Janette

Poor little birds! :hap:

Have you tried ebay? You never know, you might be lucky. Pets at home usually have quite a good selection of cages to look at, or at least they do in their Norwich shops.

"i get the dr foster catelog but i was wondering if anyone could give me a suggestion for more places to get bird supples like cages etc" Ebay is quite good for cages. In fact, it's quite good for a few bits of budgie stuff. Otherwise, just google it. There are loads of online petstores to buy from, just have a browse round and find the most reasonable ones. Just watch out for apparently cheap stores that then whack on huge postage. I do most of my budgie shopping on the net, all apart from veggies and seed.

Oh, he's such a pretty boy. I love him! :hap:

You could try a proper bath (I presume you mean the ones that fit on the side of the cage), but you could also spray them with a mister if they don't use the bath (mine don't). You just have to make sure the mist isn't too fine - more like little droplets than fine mist - so that they don't breath in too much water. Phoebe mentioned making sure the veggies have drops of water on them to encourage them to eat; this can work as a bath too as they get all excited and roll in their veggies to wet their feathers. That was another thing that took a long time to persuade my birds to do - they did it for the first time yesterday - but it's worth it. It's so much more fun watching them spaz in their veggies than just spraying them with water.

Some people have to try for months to get their birds to eat veggies. It's really worth persisting though. Just put a little bit in every day and eventually they'll get used to it being in their cage and may come to investigate. They've got to decide in their own time that the veggies aren't either a) a wild, ravenous creature come to devour them or b)poisonous. Budgies are naturally cautious, so give them time to adjust to having the veggies in their cage. Also, you could try different ways of presenting the veg to them. Mine won't eat veggies if they're chopped in a bowl. They'll only have them hanging from a clip or wedged in the cage bars, but I know other people chop them up like little salads for them. It could take a long time, but in the end it's worth it. They will eat them... eventually. I was also wondering, do they have access to a bath at all? If they haven't, that might make it difficult for them to preen properly and keep their feathers in order.

Chameleon! Hmmm... or an octopus!

Sounds like you've got a system going that works well for you.

I was just wondering why the girl budgies don't get fruit but the boy does? Have you tried giving veggies rather than fruit? It's not fattening like sugary fruit.

Can't be a lutino. The flights are white ummm Budgiebird... Lutino lacewing...... with white flights Isn't a full Lutino...i.e. normal Lutino all yellow no other colour ? We are not talking a derivative here. Just normal Lutino. Aren't they all yellow ? Well now I'm thoroughly confused! I give up.

Can't be a lutino. The flights are white Well that answers that question. Thanks, budgiebird. I didn't know that was a way of telling. My monitor must be a bit off.

Where's dad? Shouldn't he be feeding too?

Hmmm... looks like he's got red eyes on my monitor. Are his eyes black or red, Birdluv?

Beautiful! How about Sherbert (as in lemon sherbert) for the ino. Or what about primrose for either of them? They're the same colours!

Unfortunately, one case means 35,000 birds in this case. So far they don't think it's the human transferrable strain, so at least that's one consolation. It's not thought to be airborne, so I'm not too worried at the minute about it getting to my two. They've set up a containment area around the farmland. You need to com einto contact with infected birds to be able to carry it and thankfully, most people aren't. I'm just maintaining normal hygiene both for myself and my birds. There's not a lot else anyone can do really. I lived right in the middle of an affected area in the foot and mouth (cattle) outbreak and I was really impressed by the efficiency of the local farmers and official types. This really isn't that different. If anything, the foot and mouth spread much more virulently, and that was managed well and brought under control.

Ah, I see. I realised it was your tiels, but I didn't realise about the cats. eek! I guess that's the advantage of keeping my birds in my room. Our cats don't come in here. It's the birds room as much as mine. It's nice that you get them out to play though. It's so important for them.

Are you getting lots of feathers in the bottom of the cage? Are the birds looking kind of scruffy? I was thinking maybe they're moulting or have just moulted and lost their long tail feathers. If they've really never had tails though, I don't know what that would be? Plucking maybe? I think we might have to wait to see pictures for a verdict on this one. I'll be interested to see them when you sort your camera out.

Poor bugger.

If those two just sit on top of the cage when they're out, why not let them out sometimes? If you time it for a day when you know you'll be around all day and haven't got to rush off anywhere and leave them, you could just let them out and leave them to it. My budgies aren't particularly hand-tame. I can't catch them to put them back in their cage, but they know where their food is... in the cage! So every night they go back in for some food. Sometimes my budgies don't quite make it into the cage, but all they do is go to sleep on the top of the cage as that's where they feel safe. I hardly ever shut the door to my budgie cage.

Perhaps it would have been a good idea to mention the situation in the pictures when you posted them. Try to understand that everyone is merely concerned for the birds, and without any explanation, the state of those cages did seem pretty bad. Maybe Kirby didn't approach the situation with quite the right manner, but his intentions are good.

I was thinking the same thing, Hurdybirdy. Do the birds have lots of out time?

Well, it's on my doorstep now, about 20 miles away. I'm glad I don't have outdoor birds to worry about and I really feel for the chickens and that poor farmer having to watch them all culled. I guess it's the only feasible way though, when you're talking about an enormous amount of livestock like that. Bird flu in norfolk

Look on the Budgie Pictures section. He's called Merlin.

Yesss! I must be getting better at this!

I'd think female. But I'm only a beginner. (By the way, I think this post will get moved when a mod comes on. There's a special section for this kind of thing.)