Rainbow

Hi KayKay, and welcome. :sad: Do you know how old Sunny is? He is beautiful, and I would say green recessive pied. Baby budgies will go through their first molt at about 14 - 16 weeks of age (3 1/2- 4 months old) and will molt out all flight and tail feathers. It will take at least a month to complete, but his wing feathers will grow back in. If he's older than that, the next full molt probably won't be until he is close to a year old. I agree both sides should be trimmed evenly, otherwise he is an injury waiting to happen. Having one wing trimmed keeps them very off-balance and does nothing for confidence. I'd get the vet to even up both sides as soon as you can. It's great that you have already made some progress with him on step-ups. Congratulations!

I still go with dilute for number two. Looks just like Crystal, only not pied. Doesn't diluted mean less intense than normal? I'm thinking if you dilute anything, it is not as strong. Nerwen, please explain to me why I am wrong. I can't remember you not knowing what pied is. :sad: :sad:

Have you checked in the Food and Nutrition forum for ideas? There are a lot of suggestions in there, but a few I'll give are cooked diets, sprouted seeds, raw veggies, egg food, and a good pelleted diet in addittion to the seeds. I'd start introducing them right away. Congratulations! I can't wait for pics.

Sparkle. That's a great name! He sounds like a real character.

Eggfood adds additional protein. You can make it or buy it. I use Quiko because I can get it readily. It's the only brand I ever see, but there are others. If you ever go to bird fairs some vendors make their own mixture and you can buy it like that too. I've never made it before. They get a little bit most every day, and scarf it up pretty quickly. I feed it to add variety to the diet, but I think most people feed it to breeding birds.

Glad you are feeling better, Bea.

I had to laugh when I saw that! Funny pictures!

Right! If it never changes color, you have a boy. Females will always have a tan cere when they mature. Congratulations on your new budgie. Do you have a name for him/her yet?

Fatty lump sounds positive to me, as opposed to tumor. Hopefully it will shrink down as he loses weight. Can you call the vet back that saw him and ask about the best way to go about putting him on a diet? It is difficult to find an avian vet. Maybe the vet that saw your bird can tell you who he refers his avian patients to, if he doesn't see many of them. I don't think it's bad if you take your bird to a non-avian vet as some of them have a special interest in birds and keep up with new developments and procedures on their own, even though they are not certified avian vets. It's just better if they are. Others really do just specialize in small animals like dogs, cats, guinea pigs, etc. and don't know much about birds. Overweight budgies seem to be pretty common. Keep us posted on your progress. When you get scales, get one that measures in grams. If it only measures in ounces you won't really be able to tell how much your bird weighs. Did the vet weigh your bird so you have a reference point to start will to check progress?

Vonn, did it work? I think you have gotten further with your bird than you think you have. Allowing you to get right up next to him with your face is huge, because since we have our eyes in front of our heads, that labels us as predators to the animal world. He's not too afraid you will eat him anymore, LOL.

I think some babies are just like that. I remember when mine were little there was always a bird or two that went through that stage when I looked in the nest box to check on them. They would scrunch themselves up in a corner and hide their heads. Others would just jump right on my hand, fearless, and of course there was the one who would start screeching like he was done for and would startle the rest of them. Sometimes when you get a new bird too they will hide in the corner of the cage when you put your hand in. I think if you just treat them like any new bird, talk softly and often to them, and of course get them used to your hands they will be fine.

Stimpy and Sky are young, aren't they? They probably don't have the mating thing down pat yet, so that is good. If you have already tried weekly rearranging of their cage toys and perches, limiting daylight hours to 10-12 hours, and slightly lowering the temperature, you may just have to cage them seperately for awhile. If you can't do that, then you will have to make sure there is nothing around that Sky could use as a nesting place.

Hooray for Candy! It's so good to read success stories. Sing him "Happy Birthday" for me, okay?

Daz, what do you mean by top banded? His body color is solid, no pied banding. He is a pied though. But I think he must be a dilute since all of his coloring is much less intense than normal. As I said before, his blue coloring is over 50% diluted from a normal blue, and you can look at the markings on his wings and the color of his tail and see they are diluted as well. Could I be defining "dilute" in the wrong way? Just when you thought you knew something.... :hap:

I have several birds that needed to be put on a seed-restricted diet. The heaviest was 56 grams. They had fatty pads across the chest area, the heaviest even had fat padding on her rump, but my vet never called them tumors. As the birds have lost weight, the fatty areas have shrunk. I'm not sure if your bird just has excess fat or really has fatty tumors, but if your vet thinks they will shrink with weight loss that is a very good thing. Ask about why your vet thinks she got this way, if it is diet-related only you know where to start. If it could be thyroid related, you may need medication or it could be as simple as adding iodine to the water. You can get that from your vet. Any medical reason needs to be addressed and a proper diet should be discussed between you and your vet. Fortunately most of my birds also ate pellets and veggies too, but the pellets weren't eaten by every bird so in the beginning the seed-restriction really needed fine-tuning. Regular weighing is invaluable at this stage. I think I might have replied to you in another post, but I'm not sure. You will need to weigh your bird regularly - every 3 or 4 days at first - until you know you have the right ratio of seed to other foods. You don't want your bird to lose more than a gram per week, maybe 2 grams max. Make sure you watch her feces - if they start to become black when they are fresh (not dried) she is not processing enough food through her system and is starving. Up the seed quota until the droppings return to normal, then slowly restrict them again. This needs to be a slow process. For example, if she is a smaller "pet" budgie and weighs 50 grams, she needs to lose 20 grams. That is almost half her weight. It should take almost five months to get that 20 grams off. She didn't become overweight overnight, and you cannot expect her to lose that much weight quickly. If you can add veggies, sprouted seeds, wheatgrass, pellets, egg food, cooked foods to her diet, the amount of seeds can be further restricted as you notice she is eating more of the other stuff. As she loses weight, her activity level will naturally increase, which will make it easier for the grams to come off, and you can occasionally offer millet or canary grass as a treat. For now, I'd not give any treats at all. Another plus is by the time your bird is at a healthy weight, her diet will be varied and you know she will really be feeling good. You will probably think you have a new bird. I have noticed an increase in activity level and general well-being in my birds as they have lost weight. Some are at good weights now, a few are still losing. I've been working on it since mid-summer. They will eat pretty much anything you put in front of them now. Do you have anything to weigh her with? I wonder if she is eating her new cage due to a vitamin or mineral deficiency? People will eat weird stuff due to an underlying nutritional problem too, maybe it could be the same with birds. I know some birds will overeat grit for that reason.

Ditto for mine, Julie. It's even gotten Skittles (who pretends to be deathly afraid of hands) to sit on my palm to eat it. All I have to do is ask them if they want a treat - they get all excited about it and know what a "treat" is. A few have started flying to me from halfway across the room when they see I've got millet in my hand. Vonn, it might just take awhile for your bird to get used to it. If you clip it to the side of the cage, or feed it from your hand, try cutting a small 1" - 2" section off and offering it that way. Some birds get rattled at eating something much bigger than they are.

If you are restricting his food, make sure you weigh him every few days. You don't want him to lose more than a gram or two max per week. After two weeks or so you will be able to tell by how he is acting and what he feels like on your finger to cut his weigh-ins down to once a week. Watch his feces, and if they start to turn black (when they are fresh, not after they dry) then you need to increase the seed as he is starving himself. Try giving him sprouted seeds as part of his seed ration - they are much more nutritious. Feeding wheatgrass is a good idea too, also adding cooked diets. Does he eat pellets? Budgies are stubborn eaters, and it will be more trial and error in the beginning to make sure he is eating enough to sustain him, but also that he will slowly lose weight. How much weight does he need to lose?

Poor Bea, and it hurts to cough too doesn't it? I get that kind of cough sometimes with allergies. Yuck. I hope you feel better soon. Get extra sleep, drink lots of water, and take care of yourself.

Daz, I'm still getting a few of them down to normal weights!! : They are all still very noisy, the hens are like little buzzsaws on all wooden toys, and the boys are constantly singing and feeding anything in sight, not only other birds but toys and the cage bars. But for once, the twins are getting along with each other...Yay! but they bite at the toes of any other bird that comes close...Boo! I s'pose you have to take the good with the bad. One step forward, two steps back, something like that... :ausb: At least no actual mating that I've seen anyway. I'm still working on it.

How can he be greywing with white wings? Here is my understanding, maybe I am confused since it is late. :ausb: Clearflights have the white flights and white tail (as in continental clearflight) which is a pied characteristic. Whitewings should have no markings anywhere on the wing, but that is almost impossible to get, and the body color should be full. I have two greywings (Mystery and Blossom) and their body color is close to full also. Crystal is not a clearflight since his tail is not white. His wing markings are too light to be a greywing, plus his flight feathers are the wrong color. Am I confusing myself? Help??

Ah punnett squares. Loved them in biology class, only used pea plants instead of budgies. Good idea, luvbudgies, to write it all out. It gives me an idea.

Such pretty pictures!!! I like the skyblue hen too, what a cutie!

LOL, Sunny is a doublefactor dominant pied. Not recessive. I can't wait to see a picture of your new bird!!!! It's funny how you just "went to the store for some food"... and came back with another budgie. Tee-hee-hee. :ausb:

Actually, for dominant pieds too. :sad: Rainbow's beak was orange, and out of the 7 pied babies 4 are orange. And the aqua is considered skyblue. Nerwen, Daz, something to think about - if the bird is aqua which normally signifies type 2 yellowface blue, but has a white face, what is the possiblity the bird is actually a doublefactor yellowface? I've never read anything about that, and it just crossed my mind. :ausb:

thanks! but I thought everyone else was saying that she's a clearwing and not a dilute because her body color didn't look diluted to them....::confused:: I think her body color does look diluted. She is not nearly as dark as a normal green. And a "poor clearwing" just means her flight feathers still have a greyish tint to them instead of being completely white.