Rainbow

Well, the girls have a new cage. They like it so much they don't want to leave it...I leave the door open, they come out, they go back in, LOL. They still grump at night, but not as much, and not as long. Whew! I don't have any pictures yet, but hope to get some up soon. The cage is 34" x 22" x 43". They can fly in it, even though I have it stuffed with perches and toys. It's scarey that I had the same amount of stuff in their smaller cage.....!!! Anyway, since the new home, they have been much more active, flying around inside it, making lots of happy birdie noises. I am amazed at how often I see "tail wags" in there! I think if I could find another special type of perch (I have two but forgot where I got them!) it would take care of all the grumping at night. It does seem to have been a "personal space" issue. But what they have now is perfect for 4 budgies.

Hi Lankan, the hen will probably not look any different than normal before she lays the eggs. They don't look "pregnant" like dogs or cats. It is not true that every time they mate they create an egg, thank goodness. If that were the case Skittles would have had 200 babies from the first clutch, LOL. Your male may very well mate with the hen until eggs are laid. Generally, it takes roughly 10 days from the time your birds begin to mate before the first egg is laid. They may mate several times per day, or several times per hour, depending upon how interested in the nest box your hen is. It takes practice and there is the slight possibility any eggs from first-time parents will not be fertilized, especially if the pair is too young to breed. Eggs are laid on an every-other-day schedule until the hen is satisfied with the clutch size. This differs slightly for each hen, but 4-6 is probably the average. She may not sit on the nest regularly until the second egg is laid, in rare cases the third. If you are able to hold your hen, you may notice that the feathers are removed from a patch between her legs and slightly up onto the belly. This is the brood patch, and may look bluish-purply in color, like it is badly bruised, roughly 24 hours before she lays the egg. She may look a little fuller around the cloaca at this time also. The discoloration is due to increased blood flow to the area, as that is where she makes contact with the eggs as she broods them. I'm going from memory here, and it's been awhile. Does this help any?

Has the cere ever changed shade at all, or remained the same pinkish throughout the time you've had her/him? It is hard for me to tell whether the cere is female or washed out from the flash. It looks awfully smooth (male)...is there any way to get a closeup picture without the flash? (okay, so I'm jones'in for more pictures ) Has the cere always been smooth, or has it ever flaked off and become somewhat crusty looking?

They are very cute, but I don't see any rainbows. I can't really see much of the one at the top left, other than maybe s/he is probably blue. The spangle at the upper right does look sky-bluish on my monitor, and the yellow with the green rump (outstretched wings) looks pied. I see where they have been plucked a bit. Rainbow did that to his second clutch as he wanted to do nothing but breed, and I think he wanted the little ones out of the way so he could be about his business. I thought it was the hen at first too, but then I noticed a bald spot on the back of the hen. He was the only one with feathers in the back of his head, so it was obvious who the culprit was then. Poor frustrated budgie! He only plucked a small area on all of them, but obviously it couldn't continue, and as the pair was raising the second clutch I was going to seperate them anyway to prevent a third. I ended up removing the nest box and moving the hen to a cage by herself for a few days as she just looked exhausted. Rainbow had no problems feeding the young, and he stopped plucking them with Skittles in another cage. I had to move them in with Skittles after several days as he was beginning to get amorous with the babies when they begged food...you just never know what will happen, do you?

Actually, seed moths won't touch bad seed, so the seed itself you got was fresh. Quality is a whole other issue from fresh though. To kill the larvae, put the bag in the freezer. How many moths do you have? I'm guessing too many to just squish? Hopefully the traps will do the trick soon!

Oh dear I had no idea it would become this involved... :budgiedance: I know my nomenclature was incorrect, but my intention was only to help twaddle easily understand, not go into a technical discussion of genetics. Sorry Sailorwolf, I know it wasn't technically correct. But as you stated, there is obviously more to it than what I said. Thank you for correcting me about percentages. You are right. Again, not wanting to go too much into it, but percentages are just that - percentages. It is not necessarily what you will end up with in actuality...luck of the draw I guess. It seems that in reality the likelihood of getting visual whitefaced babies is higher than 50%...even though that is not what the percentages say. It was my experience, and also seems to be the case with others. Also they are drawn over the breeding life of the birds, so if there are 8 clutches you would have to take all offspring and see if the percentages were accurate or not. If twaddle's bird has 4 more clutches and some yellowfaced babies show up, then the percentages may be closer for her. That is all I was trying to convey. I suppose I should have been more careful in my wording. I really over-simplified. In future I won't respond unless I am technically correct, to avoid confusion.

I am going with cobalt too. She's lovely.

Aw, Jac, I'm very sorry to hear about Buddy. I know you are heartbroken. It must have been so difficult to come home and find what you did. Baby budgies have a small window where they seem to be just 'naturally tame' from about 5-7 weeks of age. If you can find a breeder who handles the babies in the nest box on a regular basis and can get a youngster a week or two after fledging you shouldn't have too much trouble taming him or her. It is not necessary to pay extra $$ for a handraised baby unless you just want to.

I gave a pseudo-genetics explanation about this somewhere, but I can't find it. Let's use WW for a normal whiteface, and yW for a yellowface. You only need one gene for a bird to appear yellowfaced, and it will override the gene for whiteface. If you have two yellowface blue birds, they each have yW. The possible outcomes therefore are yW, yy, or WW depending upon which gene the babies get from each parent. The funny thing is that a doublefactor yellowface bird (yy) will appear to have a white face. If you figure percentages, you have a greater chance of whitefaced bird from two yellowfaced blue parents because you will get both WW and yy birds (whiteface) and fewer yW (visual yellowfaces) simply due to percentages. For an example, I bred two yellowfaced birds and out of 9 young, only 3 had yellowfaces. The remaining 6 were either true whitefaced birds, or doublefactor yellowfaced birds. The first clutch contained 5 babies - 2 were yellowfaced. The second clutch contained 4 babies, only 1 was yellowfaced. (He was also doublefactor dominant pied, but that is a different lesson, LOL.) The only way to tell which is which would be to wait until the offspring were of breeding age and pair them to birds that are known whitefaced birds to see what the babies look like. The links Kaz gave you are obviously more in-depth than what I've written, but I hope it helps explain why you have so many apparently whitefaced birds. You actually have a 67% chance of having whitefaced birds. :hap: But that is over the breeding life of the parents, so if you've only had one clutch, it is very probable they all were visual whitefaces. Some of them might actually be doublefactor yellowfaces though. One of the miracles of genetics. Oh, and welcome to the forums!! When you get the chance, introduce yourself and your flock in the "Your Flock" section if you want, and post up some pictures of your birds. We love pictures.

Cobalts will have violet cheek patches. Violets have cheek patches that are darker. One of my hens is a violet, and her cheek patches are so dark as to almost look black sometimes. I used to have a violet male also...here's a picture of them together - you can see how dark the cheek patches are:

I'm sorry she has a broken bone. It is serious but thankfully not as serious as kidney issues or tumors. I think she must have caught her foot in something, like a toy, cage bars, something like that and during the night frights they are absolutely terrified anyway so probably was thrashing to get loose and snapped it. If they seem prone to them there are things to try and lessen their occurrance, and I think I would check the cage and see if you can guess what she was stuck on. I know you are concerned about the nerve damage to her foot, but rest assured she will find a way to navigate if there is any. Rainbow learned how to walk on the leg itself once his foot permanently curled up from the tumor pressing on the nerve. Once the leg fully seized up he got around on one leg and still loved to fly (and figured out the best way to land with only one leg). I don't see how the foot would fall off unless their is no blood supply. I think if the vet is able to set it so that the ends of the bone are together and not pushed against a nerve she will regain most use. It is so heart-wrenching I know. But should you need to make any cage modifications for her in the future, I can help with ideas or we will all brainstorm for you. I hope you can tell she feels better when you go to pick her up. I know she will be very glad to see a familiar face!

That is good to hear. It is sad to see deformed or sickly babies. Even though their personalities might be perfect and they still make good companion birds, sometimes you just think ...what if things had been different???... The more mutations the parent birds contain, the harder it is to tell what the babies will look like.

Sure! I'll take a shot at it. Muffy is a blue spangle. Stud is a type 1 yellowface dilute blue. The shade is probably cobalt, as to me the bars look a little light on his head and at the wings. I think he has a little dilution to his color. He is type one as there is no yellow bleedthrough from his facial feathers turning his blue a greenish color. Taj looks like a normal light green, although his barring looks lighter than normal too. It might be the flash. Are his bars and wing markings a strong black or are they more greyish? Puffs is a beautiful color. She is of the green series, also carries the dilute gene, and may be pied. It is hard to tell from that picture what other mutations she is showing. I'd love to see more pictures when you get the chance!

Kidney disease is not reserved for the older budgie. My Rainbow died of kidney tumors (both kidneys) shortly before he turned 4. He ate pellets, seed, sprouts, veggies and fruit daily, and was out of the cage several hours at minimum daily for fly time. His feather quality was outstanding - he appeared to shimmer. His problem was probably genetic, although he was on numerous antibiotics when he was young as he was sick when I brought him home around the age of 4 months or so. I was told he probably should not have lived as long as he did, but a nutritious diet and good care kept him going. He lived for 6 months after diagnosis (he was already becoming lame on one side which was the clue at first. You couldn't feel the tumors at that stage yet.) which is unheard of as they are very fast growing tumors. You just never know with things like that. I hope that is not the issue with your bird. How are things going today?

They are just lovely! Thanks for sharing. It is so cool that your kids like the birds too, especially that they are teens and enjoy watching and listening to them. Wonderful!

Not nuts at all, Elly, it is true. The problem with feeding captive parrots is that no matter what you give them it will not be as nutritious as what they would normally find in the wild, generally. Pellets are not found in the wild at all, but they contain a mixture of vitamins and minerals we think are close to optimal using the knowledge we have at this time. Seeds are found in the wild, but the seeds you buy in the store are pretty far removed (nutrition-wise) from anything the bird would find outdoors. Picking a seed off a plant gives much more nutrition than picking a seed from a dish that has been processed and placed in a bag for who knows how long before you open it for your bird. Why do you think these seeds are supplemented with vitamins and minerals artificially? I agree with Daz that a diet that closely resembles what they would eat in the wild is optimal, but the problem is we cannot provide that for a captive parrot. Daz would have better luck than I as he is in their native country, but I think unless he goes out into their habitat and pulls up who knows how many different types of plants (which is probably illegal), digs bugs, etc. and brings them back to his flock on a daily basis, he can't feed them like they eat in the wild either. I'm in a country where budgies are not native. They could find food here in the wild they could thrive on (there are feral flocks here in places). That is where variety and supplements (if necessary) come in. Budgies don't normally eat pellets, veggies, fruits, and cooked foods in the wild - no parrots do - but those items are given to ensure a greater likelihood that our birds are not deficient in vitamins, minerals, macro nutrients, etc. You choose what you think is best after research and trial and error. If no matter what you do your birds will not eat a vegetable, either cooked or raw, you try something else that will hopefully provide the nutrients the veggies were being offered to provide. Pellets, cooked foods, fruits, sprouted seeds, eggfoods, all these things give you the opportunity to try to provide what your bird needs to be healthy. Back to the original question, I would try to import foods that are least processed (seed-wise/cooked food wise) and for pellets, the ones with natural methods of preservation. No questionable preservatives in any of them.

Your vet can order Roudybush too. You can only get generic types from the website, some of them require a prescription from your vet if you have special issues. I think you can get regular roudybush and the rice-based mix without an Rx from the website.

Hommer, hopefully you are going to be 100% very soon, if not already? I'm sorry to hear about the car accident. What happened and when? You are recovering well, I hope? What a scary thing to happen! It was very sweet of you to think of us though, and post those lovely pictures! I've always loved your birds - they are obviously well-cared for, not to mention beautiful. I was enamoured at the first picture, I mean how cute is that?????

What a fascinating topic! I don't know much about this at all, but my guess on the last bird (with the flecking) would be to keep spots 1, 2, & 3 and get rid of the rest? I think you want the mask to be as deep as possible, and those are the lowest as well as the most evenly spaced spots.

Since it's after after April 3, I can get there for around $1400.00.............what a deal!

((((hugs))))) We all miss Pretty.

Oh yeah right.... LOL Well, I tried covering the cage last night partway to allow them to settle down. Wouldn't you know they ended up all being near the front of the cage (the uncovered part) either hanging on the bars or all vying for the perch that happened to be in front???? Talk about sounds of hate and discontent...... On the plus side, I got to watch them in the semi-dark, and know who the witchy ones are.. I ended up moving the rope perch I had draped at an angle to where it was fairly level. They ended up being a little happier about that because they weren't all fighting for the same small space at the end of the rope perch (which was the high point in the cage). Plus since they could still see out in the dim light, they were in no mood to try to go to sleep. It kept them up, not having the cage covered all the way. At least I know. It was a very good idea and I had to try. I covered them up all the way, and there was silence after a few minutes. (thank goodness...!) When I uncovered them this morning, one was was on the ladder, one was on the rope perch, one was on the hanging foraging ball (ha-ha!) and the 4th was on another perch in the back. We'll see what happens tonight......Silly budgies, they all could spread their wings and not touch another bird....You'd think they would just settle down for the night. OY! I'm going to try partially covering them again tonight to see what happens, and will keep you updated again. Does anyone besides myself and Boomberry have such contrary budgies at night?

I think the destructiveness may be tied to the season - that is a good point. But the grumping at night has gone on for awhile now. It may be worse now because of the seasons though. I think having male budgies must have buffered a lot of that, because as I said before this didn't happen when I had them. I think I will try partially covering the cage at first, that is a good idea. I'll keep you posted on what happens tonight.

Well, they still weren't happy last night. I don't know. I came home tonight to find 1/2 of the food cups on the ground, and most of the shredables gone from the foraging ball, LOL, one of them was floating in the water dish...the furthest one from the ball! What a mess that was. And all the millet was gone and halfway outside of the ball that was on the cage floor, so I know somebudgie was busy today, and not too scared to get into the ball for food! Silly birds... Does anyone have any suggestions about what to do at bedtime? Yeah Booms, they don't want another bird NEAR them once the lights are out and the cage is covered. The noises are worse than fighting tomcats!

Very cute Kirby. They all seemed very relaxed...that cockatiel "fluff up" at the end was so cute!