviary if it is large enough) to see if the feathers begin to regrow normally. Just be sure he can crack seeds on his own. At 4 weeks you can also begin to wean him onto other foods, like cooked rice or couscous with cooked carrots and peas (no added salt or butter or seasonings though) and put some soaked seed or millet in with it to get him to recognize it as food. And please keep us posted as to what the vet says. And welcome.

Not opaline, as the bars are formed normally and run all the way down the back - no "V" of body color. And I say dilute instead of greywing skyblue, as the wing color to me carries the same degree of dilution as the body. Although confusing, as greywings are diluted. But the wings are too light to be greywing. Greywing is 50% dilution from normal, and those wings are more than 50%.

Done properly, an injection can sometimes be the quickest way to save your bird's life. On the other hand, they are very tricky as you have to be very careful not to puncture an organ. I have given injections before, and let me tell you, it is one of the scariest things I have ever done. It's definitely something for me that would have to be an utmost medical necessity, and I don't know that I would want to do them myself again.

You should be a very proud bird mommy. :budgiedance: They are beautiful.

It can take a few weeks before you notice any improvement with topical ivermectin. Stress is a big trigger, as some birds immune systems can keep the mite at bay for a little while before you notice symptoms. The only way to get it is to come into contact with it. It is not unheard of for symptoms to not show up for months after exposure...it can depend upon how healthy their immune system is. And stress is not necessarily a bad thing, as there are "good" stresses too.

Nice stand. I'm glad to hear you are making some progress with them. Some of the attitude birds get when their flights grow back in is due to their age. In birds under a year remember that they are the equivalent of teen-agers and will test their limits. Just keep working with them and as they age they should settle down a bit.

Some pet stores will keep the budgies in a tank, but those babies are all trimmed.