Rainbow

Just for a chuckle....... But I didn't do it!!!!! LOL, this is Sky, and she really didn't do it, Skittles did. She does look proud of herself though, doesn't she? So I had to buy a new lampshade......

I would look for another vet if I were you. I hope you voiced (Loudly) your displeasure at them trimming your birds wings without permission. Can you post a picture of Billy?

Sprouts are fine to give every day. They contain much more bio-available nutrition once the germination process starts than dry seed. You don't even need to wait until they have tails, after a 12 hour soak and several rinsings you can feed. Mine get them every day, and seem to prefer them to dry seeds. I have two mixes I use, but I buy them as sprouting seeds, not to feed dry. Sprouting your regular seed mix so long as none of the seeds have artificial colors on them is fine, actually is a good idea because old seeds won't sprout. If you can't sprout the mix you are feeding, you need to replace and get a fresher mix. You do need to be careful of bacteria, only sprout as much as the birds will eat within a few days. They should not look smushy or smell. I usually have a mix sprouting every 2-3 days so I do not run out. If you are worried about bacteria and can get grape seed extract (GSE) from your local health food store a few drops in the final rinse will help ********* bacterial growth, or use a few drops of good old fashioned apple cider vinegar - I hear it works just as well. Just rinse them very well. If you have to store in the 'fridge for a day, rinse them again once you take them out before you give them to your birds. You can also do a google search and find lots of sprouting tips.

I cook them in with scrambled eggs and also bake them in birdie bread.

There are a few settings you can play with on your camera to overcome this. But be aware all monitors do not display colors in the same way, so what you see on your monitor may not be exactly what others will see if you post pictures on the forum. First of all, take your pictures without the flash. The flash washes out the colors, and does not help give an accurate reproduction of colors on an instant camera. In many cameras the flash is located too close to the lens anyway so the light is relected back too strongly. If you can change the white balance setting on your camera, that might help also. Your light source should be behind you, you should get much better pictures if you are not shooting into the light source (lamp, sun, whatever). Incandescent lighting will give a slightly truer color than typical flourescent indoor lighting also, if your camera has settings to compensate for the lighting you might try playing around with those also. Good luck! Violet is a tough color to accurately photograph.

It can vary from clutch to clutch. I allowed Skittles 2 clutches, the first she laid 7 eggs, the second 6. She started to lay for a 3rd but that was too much so was prevented.

Opaline is a sex-linked trait. The male must have 2 genes to be visually opaline, the female needs only one. To over-simplify, male budgies are xx and females are xy. The opaline gene is carried on the x chromasome. That is why female offspring of an opaline male are visually opalines, they have only one x chromasome to give for female offspring and it would be opaline.

I'm sorry to hear Norm has passed over the rainbow bridge. He was a beautiful budgie. I think having the necropsy done was a lifesaver, now you know what the problem was and are able to try and prevent the spread to the rest of your birds. Hopefully you do not lose any more. I know how you feel about medicating and over-medicating your birds as I prefer to treat holistically if necessary but would rather just do all I can to prevent disease in the first place. I'm sorry for your loss but it seems his loss may save the lives of the rest since you know what is going on now. In the big scheme of things this is good, but on the scale of Norm himself I know you are heartbroken.

We are # 19 on the fischers site now, I agree it is a busy-looking site.

I'm sorry Percy is having new problems now. I've got budgies with liver issues too, and right now they are getting milk thistle in the water, and I've been told to add fresh dandelion greens to their diet as they are a powerful liver tonic. They are being treated more holistically now than with conventional medicines. I have also given for the past few years to all of my birds an avian pro-biotic on their fresh food and sprouts - I get it here. I don't know if you give probiotics already, but it could help Percy with some of his gut issues. Please keep us posted, Percy is a sweetheart.

Free flight of parrots is becoming more common, but unless you have them well-trained for recall, it is not worth the risk for taking even a clipped bird outside unless in a cage or harness. Recall training is very time-intensive and not for everyone, if you are recall training it should be done under the advice of a professional if you've never done it before. From what little I have read on it, there are many skills an indoor bird needs to learn before you even think about taking them outside. You need to have 100% compliance as all it takes is one time for the bird to fly off and not be able to return. I think it is normally the larger parrots that are trained for free-flight, not usually budgies. Even clipped birds can fly away and be lost with a small bit of wind, especially budgies, as they are very light birds and strong fliers.

I have done my part today. Well done to all the members of the BBC forums!

I wondered what I would find here too because of the title... I'm sorry to hear Norm the budgie is not feeling well, glad it wasn't our other Norm, LOL. Let us know what the vet says. Is he drinking much? Sometimes dehydration will cause the feces to stick.

Wait, type 2 is a blue bird, not a green one. It may appear to have green on it, but is still a blue-based bird. There is a link in one of these threads to the Master Budgerigar Breeder website, it is explained there pretty well. A DF yf2 will appear to be a whitefaced bird.

Blood feathers are a normal part of the molt, they are growing feathers. Once the feather is fully grown out, the blood supply is cut off. You can't lessen the number of blood feathers because they all have blood supply while they are growing out? Much energy is required to grow feathers, and molting affects birds differently. Some get grumpy, some want extra attention, some want to be left alone, others you'd never know except to see the pins because their personality doesn't change. Just make sure they are getting as varied diet as possible.

I don't think that is correct. Breeding 2 yf2 birds will create some babies with yellow faces and some with white. The whitefaced birds could be normals or DF yf birds. The only way to tell is to breed them with whitefaces to see what the offspring have.

Type one or type two denotes whether the yellow 'bleeds' into the blue (type 2) or not (type 1), not whether they are double or single factor.

Hi Karen, do you remember my Sunny? He is a good example of a DF dominant pied male: orange beak, pink cere, pink feet, few markings, and he does have iris rings - on both sides. front view back view

Hi libby, a double factor yellowface will appear to have a white face.

That is so funny. Rocky sounds like a typical jealous budgie! And a fantastic vocabulary also, you can tell he gets a lot of attention.

Do you have any flour? That will also stop the bleeding, added with a slight pressure until it clots. Can you hold her? Is she still bleeding? Many times it is not necessary to pull the broken feather if it stops bleeding. If it irritates her later she may pull it out on her own. Can you assess her condition?

I was going to suggest clipping the other side also, to reduce the risk of injury. He is very off-balance with only one side trimmed. I would not pull them out, there is a risk of damaging the feather follicle when you forcibly remove the feather, instead of allowing it to drop naturally.

Welcome. You don't need to cancel one, they can both bond to you. At one time, I had 11 budgies and all were bonded to me, I was definitely a flock member. And a very good human perch too. :glare: You will be getting them young enough that they shouldn't really be too afraid of you once they settle in. They will like each other, but with regular interaction from you they will like having you around too.

It's good to hear you have found a vet that is helping Percy. I've birds with liver issues too, so understand what you are going through. Mine eat Harrison's Mash as the pellet portion of their diet. It comes in different sizes, but they do not like even the SuperFine which is very small. They took to the Mash very quickly (although it was just a pellet size switch, they really like the Mash and will eat it before seeds now). I think your vet wants an all-pellet diet for the vitamins and minerals, as Percy is certainly deficient from eating just seeds. Personally I don't agree, there have been issues with budgerigars fed only-pellets, but short term it would get vitamins into Percy. I think if you fed seeds soaked, it would be helpful because they are very nutritious that way. My birds get milk thistle in a dried herb mix which I add to their dry food daily. It is not prescribed, but I prefer a holistic approach for my birds and think it probably helps in some way. They eat it fine, which is nice because they would vomit up the milk thistle I tried to give orally so cannot give in that form. I think if Percy had aspirated his meds, it would have been immediately apparent at the vets. Since you didn't notice the breathing issues until you got home, and he vomited up some seeds, it sounds like either it was stress-related or he does not tolerate that medicine. There are some meds I cannot give some of my birds orally because it makes them vomit shortly afterwards. The lameness in one leg is troubling, as that is how it was discovered Rainbow had a kidney tumor. Hopefully Percy's lameness is not caused by a tumor, but if that is the case, there are cage modifications you can make so he can still get around and keep the good leg from developing problems with standing on it all the time. Please keep us posted about Percy. You have always taken the best of care of him and he is a dear.

What's the ingredient list? It almost resembled dried corn, but I don't think that would be in a budgie mix?