Rainbow

I did notice the red tint too Lovey. Blueberry doesn't have that, but one of my DF dominants (Sunny) sometimes would show that tint, sometimes not too. Nerwen, what is your opinion?

Hello and Welcome! Fruitloop seems an apt name for a male budgie. Love it!

Bubbles, the only green I see on Bungee is a little above the tailfeathers and through the wings, but it looks more yellowish than pure green. It looks like the blue + yellow = green kind of green instead of the normal kind of green. **How much sense did that make??? ** To me, the body looks a very pale (diluted), almost slatey-looking grey-blue with little greenish tints splashed through. I love the color, whatever it is!

What I said before. Type 2 yellowface skyblue opaline.

Very nice.

Kirby, is she more like this with the colors? This was after the 1st baby molt. I don't think your new bird is green at all.

I didnt say Bungee was blue. Nathan (Kirby) has commented that he believes his new bird to be type 2 with blue in it but I am saying I see no blue on his bird. I mean...Bungee IS blue. Kirby, I see what you are talking about. It will be more noticeable after the molt.

Bungee is blue..... ????? What am I missing?

Hi Leanne and welcome!

She's very cute, Kirby! I replied in your other thread that she is almost the same color as my greywing. My vote is type 2 yellowface skyblue opaline.

I like him nerwen. He looks very regal.

Her coloring reminds me of my greywing. I would say type 2 yellowface skyblue opaline. I don't really see the cinnamon, her cheek spots look black and the shell markings to me just look a bit diluted. But a lot of times what the camera picks up isn't displayed properly on the monitor. She's a doll.

You can get normals from 2 dominant pieds. Actually, you would expect to. Both parents look like Dominant pieds to me. I don't think your hen is recessive. The ratio you should get would be 50% dominant pied, 25% normals, and 25% doublefactor dominant pieds. You can do punnett squares with birds, it just gets confusing the more mutations you throw in there. To make it easy, let's say Pn is a dominant pied. Your results will be either PP (doublefactor dominant), Pn (SF dominant), or nn (normal, although we know that normal really should be NN as typically normal is not a recessive gene). So by pairing 2 dominant pieds, the result should be 75% pied, 25% normal. From your first batch it looks like you got 2 normal pieds, 1 DF dom. pied, and one normal. Is this correct? Usually the percentages don't come out so nice, as they are supposed to be what you will get over the breeding life of the pair. In your second clutch, I would guess you have 1 normal pied and 1 DF dominant, going by the possible outcomes of pairing 2 SF pieds. As far as why you don't see an iris ring in your hen, it could be very faint. One of my hens, Blueberry, is 2 1/2 years old now. Here is a normal closeup of her eye: You know how when you use the flash, the rings in the eyes look very bright and big normally? Here is a picture of her eye with the flash: This is what I see with the naked eye if I look very closely, but in photographs they never show up - this might be the only photo I have that shows her rings - and at casual glance, her eyes still look like solid black baby eyes. Unless she is pinning her eyes you really don't ever see the iris ring at all unless you are looking for it. At this point I'm sure it will never get any darker. And you still have to look closely in the photograph to find it, LOL. But she is most definitely a SF dominant pied.

More than likely the toy is okay, but unless you remember seeing what the label said you can't be sure. Bird-safe dyes will run. At least all the ones I've bought that said bird-safe dye have. If you want to be sure, go back to the store, find the toy, and see what the label says. If it doesn't say, don't use it and find a brand that does specify the dye is safe.

If she has cobalt on her she is blue series. She is also type 2 yellowface, as that is what makes the green color on a blue bird. She sounds pied, is she?

Are they being treated for psittacosis?

If I were you I'd call the avian vet on Tuesday. Here are some thoughts, not meant to alarm you. If your bird is sick, chances are your second bird at this time has also contracted it. It might have been a good idea to have gotten medicine for two birds, depending upon what the other vet is treating. By putting your sick bird back in with your other one, risk of cross-infection is greater if it is a communicable illness. 2 days of antibiotics don't sound right to me, only because any time my birds have been on them, it was for at least 7 days, usually 10-14. Sometimes it takes 2 or 3 days before they feel any better. Hopefully you were given medicine to be given orally instead of in the water. In the water doesn't help as much as it is harder to control the dose. This is one I would ask about to the avian vet. It is not too difficult to get a blood sample from a budgie. Because they are small, usually a toenail is clipped a little short into the quick instead of taking blood directly from them via needle. I've had it done before with one of mine. It smarts I'm sure, but sometimes it's necessary to do. If there were concerns about a possible kidney issue, a urine sample should have been taken also. With the diarrhea, it should be pretty easy to get. You can even get it from home and take it in - the vet can give you the necessary tools to do it. Just keep it refrigerated. This is also one to ask the avian vet. Your other bird going to the bottom to check on the sick one is normal behavior in a bonded pair. They can bond even if they are same sex. They missed each other and that can be stressful. How is Homer feeling today?

I'm sorry Homer is not feeling well. How stressful for you also. Did the vet take any blood for testing? If so, it's probably a "wait and see" until the results come back in. How was he acting at the vets? Was his behavior the same, or has this all started since he got home? He could be a little stressed, but to be sure why don't you call the vets and tell them what he is doing? For now, why don't you just sit next to his cage and talk to him to try and calm him down? Is there a favorite treat he normally can't resist? Does he like to be held? Does he normally spend a lot of time outside the cage? If you can get his normal routine back, if he is stressed it will help him to calm down. Do you have to give him oral meds until next week?

Luso, I had some dominant pieds I bred that had a white cheek patch on one side, the other side had a white and coablt patch... others were mixed white and cobalt/violet to varying degrees. I don't know the history of either parent bird, just know they were both dominant pieds. The white is possible with them, I think it is just part of one of the mutations they were carrying.

I use plain old newspaper, but you can use plain white paper towels from your kitchen also. My birds have a grate on the bottom of the cage so they can't get to their feces or old food. They never go to the bottom of the cage anyway, unless I have millet or something down there for them. I know a lot of birds will shred the cage liner if you don't have a grate. Normally they don't eat it though, just shred it to bits. The poop color you described is fine. There is a variance on weight - it sounds like you have the larger type budgie. And just because your birds have fatty lipomas doesn't necessarily mean they got them because you overfeed. There are many things that contribute to tumors. Being overweight is one thing, but sometimes birds are just genetically inclined to get them. There is a lot you can do to try to prevent the onset, but if they are going to get them due to genetics, they are going to get them and all the good husbandry practices in the world might not keep them from appearing to some degree. Sort of like people, if you have a family history of some health issue you can take steps to prevent it from happening, and sometimes it works, but sometimes doing all the right things won't prevent them from occurring to some degree. So don't feel guilty. Just do what you can to follow your vet's advice.

Depending upon your situation and how much time you are willing to spend trying to tame this bird, I would suggest the second method in the post lovey posted up from the website. Even so, there is no guarantee she will ever want to learn to sit on your finger. If she is clipped it will be easier to tame her, but if you are against that for any reason there is still hope. Be aware that it may take months. But if your budgie lives 10 years, a few months up front is not really very long at all, is it? If she never tames down and perches on your finger you can still enjoy her, and she may become "tame" in other ways. At the risk of boring everyone who has read the story before I will tell you about one of my birds. Those who have read it before just skip down to the next post... I bought Skittles from a pet store, and guess she was about 6-8 months old when I got her. She was meant to be a companion to my other bird, a male who had been my only budgie for a year and a half. He was tame. Once I got her home, I rapidly formed the suspicion that she had somehow either been teased, traumatized, or mistreated in some way at the pet store because she was deathly afraid of hands. She came partially clipped (it was growing out) and even though I could have caught her if I had wanted to, it was apparent it would have completely terrified her. So after her month of quarantine, I gave up trying to hand tame her and introduced her to the other bird. To make a long story short, she is somewhere between 4 1/2 and 5 years old now, still afraid of hands, but will land on any other part of my body, preen my hair and eyelashes, allow me to feed her from my hand (even very small bits of food), and goes back in the cage when I tell her to. On the rare occasions I need to catch her, I can hold her without her trying to sever all my appendages from my body. She doesn't like it, but she knows she can escape at any time because I don't hold her tightly, and I think that is why she doesn't struggle anymore. There is no need for me to have her perch on my finger at all. I think she is more tame in some aspects than my other 3 birds (her children) who have been handled regularly since they were in the nest box. It depends upon what your expectations are. I found when I dropped any expectations of how I thought she should be, it was easier to create a bond that to me is way better than being finger-tame. Every so often, she will do something new that shows me she trusts me. But she won't perch on my finger for any amount of millet in the world.

There generally is a marked size and weight difference. But they also sell the smaller "American" budgies on your side of the pond. As a very basic description, American budgies are smaller, around 7" long, and ideally weigh between 28 - 33 grams. Budgies are supposed to be lean birds. Most of these budgies probably weigh more than is ideal because we keep food around them all the time and they do not have to fly or forage to get it. "English" budgies are longer, closer to 8 1/2" long, have a stockier build with big poofy heads, and should weigh around 45-50 grams. Some weigh more or are larger due to breeding to a show standard, and also for the reason stated above about a plentiful food supply.

I fixed the links on the first post - they should be visible to everyone now.

They may be frayed like that on the ends because she is chewing them. If the clip is not done at the correct angle, the feathers will feel very "wrong" and she may spend a lot of time trying to fix them. Since they were cut so short, she probably has a hard time getting them to feel "right" by preening, so chews them instead. Some birds will pluck out feathers that they cannot fix, but not all. Your hen may be in the latter category. She also could go to the other extreme and not bother trying to preen them at all anymore. I have a bird that does not preen the shorter tail feathers very often. She could care less if they get frayed, but does a fine job on all the other feathers she has. I don't think her wing has been hacked off. I do think she unfortunately got a really crappy trim by someone who had no idea what they were doing. That is a shame. If it has been 8 months since the trim, she should be getting ready to molt soon. They may have been trimmed right after a full molt, in which case it will be 7-12 months before the next full molt. I would call your avian vet, explain what the feathers look like and how long they have been like that, express your worries, and see if they feel it necessary to check her over. That would ease your mind more than anything, I'll bet. Let us know what they say.

Lovey is right, I have two budgies with fatty lipomas. I have also tried to get them to lose weight, but have not had much success. I do not feed them very much dry seed at all, and (un)fortunately LOL my birds will eat practically anything I put in front of them and manage to remain overweight despite eating more "people food" than "bird food". Having several birds makes it not feasible to measure out an exact amount of food, although I am trying. I only have 4 birds now, so it is easier than it was before, but need 5 food cups in the cage so as not to cause trouble. It will be best if you can get the weight off. The excess weight affects them similarly to how it affects people - it makes their organs work harder than normal and also makes them less inclined to exercise. The amounts you want to feed will be fine, but it is very important you weigh them at least every other day until you find the amount of food that will give a slow weight loss. Did your vet tell you what to aim for? I would suggest the loss of only a gram or two per week. So if one bird needs to lose 10 grams, it should take you about 3 months to get to target weight. If the feces starts to look black when it is fresh and not dried, you need to feed more. Did your vet do a gram stain? Sitting low on the perch is not a normal behavior, I have found it to mean the bird has something of a tummy or crop upset when they do that. A healthy birds feces will not stick to the feathers around the vent, nor make them stained.