Rainbow

It's normal for them to be scared of the pinata, mine were too. It's been a few weeks since this thread was active - Allycat, did your budgies try it yet?

I've read that moths won't live in old seed, so if you've got them, the seed still has some nutrition. Freezing the seed won't hurt it, and it is recommended if there is a moth problem. Supposedly you can still feed the seed, but....

I sprout seeds using a paper towel and water in a cereal bowl, LOL. Sometimes they are good, sometimes not. I rinse the seeds and change the towel daily, it usually takes a couple of days before they are ready. Feed them when most of the sprouts are about an inch long. I give them the whole thing, seeds and sprouts, and they eat every bit of it. You just have to watch the sprouts closely, because if they are at all slimey or have any fuzz growing on them I don't feed them and I start over. I sniff them first too. I grow enough so that I have about 3 days' worth. I store it in the refrigerator, and rinse them before feeding. Oh yeah, I do let them warm some because I don't think feeding cold stuff straight from the 'fridge is a good idea.

What are antis?

Me too! Beautiful pictures, javi, and welcome back. I love your birds. I don't mind the link to Rainbow, although he was pied, he also fit the definition of a "rainbow". Like Javi said, the definition of a rainbow is a yellowface opaline whitewing blue. Rainbow was a type two yellowface opaline whitewing blue pied. I think he was also a dilute. Hath had a link to a website that had lots of pictures of rainbows - maybe he will see this and post it again. I think it is difficult to get a "good" one. Most seem to have a grey wash to the wings instead of having them be truly clear. But they are definitely pretty birds no matter what. PS - I love that picture of Elmo.

I think adam meant it the other way. Females will have the white ring. Most all babies will have a purplish cere at hatch, which gradually changes shade as they age, males to blue (or pink with recessive or double factor dominant pieds and albino/lutinos) females to light blue, to white, to tan, finally to brown.

Seeds do get old. How long exactly has the millet spray been in his cage? He won't get food poisoning, the seeds will just be stale and have little to no nutrition in them. If it's been there awhile, just throw it out and get new. I'm not sure what you mean by stripes on the cere, but any brown generally indicates a hen.

Please do as much research as possible before you purchase two more hens to pair your birds with. If you decide then to go ahead with it, you can get a lot of good advice from this forum. You will need to cage the pairs seperately - it lessens the chances of fighting and lowers the stress level of the hen as she can concentrate on raising babies instead of protecting her nest box from other birds. Then you will need extra cages for all the babies. Obviously, with two pairs you will need double the space and supplies. Can you keep the babies??? Of course you can keep the babies. I kept all mine. Just be prepared to possibly keep two clutches per pair, as budgies will usually start another clutch before the first one has fledged. With two pair, you could end up with possibly 20-25 birds if all goes well. That would make me think twice about keeping them all - LOL - so you would probably want to find homes for LOTS of them before the birds begin mating. You will need to plan ahead for vet visits, extra food, extra cleanup time, and extra cages to name a few. As they grow, any issues you might face with just one or two birds will be multiplied. As they grow, you will have to deal with attempted matings, hormonal issues, and general grumpiness tenfold. You will need a lot of room and a lot of patience (among other things) but there are few things more entertaining than watching a flock of birds interact with each other and with you. And you are right, budgies have been inbred for so long that they are prone to many genetic problems that shorten their lifespans. I do not condone inbreeding and if I were to breed again, I would have to get new birds to pair them up with. Space prevents me doing that. Let's see...10 more birds makes twenty, average of 4 or 5 per clutch with 2 clutches apiece equals..... whoa, it makes my head spin.... Here's mine - mom is on the perch, the other nine are all her babies. And yes, they are all flighted, and yes they will all step up, yes they like people, and finally yes, they live indoors and always keep me on my toes. Enjoy.

okay. Emma, how is your bird? I noticed in your post you said "they" use wooden perches mostly. My first thought is not bumblefoot, but that if you have two birds with access to each other one has bitten the other one's foot. Especially if he is "dancing" with that foot, and you also spoke of it being red on the bottom. Any chance his foot got bitten? It is a common occurrance when you keep more than one bird. Secondly, and I read this some time ago on another forum, but a members bird was constantly bringing one foot up like you described and ended up being in process of coming down with an knemidokoptes infection, better known as scaly face mites. Other than the reluctance to keep both feet on the perch by dancing there were no other symptoms until the problem became obvious. I guess it itched. If your bird is new (forgive me as I don't recall) then this could be a possiblity as well. It seems some birds can keep a latent infection that does not become active until some stressor triggers a lowered immune response. Finally, what's up with the sarcasm? I'm surprised that a simple question has turned into three pages of arguing over a definition of bumblefoot, and that no one else even thought of a bitten foot. That is not what these forums have been about.

We can tell - it looks great! Thank you adam!!

hmmm, the link doesn't work for me.....

Mine get several different types of veggies twice a day. The bit about the black poo - I was told when it is black it is because the bird is not eating.

Thanks for the link hath!

Skittles used to stay on them almost constantly because every time she left the box Rainbow would chase her back in. The hen will leave the box to eat and get a little drink, but usually doesn't stay out long. Sometimes hens leave the box if startled, so maybe something is disturbing her if she leaves a lot.

Maybe they are just eating more seed? Do you ever take the seeds out completely?

I used to feed it to my birds. I got it because it doesn't contain ethoxyquin, but it does contain BHA or BHT (I forget which). My birds loved it too, but I've switched seeds so I don't feed it anymore.

If your bird goes more than a day or two without eating take him to the vet. I'm worried now you may have exposed your first bird to an illness. It's always a good idea to quarantine any new birds away for at least 30 days. If a vet trip shows any illness, tell your vet you need medications for two.

I don't have cats, so I'm not sure about that, but I'd be leery of leaving them in the same room unsupervised too. As far as water - try to quickly teach your bird to drink from a water bottle. Barring that, put in carrots, broccoli, spinach, any veggie your bird will eat. They all have a high water content. Other than that, every time you stop for a break, use bottled water and put a small amount in their water dish, or use a small syringe to dropper some in their beaks. Maybe you could get one or two medicine syringes from your vet. Best of luck, and please let me know how things went once you get there. I'm very interested in how your bird does on that long of a trip, and what you found works best.

If your bird will drink the water with medicine in it, it should help. Some things to try to get your bird to eat: 1. sprouted seed - see if the seed he currently eats will sprout. If not, it is old and shouldn't be eaten anyway. Once the sprouts are about 1/2" - 1" long, rinse them well, make sure they don't smell "off", aren't slimey, or have any fuzz growing on them and put them in a dish or on a plate. You can do a google search about growing sprouts to get the particulars. Sometimes mine grow well and other times they go "off", so I usually have a few different batches growing at the same time. If in doubt about whether your sprouts are okay, don't feed and start a fresh batch. Most birds love sprouts. 2. fresh veggies like broccoli, kale, baby spinach leaves, carrots (cut in pieces, shredded, or baby carrots), red or green pepper, corn on the cob are good to start with. You may have to try different ways of offering them (clipped to side of cage near favorite perch, in seed cup on top of regular food, in a dish by themselves, etc) before you find a way your bird will try them. At first he will probably be scared of veggies (which is normal) but in reality you won't waste too much of it because budgie-sized portions aren't very big anyway. At first, if it's bigger than your birds' head - it's too big. The tops of carrots are good too - clip them to the side of the cage or from the top so they hang down near a perch and your bird will eventually eat and probably try to bathe in them. 3. fruit - peel and cut apples (no seeds or core), bananas, plums (don't use the fruit near the seed), nectarines, oranges (again - no seeds) to start off. Some birds like the sweetness, others don't. Just keep trying. 4. cooked foods - you can cook your own (sans seasonings and butter) or buy prepared like Beak Appetit or Crazy Corn. Again, you may have to be sneaky and sprinkle seeds or millet on top for awhile before your bird is not afraid of it. 5. Wheatgrass - contains lots of vitamins and minerals. Again, birds will usually start by nibbling then try to bathe in it. It's okay - they have a blast. 6. Just avoid avocado, onions, apple seeds, alcohol (duh) or any treats that contain lots of sugar. 7. Pellets - these contain more nutrition than seeds, but in my opinion should not be fed exclusively, no matter what you read. It is hard to convert budgies to pellets, but it can be done. Don't try all these things at once - pick one that is easiest for you for right now, and once your bird is eating something different, then add gradually. Eventually seeds should consist only a small percentage of your birds diet. If in doubt about anything, you can ask here and we will gladly give you our two cents worth but you can also always run it by your vet. He or she should be the final authority, as I don't think anyone on this board is a vet. Best of luck! Keep us posted on your progress. **edit** I just noticed you have 12 budgies in your profile - you should have a much easier time getting them to eat different foods. If they are anything like mine, all it takes is for one bird to taste or even act like they enjoy it before the rest will want some. Even better if one bird tries to keep the others away from the food - that almost guarantees success - LOL. Sometimes budgie jealousy works in your favor.

Isn't it great to see them acting so much better? I'm very happy for you. Make sure you do the whole 45 days of antibiotics (I think that's what I read) so you can be sure they are well. I know it's tempting to stop after they begin to act like they feel better.

What did the vet say? Poor birdie, I'll bet he feels awful. I would think any bowel trouble would be the result of diet, or ingesting something the bird shouldn't have. It sounds like he's on an all-seed diet now, so eventually you do want to change that. It might take awhile before he tries anything new, you just have to be persistant.

The healthier the bird is to begin with, the less likely there will be problems that are dietary-related (like egg-binding or thin-shelled eggs in a seemingly healthy hen of proper breeding age). I think both birds should be on a varied diet all the time anyway. I'm sure you've noticed with Gooby the best time to introduce new foods is when they are very young. Usually the birds will want extra fresh foods when breeding, especially green ones.

LOL they do that. I'd do the opposite of FidKid, but I'm not an expert. If the cock is steadily feeding the young birds, remove the hen to a different cage. She may lay an egg on the ground, but will probably ignore it for the most part. If all the babies are out of the nestbox already, remove the box. But you will probably already have eggs in it. That's the hard part.

I think he is opaline, but not greywing. He looks closer to clearwing (his tail is white too), the grey edging on his flights is due to the spangle gene I think.

I am so sorry. (((((hugs)))))