Rainbow

Poisoned...my god that's horrible. So glad she is in good shape to make it though. I can't see the picture's either. :hap:

If it's always been like that, it sounds like an old injury he has re-opened somehow. I agree if you can dip him in some warm water to allow the blood to be cleaned off you can get a bettter idea of what's going on with his nail. I don't think I'd clip it at the foot - I'd let your vet do that so when it bleeds the vet will be able to take care of it. I think it would bleed quite a bit, being taken off right at the toe. Flour is good to use in a pinch for you to stop the bleeding though. Can you clean it up now?

You want 4 males instead of just one? I have a lovely violet skyblue that will add lovely music to your home. It's constant too, so you can always enjoy it at any time...LOL.

Hi barnesy. As long as the babies have fluff all over them, the feathering can be a little sporadic at first. If there are bare patches with no feathers, they are probably being plucked. Can you post pics?

Caren, what a sad experience. I'd bet they were sick from the unsanitary conditions they were kept in. I think I would have brought them home too, just to get them away. Not a good reason to buy birds, I know, but I would have done the same thing. Please keep us posted on what the vet says. That poor hen needs to be seen right away. And let the vet know the conditions you rescued her from, and that her mate has already died. So sad.

Hi Lucky's Gal! Glad to see you back. That is such a cute baby! I'd say it is a pied, and agree type 2 yellowface blue. Is there any color between the flights on his rump at all? That blue on his chest is such a soft color - really beautiful. I guess you will keep him?

I would wait until breeding season is over to be safer.

Yeah, they can sit in some of them, but they don't unless they are eating and trying to make sure no other budgie can eat from that cup. Do you think I should take them out anyway? Or maybe use them as drinkers instead? Nerwen, I thought about splitting them up into boy cages and girl cages, but then Sunny would be with the boys who plucked his head feathers. What do you think about shortening their daylight hours even further?

I can help you with your questions about pieds, but not so much the breeding of rainbow budgies. Two pied budgies bred together will get you some pied babies. Depending upon whether your pieds are single factor, double factor, dominant, or recessive will determine the percentages you get. For example, pairing two single factor dominant pieds will get you 50% single factor dominant pieds, 25% double factor dominant pieds, and 25% normals (non-pieds) over the breeding life of the pair. Do you have a pair of pieds you are thinking about breeding? Can you post a picture of them? The official description of a rainbow is a yellowface opaline whitewing blue. The bird in my signature I call a rainbow pied, but he did not produce any young that resembled him when paired with a skyblue pied hen. Rainbows seem to be difficult to get, but there are people out there who regularly breed them. I've never bred a rainbow, but we do have some forum members who have bred them before. Hopefully one of them will see this thread and be able to help you with that part of your question.

It sounds like you will have to start over with this budgie. If he freaks out whenever you go near the cage, it might help to spend more time near it, maybe sitting in a chair reading near the cage. Every so often talk to your budgie, or read your book to him. The idea is to help him realize you are not going to hurt him, and it is a pleasant thing to have you around. Don't make any sudden moves when you change his cage paper, food, and water. Slow and deliberate, maybe tell him what you are doing before you do it. It doesn't matter if you think he understands what you are saying or not, you are just trying to get him used to you. When you get to the point where he will merely watch you change his food and water instead of thrashing about the cage, you can go to the next step of trying to get your hand near him. I wouldn't bother with that step yet, or rush it. How long have you had him? Also, I have merged your posts into this one. Please try to pick the appropriate section to post your questions in. Putting them in several forums at once will not get them answered any faster, as the person who might be able to give you the most help may not look in every section. It also adds work to staff.

So Lin, are you saying I am doomed ?? They are all molting now too, so in addition to the noise everywhere I look there are feathers. I even saw a feather float out of one of the heat vents ... That was too weird.

Hooray for you! I find my birds go nuts for sprouts too. It's great to hear success stories about converting stubborn little birds to a better diet. :fear Congratulations - it's tough. :glare:

What a neat idea! I will have to try that myself!

A male at 8 months would be able to breed, but one problem with breeding them that early is that they may not be emotionally mature enough. The likelihood of him not properly feeding the hen, not fertilizing the eggs, or losing interest in the chicks is higher with an immature bird. But if you have him with a female, he will practice the flirting/mating rituals, and this is normal.

Oooh, Nerwen, I hadn't thought about that... The fact that they feel better might very well have something to do with it. But I still need to make sure they don't breed. :glare: And crazy is not the word for it, everyone that comes over asks "what's up with your birds??? Are they always like that?" :fear Phoebe, you sound like it's rough at your place too. :hap: Does anyone else have a suggestion or two? Please? Unfortunately I can't move any of them to a different room.

With 10 I imagine it would be the more, the merrier. After quarantining the new bird for at least 30 days, you could introduce him/her to the flock. There may be some minor skirmishes the first few days, but normally there isn't a problem since budgies are so gregarious. Is your aviary outdoor or indoor?

Hooray! That's what mine had this morning. I like that it doesn't take nearly as long to cook as the bigger bird versions. Hooray for Boomberry too!

Well, I am just running out of ideas now. My budgies are really hormonal right now. I have lessened their daylight hours, which was pretty easy since it gets dark at 4:30 pm now, to about 10 or 11. I change out perches and toys weekly, and replace them either with different ones and/or attach them to different places so the cages never look the same. They have most of the day as out of cage time, and I am somewhat rationing their intake of greenfoods to every other day instead of every day, so maybe they will think food is not plentiful enough to breed. I am even forgoing my love of warmth and am keeping the house cooler than I would like. The problem is not so much they want to mate with the females yet, although they do flirt with them. The problem is that the boys are so bonded to each other, that one of them is getting his head feathers plucked out. I'm guessing out of frustration. The 'pluckee' is now the only male in one of the cages when they are put in them, but I do not know what else to do to curb that particular behavior. Obviously it does nothing for when they are out. I tried leaving them in the cages more than ususal, and they just bicker and bite at each others feet. Tension was too high so I nixed that idea. **sighs.....It is so noisy here...the warbling never stops...** So far none of the males has the hang of actual mating yet, although they occassionally will try. They are usually spurned by the girls, but the females are also beginning to feed perches and toys and sing to each other, and all their ceres are turning oh so very dark brown. There is nothing in or around their cages that could possibly be construed as a nest box, I have checked. This is the time of year two years ago I had this issue with Rainbow and Skittles...what is it about November and cold and rain that makes them go nuts? You would think shorter and colder days would have the opposite effect. Unfortunately, I can do nothing about the rain. Please, suggestions?

Lady, I thought true greywings were supposed to be very close to full body color with only the wings being 50% intensity of normal? Lei, I agree with everyone else that your bird has the dilute gene, and is very pretty. I love the color. Dilution just means that the intensity of the color is muted (or diluted) to a lower percentage of what normal is. They can range from just a little lighter color to a very very light color. The wings will not have dark black markings like a normal and the body color is less intense too. For example, in this picture the first three birds on the top, beginning right, are a normal violet skyblue, a dilute skyblue, and a greywing skyblue. Notice even the muted color of the tail on the dilute. There is a pretty wide range of what is considered dilute. I think (please someone correct me if I am wrong) that ideally a dilute's coloring should be about 25% of normal.

Hmm, I wouldn't have been close. Another one would be fun, hath.

Aw she's adorable. She looks happy and content in your picture. What did the vet tell you about the tumors? I think they can shrink.

OH no! Squeakie, that is heartbreaking! I know that sick feeling you are having, and I am so very sorry. My guess is your vet cut all the toenails to get enough blood for the tests. He had to cut into the quick to get them to bleed. It takes a bit of blood for testing, and it is stressful to take it with a needle in such a little bird. Her nails will be fine, they will grow back out. They are probably just sore, exactly like if we cut a nail too short and it bled too. Are the tumors fatty tumors, or a different type? I really hope the medicine your vet gave will start to work soon. Keep us posted, okay?

The budgie in your profile is very pretty. So she is a seed junkie, eh? I can relate to that. I had a few of those too. The heaviest topped out at 56 grams. Just keep trying with the pellets, and once you see her eating them gradually reduce the amount of seed you mix in. She will probably always eat the seeds first. Don't fill up the seed cup either - ideally you should only put in as much food as will be gone at the end of the day. If you have seeds left over you are feeding too much. Pellets I wouldn't worry about as much now, your bird won't eat as much of the pellet as she does the seeds even when she is converted to eating them. Make sure she always has pellets in the cage, even if her ration of seed is gone already. I would remove the honey treat sticks and millet for now. Go with what your vet tells you. I had to really restrict the amount of seed my birds got when they started their diet, but they were already eating a lot of other things. It was trial and error, as they were losing too much weight at first and I had to increase the amount of seeds they got. Now I usually hand-feed them seeds in the evening, and will mix a small amount of seeds in with the pellet mix on random days. They don't have them in the cage all the time. But don't do that unless your bird is eating the pellets and veggies too - some budgies would rather starve than eat something unfamiliar. The rate of weight loss needs to be slow too, maybe only a gram or two a week. It will take time to lose the weight. Besides fruits and veggies, you can try a cooked diet like Beak Appetit or Crazy Corn or something along those lines. A lot of it will probably be wasted at first, but those two are made will human grade ingredients so unless your bird steps in it like mine do, you can eat it if you want, LOL. What veggies have you tried to get her to eat? If you offer broccoli or carrots, you might try cutting them into pieces smaller than your bird's head before you clip them to the cage - a huge piece of food can be intimidating for small birds. Sprouted seeds are good too, they are more nutritious than straight out of the bag. Best of luck to you! There have been a few people here that have had to put their birds on diets, so if you haven't looked through many of the posts in the Food and Nutrition section do that for more ideas. Each bird is different so you will probably have to tailor what you do to how your bird reacts to the diet change. **edit** I forgot to tell you - you will need to weigh your bird at least once a week to make sure she is not losing too much. Either get a gram scale of sorts, or if your vet is close see if you can take her in for weekly weighing. It is a bad thing if she loses weight too quickly. Watch her droppings! If they start to turn blackish, she is not eating and needs more food. They may change color once she is eating pellets to a brownish or rust color, or even darker green once she eats veggies, but black is a bad color for them to be when they are fresh.

I had to re-read that a few times...that is shocking. What is wrong with some people? I have no doubt you treated him with more respect than he deserved. I am sorry. You should never have to get used to rude behavior. What an a**.

Oh dear. What did the vet say? By the way, welcome to the forum. How long have you had your birds and what are their names? When you get a chance, tell us more about them.