Rainbow

My first thought was a dilute of white suffusion (or Black-Eyed Self as some call it). It is not albino as the eyes are dark with an iris ring, and not a lacewing as those have brown markings and red eyes as well. She is a lovely hen.

okay, I'll do my best. This is only my opinion from 30 + years of keeping budgies, and I'm sure others won't agree with the finer points. If you have the smaller, "American" budgie (roughly 7" long without the big poofy head) they should weigh in at about an ounce (28 grams). It's rare to find them that small, and most 'pet' budgies will actually weigh between 30-35 grams. Any more and I don't care what anyone says, they are overweight. If you have the larger "English" budgie (roughly 8 1/2" long with the big poofy head) they will weigh in at around 50 grams. Never having had an "English" budgie, I cannot tell you from experience at what weight they are considered overweight. But I would guess the same 5-7 grams over "ideal" weight would put them there. I weighed three of my four today. They are all three considered obese by the numbers on the scale. Some carry the weight a little better than others although only two of them look "fat" (ie - have fatty lipomas). And yet mine eat very little dry seed. Go figure. There must be something else going on, so I think it time to make a call to my avian vet, as it appears they are gaining again instead of losing. Thanks for your question about weight, as I would not have weighed mine had you not asked. If the budgie you have that weighs 30 grams is the smaller type budgie, he is at the right weight. Budgies are supposed to be small, streamlined birds. They are supposed to look thin. In the wild they fly practically all day looking for food - if they carried any extra weight (like mine) they would be somebody's lunch in no time, as they couldn't keep up. If you can handle your birds easily, pick one up and gently press the abdomen, the area right in front of the vent, and over the rump. Those are the areas you are most likely to be able to feel extra fat. If you cannot easily feel the keel bone on the chest, chances are your budgie is carrying extra fat. It should not stick out, but you should be able to feel it easily. When your bird sits and you look at it sideways, you should not see any areas from the bottom of the mask to the vent that stick out. The profile should be smooth, and a gentle curve from top to bottom.

Hello and Welcome!

Aside from the quarantine issue, if you have their cages sitting next to each other, once you notice both birds constantly sitting as close to each other in their respective cages as they can get and they carry on soft warbling sounds instead of regular chirps and squawks, you can consider putting them in the same cage. To avoid any territorial issues though, once you decide to house them together, I would house them in a completely new cage.

Rainbow was on steroids after being diagnosed with the kidney tumor, but they were oral instead of injectable. I would gladly have given the injections if necessary though, as a long time ago I bought a budgie that was very sick and had to inject antibiotics twice a day for (I think) 2 weeks, so I've done that before. Not fun to do with an untame bird, and needless to say it put taming back several months... It was a scary thing to do, only because you have to be so careful not to puncture an organ. Frequent injections will make the injection sites sore. Anyway, about the steroids - with Rainbow it was a last resort to try and reduce inflammation. Eventually I stopped them because he was becoming very weak, and I thought the increased urination (resulting from the increased thirst) was making his kidneys work too hard. At first it seemed to help, but in his case I think it may have prolonged the inevitable, as his condition was terminal and I knew that going in. I cannot say the same for Percy because I do not know his prognosis or what shape he is currently in. You should decide that. I think steroids can be helpful. If Percy is in good condition otherwise, it may be wise to consider it. As far as side effects, the most notable was increased thirst/increased appetite. Would you do the injections yourself on a regular basis or would you take him to the vet for treatments? Did he tell you how often he wanted Percy to be dosed? If you have to do the treatments, you might think about an oral steroid instead, unless you are not squeamish about the other. Bless you Chrissie, for being so concerned and taking all the extra measures you take to make his life more comfortable. (((hugs))) to you. :angel1:

I am so very sorry to hear about your loss. Here's a great big hug to you from across the pond. I have a few listings you could try in London. *C.J.Hall Veterinary Surgeons (www.cjhall.org) *Midland Veterinary Surgery They were listed in the back of Parrots Magazine, which is published in the UK. I hope either of those will be of help.

Nope. Female I say. I think there is too much of a shade difference between the blue over the outside of the nostrils and the blue at the bottom of the cere. The white rings around the nostrils are meeting and blending at the center of the cere as well. I think soon the rest of the cere will lighten up to match the color around the nostrils.

Treating them with hormone shots doesn't sound right, unless your vet thinks there is some other issue going on that is causing the weight gain. I would pass on that option, I think. It is difficult to get budgies to lose weight. Rationing seeds will help some, but also might just make your birds more bickery with each other until they come up with some other 'favorite' food. Exercise plus rationing is probably your best bet, but with multiple birds there will be a fine line to walk because you will not know whether all the birds are eating optimally or whether some piggie is eating more than his/her fair share until you go a week or so of regular weighings. You will HAVE to weigh them on a regular basis, and don't let them lose more than a gram or two per week. If you do find you have a bird that refuses to give up the lion's share of the food, and can still find a safe way of cutting the food, let me know what it is. You don't want any of the birds to not get enough to eat. I'd like to find a better way to get my perch potatoes to exercise a bit more too. Not to knock the handwaving method, but I personally am a little leery of that one...I'd prefer my birds to not shy away when they see my hands...

My guess is dilute, blue series. The flights and tail look white, which would indicate a clearflight gene (pied) but I can't tell if the spot is there. If the flights aren't really white (due to the flash) and the bird is not pied then possibly a dilute greywing. Is the blue tint visible only with the flash or is it visible always? If not visible normally then DEC. I didn't notice any red tint to the eyes. Any way to get some more pictures, from different angles?

You might be seeing the white down feathers poking through. Normally you don't see them, but they will sometimes become visible during a molt. And those feathers will molt out also, so you could be seeing them before the bird plucks them out. He should regrow green feathers.

Well, both of my violets came from a varigated pied & banded clearflight cross. I'm not completely certain which parent carried the gene for violet, as it wasn't apparent. I thought the male at first, but the female's tail is marked like I have read skyblue violet tails are marked. She just does not look in any way, shape, or form like a violet. The male violet baby looked normal except for the headspot, and the female baby is an opaline banded clearflight, but the banding is more the shape of a cross or plus sign (it almost looks like she's wearing a tuxedo vest ) and she lacks all spots in the mask. But if it were possible I would breed her in a minute. What would be undecided is whether to breed her to another violet, or to a cobalt, and whether the male would be opaline and clearflight. The rest of the babies were skyblues or dilute cobalts with varying pied characteristics. Oh, and two greywing normals appeared also. They were all beautiful babies, but the 'banded' pieds would not have done well at shows due to the unevenness of markings among other "faults". Were I interested in breeding to a specific type, I think I would concentrate first on type, and secondly on color, as a perfectly marked bird will turn heads no matter what the color. Do you want your pieds to have normal wings or do you like the clearflight gene? Can you post some pictures of them? I would love to see.

You will get varied ages from different breeders here, but we all agree at minimum she should be 12 months old. I recommend closer to 18 months. As far as maximum age, it will depend upon your hen, but probably about 4 years old.

Hello and Welcome! I look forward to hearing about your budgies (and seeing pictures... ).

Please let us know what you find out, and what tests were run. That way if anyone else has this problem at least they will have a starting point for conversation with their avian vet. I do hope it is something easily treated.

Yeah, I can see where it would be difficult to breed only birds that would fit a particular standard instead of possibly fitting into more than one category. It would probably take years of breeding and a working knowledge of genetics. What type is your goal? Do you already have a bird that exhibits qualities you want to be able to successfully repeat?

He is so very cute! I think he very much looks like a boy. As far as his type, type 2 yellowface skyblue. His coloring is much to turquoise to be a type 1. You can't really tell by the biting, I've found girls will bite hard and quickly then be done with it if they want to bite, and boys will bite and keep grinding away at your flesh without a break.

It's not that no one else cares enough to respond. The thread's only been up two days, and not everyone is on every day, or has time to go through all the forums at one time. Seperating them may be a good idea if you want to make taming Duo easier. Right now you have introduced a new bird into Tweeter's domain. It was his, and he didn't have any say in whether he wanted a roommate. Some birds seem to love everyone, and other birds have strong likes and dislikes for both people and other birds. If you had put them both into a neutral cage, you might not have had so much bickering. But that's not to say they won't eventually learn to live in harmony. The cage sounds plenty big enough for 2 birds, so space probably isn't the issue. You are correct in that the fight or flight response will win out every time over the tame and trusting response. If it didn't, these birds would not survive in the wild. That they are in your house and you are not going to eat them is a fact that is totally lost on them. :hap: You haven't had them long enough to dampen that automatic response, even though Tweeter had been there 6 months. That's not a long time. If you are not using favorite treats as motivators to spend time with you, start there. Whether it's millet or peanut butter smeared on your finger, or just your exclusive attention, find something that they really, really like and ONLY offer it when they 1) step up onto your finger or 2) don't run from you in the cage, or 3) exhibit a behavior that you want reinforced. Give it to them periodically when they show especially good behavior outside the cage too. You need to give them an incentive to WANT to come to you instead of fly away from you. Otherwise what is their motivation? The open beaks are just a sizing up of the other bird. The rest of the behavior is based on both of them wanting the same thing, not dominance. Dogs establish a dominant/submissive heirarchy but parrots do not. If you look at their behavior, compare it to two toddlers who have not learned social skills yet. What one has, the other one automatically wants, even if they want it just so the other one cannot have it. For example, the nighttime routine for sleeping spots. Height = might in the bird world, and usually safety from predators too, as the higher up they are, the more of their surroundings are visible. If the highest perch only has enough room for one, either put up a longer perch or put up an identical one at the same height. The same with toys, food, whatever. I don't recommend the grab and hold method of taming. It might work better for clipped birds, as they soon realize they cannot get away and are dependent upon you for a good deal of their transport from one room to another. Still, you cannot force trust from a bird, it must be earned. That is part of what parrots are about. It is easy to lump them in the same category as dogs and wonder why they don't do what you tell them to like dogs will with training. People are more conditioned to pets like dogs, and it is easy to forget parrots are a whole new matter entirely. You have to shift your perspective to something new entirely. Flighted birds have more attitude (if I could fly I would have attitude too) and by forcing them to remain in your grasp I think only reinforces their fear of your hands. I recommend starting over from square one with these guys, and you should begin to see progress again.

Kirby, the cloacas need to touch, and for more than a second, LOL. But they should begin mating frequently and he will improve with practice. Your first egg won't occur until about 10 days after mating starts and she decides she likes the box which it sounds like she just started to make it hers. If any are laid before then they most likely will be infertile because matings have not been successful. She should not be holding poo in yet...that normally only happens after she begins staying in the box - after the second egg. But even after she starts laying they will continue to mate until she is finished laying the clutch. My fingers are crossed for you!

Any of the "jingle bell" type bells are dangerous for the reason eterri mentioned, but I think even more so because budgie toes fit in there much to easily...once in the bird panics because his toe is caught. Budgies have lost toes because of them. They can rip the toe right off when jerking it away from the bell (the edges are very sharp compared to toes), or even chew it off in their panic to get away from the "predator". That was my concern when I saw the video, especially since he kept grabbing it with his foot. I'm glad he doesn't have that kind of bell anymore. But dangers aside, he really was ripping into it, wasn't he?

Laying flat is not a symptom of molting. When birds molt they may be a little more irritable when the pin feathers start appearing. Some aren't. When my birds molt I really don't notice any different behavior, other than occasional grumpiness towards each other when eating or playing with favorite toys.

I don't see why you couldn't. It is my understanding that the term varigated refers more to the flight feathers being a mixture of clear and normal, some with mottling. I think it is more a description of one of the possible pied characteristics, and is one of the pied mutations. Clearflight is also another mutation that refers to the wings and tail being white (or creamy yellow in the green series). Again, I think it is a description of one of the possible mutations. A banded pied is an 'ideal' pied, and again I think just defines the markings. If you wanted any or all of those characteristics in your pieds I think you could eventually get your breeding stock to contain whichever pied traits you find most appealing, and consistently breed to that particular characteristic. Is that what you meant?

I recently replaced the bulbs in the bird room with full spectrum bulbs, and what a difference it makes! I admit it has been some months since I used them last but within the last week the girls have become more active and vocal. They fly around a little more, and seem overall a little happier. Just in a week! I anticipate they will continue to thrive, and I look forward to it. They had seemed a little bummed out, which I attributed to the flock size dwindling. I'm sure that was part of it, but they are starting to act more like normal again. I'm so very happy to see it. If you can invest in some, I highly recommend them. You can buy them anywhere, and they will fit into a regular bulb socket. Just an observation though, since the light is "whiter" than a regular soft white bulb, you don't need to get one with as high a wattage as you usually use. Otherwise, it's um...really bright. I had forgotten. Oh well, live and learn! **edit** Oh, I forgot to mention that it really makes their colors look fantastic!

Hello and Welcome! We are glad to have you. I don't think there is a better forum out there for budgies. It's wonderful your daughter has a love for birds. Give her some encouragement from me to continue - avian vets are so few and far between, but definitely worth their weight in gold if you can find one. Her services will be in high demand. It certainly would be a very rewarding career.

Name him Friday (as in 13th). Not too creepy to say it out loud, but will give you a third "13".

Bubbles, how old is she? I will be anxiously awaiting any babies she has. I think she is just gorgeous!