Chrysocome

This is an offshoot of this thread (or mods please move it if that is more appropriate) I am starting a new project with my budgies. After working at a bird vet clinic and seeing lots of birds with behavioural and obesity problems, I want to make sure my birds are getting more stimulation and exercise - and it makes sense to do both at the same time. My lovely assistant Squee will demonstrate. First to reiterate the whole idea- I used to do this much more often with them so they knew what the deal was. To start with I placed a sunflower seed (very naughty of me, I know, but it's the one thing they would practically kill for) inside a piece of unbleached paper towel, wadded it up and attached it to their green peg. This works well for my budgies because they know that the green peg gives them food (a great way to introduce new food, by the way, if they learn to explore one object every time it's there) and they love tearing paper to bits regardless of whether or not there's a food surprise in there. Yum yum! The other great thing is that even though she got the seed out, she proceeded to play and tear at the paper looking for more until it was in bits on the ground. Next I placed a few on the ceiling so she had to climb and hang to get it. Squee worked it out fast - she was on the roof before I'd finished putting it up. At this point I started putting random food items in there - carrot, bok choy, pellets (which they caught onto suprisingly fast), oats etc. Next I threaded it through their star toy. This took Squee quite a while to work out, but I didn't catch photos of it because my battery died. Basically, she tried to get at it from the top but couldn't get it to stay up there because gravity was pulling it down. It was also hard to stop the individual balls spinning and the whole star spinning. She eventually worked out she could get at it from the bottom. It's still hard because the ball keeps moving. Budgies have funny tongues! Finally, I clipped it to a hanging toy. Streeeetch! Argh, why isn't this working?? I can pick it up but can't get a grip... Grr! Hang on, what if I... Ah hah! Nom nom nom! That's all for now. My next plan is to put a few in at a time, with all different types of food and some that are empty, so they spend all day looking through them, shredding, and keeping active and stimulated. I will share my progress and hope to inspire others to start a similiar project. I'm also trying to prove that you don't need to buy fancy or expensive toys to keep your birds mentally stimulated, active, and to prevent health problems related to boredom or obesity.

Everyone brings up excellent points. Sunnie - I read up on conures all week and watched videos of them and I am in love. I never really had much to do with them before but after seeing a few they have really grown on me. Sailorwolf that is the one that worries me the most, the fact that I will not be able to spend much time with them while I'm away. I have to put another needy bird on top of the time I need to spend with budgies too. I worry a lot when I go away as it is. In the last semester of final year (three months) is when we do that thing where we go our separate ways, anywhere around the world. I probably won't go overseas but I might go interstate. MB you asked and answered an excellent question. It would be a great relief knowing that there is backup if it doesn't go to plan. Thank you so much!! (I also wonder if you could be my birdsitter if I go away? I already worry so much leaving my budgies with a non-bird person). If you think you have the space and time for another bird, I would greatly appreciate you being a backup plan/birdsitter. I will let you know first if I decide not to take the conure, as I am sure he will be happy with you. I'm going to go meet the conure (his name is Ozzie) and his owner tomorrow, and go from there. Thanks everyone for your opinions, they have really helped me. I love this forum so much.

Hey I'd love that! I'm in if it's a weekend and it's not one I'm rostered on for!

Hi all Sorry for not dropping by these few weeks. Knox bird clinic is a blast. I never want to leave. I love it so much - I'm so glad that I've gotten a taste of what I said I'd always do, and ended up even more determined to do it (rather than realising it was not what I wanted). I knew, I always knew that I would do work at the bird clinic and end up wanting a new bird. Well, it happened. A person that works there has a friend-of-a-friend with a young green cheeked conure, the person had bought it without prior planning and it ended up not being what he wanted. It is also starting to get nippy. So he is looking for a new home for the conure. I read up on it and am thinking... maybe I will adopt this bird. I am thinking out loud here, so don't feel obliged to give me advice, but I always value your opinions. It's so sudden for me, but part of me really really wants to own a bigger parrot than a budgie and train it up and all that. But am I really ready for an intelligent animal known to be nippy, destructive and noisy? Should I start with a baby cockatiel instead and hand raise it? My mum has also said that if it's my bird I have to pay for all its bills. As it is, I don't make much money, but in a year I will be working and will be able to treat it myself. I know it shouldn't be about money but this is an adoption and I would not be expected to pay much for it. It is rare to get a chance like this I think. It would also be a good project for me to train a bird, to put everything I have learnt about it into practice. I am very interested in avian behaviour and would love to teach my future clients about it. Part of me says just do it, it will be amazing and rewarding to have a new bird to teach. Another says to start slow and not to rush into things. So I am thinking about it.

I was really just thinking out loud, putting my thoughts down, not really demanding that someone give me an answer or even expecting advice. But Elly, thank you, really. I really had to hear that from someone I respect and whose opinion I value highly, as well as one who loves birds as I do. It was easy for me to sort of dismiss some of the opinions from some of my colleagues, who all admitted they didn't quite understand why I was going so far for a bird (but of course they understood I was stressed and upset). But I did think about what you said before and I am thinking it now. Part of me wants to fight and fight and fight, and another part says that perhaps I should accept what I probably cannot change and to enjoy our time together, uncertain though the length is, to make each one count. Milly's been through enough for this week so I've opted not to do anything more for now. I will continue the current medicine for another four days days which means I am taking her up to Templestowe with me (my friend is happy to take in a bird, they have an isolated room where they cat isn't allowed). Whether or not I put Milly under the stress of being masked down for radiographs next week is under question. I have to ask myself whether or not the stress and occasional pain is of any benefit or even making it worse. My heart hurts. I have some more thinking to do.

Oh guys I am exhausted. Took Milly back to the vet today. I decided I wanted some blood tests run to make sure she'd be okay for anaesthesia, and maybe they'd tell me something. The mass stuff became secondary when we found markedly elevated liver enzymes (as in ten times normal). Her poops have steadily become green and noticeably watery since I separated her from Squee. The main that would do that to a budgie is hepatic lipidosis, heavy metal toxicity or infection. Milly's diet is okay and she's not overly fat. So I had to decide whether to trial treat her for toxicity or go ahead with the radiographs. I spent so long trying to decide what to do next that the vet kind of had to rush off and look after her other clients. Milly had been jabbed twice, in the neck to take blood and another painful doxy injection in the chest so I said I just wanted to take her home and think about it. I was also running low on money and not thinking clearly so I said to trial treat - I go back tomorrow to grab the medication. Now that i'm home and had time to think maybe I should run the rads. The problem is though that it actually costs more than i thought it would, and it is not my money but my parents' (I'm still completely reliant on them as I don't have a job) and well.. they would just not bother to spend money on an animal. I'm so confused and tired and have no idea what is the right thing to do. Mass... respiratory... liver.. there's so much going on here and nothing seems to link it all. I'm also going to the other side of the city for three weeks to work at an actual bird clinic so I need to do something soon, or else bring her all the way out there and see if they can do anything more. I worry about the logistics of doing that because the people I'm staying with have a cat, so I'd have to drive the hour and a half back home and then come back out again. My poor Milly, she was just completely bombed after the two jabs today, it hurts to stress her so much

I know MB! Luckily I have some friends closer to that side. It'll still be a 45min drive in peak hour, but much better than trying to travel from Werribee! It's going to be Templestowe where I stay most of the time, but I may move around. (Long story short: I have two really good friends to me that live ten minutes away from Knox, BUT, those two hate each others' guts and rather than choosing between them, I'm going to base myself a bit further away and go visit them when I feel like it).

I'm so sorry for your loss (((hugs)))

The feeling of freedom is indeed wonderful. I slept for 12 hours today and got up at 2pm.. it was weird. But it was the first decent sleep I'd had for three entire weeks - those 5 hour nights were doing me no good. I hate what sleep deprivation does to me and my thought processes. Results will be out in three weeks. Until then, I'll focus on other stuff. *relaxes* I'm pleased to announce that I got a hold of Knox Bird Clinic and will be doing three weeks placement with Dr Colin Walker. Near the end of my summer 'holidays' I'll be with Dr Pat MacWhirter of Burwood Vet Clinic. I'll also be doing a week here at the 'Chicken Wing' at Uni, doing laboratory type work. It really looks like my bird vet career is on its way. Alongside those I have four compulsory weeks at Uni, doing Medicine, Emergencies, Surgery/Anaesthesia, and Equine. (Emergencies over Christmas, that's going to be a nightmare!) It's going to be a jam packed summer 'holidays' for me, I'm really looking forward to it.

Thanks to all. Milly is still looking fine. We will be going back to the vet tomorrow and doing a whole bunch of diagnostics including taking blood and xrays *heart pounds*. I am so scared, but I know she is in good hands. It is great to know what goes on beyond the consult room, but at the same time it is nerve wracking knowing exactly what's to be done. I'm tempted to not actually go out the back and watch everything... but another part of me wants to be there all the way cuddling and comforting her. Since exams are over, students are back to attending consults and procedures, so it wil be good to have my friends around me. It's also good to teach them stuff about birds too. Thanks again everyone and I will let you know what we find. SW: I got the vet to do it the first time (I looked like a wimp until I told her why!) and I really like the blanket idea, I'll definitely do that.

What an awful, awful lot of three weeks I've just had. Tomorrow I have the last two exams for the year! I cannot wait. I think I'm going to go out and party all night then sleep for a whole day. When I recover I'll write up a summary of the past couple of months (sorry for being so late on these! I've just been so busy). Then, I'll be back for summer! :hap: Side note - I really, really hope on tomorrow's exam on diseases transmissible to humans I get to talk about psittacosis... piece of cake. If I'm lucky. It might end up being something boring like worms.

Milly finally saw the vet today. From here: http://forums.budgiebreeders.asn.au/index....showtopic=23149 I took her to the uni clinic to see one of the vets who teaches us - she knew well what kind of stress I was in. The vet thought the lump was a concern, but given that Milly's still bright and alert, not something to panic about just yet. She told me to worry about exams first and just keep watching Milly, and we'll do x-rays next week (I have exams every day this week). If it gets markedly bigger or if Milly starts losing weight or looking sick I have to bring her in straight away. Her suspicion is it is involved with the reproductive tract or kidney area. She said given Milly's age (she's only four) and the season it is more likely to do with the reproductive tract. Without radiology or blood tests we can't tell exactly what its nature is. The vet thought that the sneezing, difficulty breathing and greenish poops could be a presentation of respiratory infection. She gave me injectable doxycycline and is happy for me to deliver the full course myself. Poor Milly, those doxy needles are painful. She's also going to have to stay apart from Squee for lonnger, which is driving the little one mad. Radiographs are a risk because she's clearly not breathing at optimum, and she will have to be anaesthetised for the procedure. The vet thought it was going to be less stressful for me to have Milly under obersvation than to be thinking about her while she's under anaesthetic. I got jumpy just when she told me she was going to give doxy (one in a very very large number drop off the end of the needle). It's so very different when you're talking about your own pet. The vet told me to put my mind to exams first and then worry about next week as this is not an emergency. So still no answers on the lump, but that will come later. I will keep you updated as I find out more. Poor Milly. She's quiet, freaked and painful at the moment, all she's wanted since we got home is head rubs.

SO cute I love his voice. Side note - you're right, Saucy and Squee could be twins

NICKNACK! Great to see you! I have missed giggling at your posts and your sense of humour Good to hear all is going well with your birds.

Still no joy, I called early but the exotic animals vet was completely booked out today. But I made an appointment for tomorrow afternoon. Milly is still playful as ever, a bit quieter but perhaps because I'm just watching more, still eating and drinking so not in an immediate danger zone. My heart hurts. Her tail is bobbing more than normal. I assume it's from the weight of the mass against her abdominal air sacs. She also sneezed some blood out one nostril today. Not an alarming amount and not fresh red blood, I don't know if it's related to the mass or what. It's odd that it's one sided, you would see that with some kind of trauma. It's stopped now. I can't link this to anything. In fact I've never seen a bird get a nose bleed. I've had long discussions over the past two days with another 'vet' I know well, who is working in the "chicken wing" in the laboratory/research area at uni (which I guess doesn't make him an actual vet, but he does have a veterinary degree and he works with bird diseases every day. He does the Chlamydia tests). He found the nose bleed very strange too. He's been ready with the emergency stuff for me if anthing did happen before we got to the diagnostics with a 'real' vet. He agrees that we need radiographs and a blood test to see how her kidneys and liver are going. It's been a really **** day. I'm fairly sure I failed the equine exam. :sigh: I really want answers to this and to see if there's anything that can be done. *waits some more* Thank you everyone *hugs all* EDIT Hugs Sailorwolf, you're right, I thought about all those too. I hope it's something treatable/less scary like that. I always freak out about my babies, and it gets worse around exam time. I need diagnostics dammit. I hope yours are okay too.

No luck this morning... the person I need to see is at the airport seeing someone off. He's told me to do the hospital thing - keep her apart and observe her. When he gets back this afternoon I'll take her in, even though he's told me we can't do any diagnostics because the clinic is closed. Even an opinion will make me feel better. But it looks like I'll have to work around exams and get her to the clinic on Monday night to get any real answers. *sigh*

Thank you guys, I'm just, I'm so But I'm so glad to have you around me that understand. :laughter: I held her and kissed her and cuddled her bawling my eyes out, and she was the same as ever, closing her eyes and fluffing out her head and just loving it. That made me cry even more It's 1am, I feel so broken. I've put her to bed again, I'm glad I caught it tonight after accidentally waking them. I'm already behind on study and the notes are now a blur to me. So much for trying to cram late tonight. I hope I'm wrong, I really really hope I'm wrong. I shouldn't just jump to conclusions. It can be something benign or treatable. The stress of exams and sleep deprivation is just making everything so much worse. I'm going to try to sleep and hope tomrrow is a better day. *deep breath*

Oh god, guys, it's Milly. I found a deep soft tissue lump under her tail today. I've just been so busy with exams and just trying to pass (and not even sure about that even) and I've been less focused on playing with them and making sure they're okay. I haven't picked up Milly for a while but I did it tonight because she looked like she wiggled a little to do a poop. It feels like it's from inside her abdomen and it feels a heck of a lot like a tumour. I'd thought it was a bit odd that she sat at the water container a bit more lately... I'm so sure it's a kidney tumour. :laughter: It's Sunday but I'm going over to uni in the morning to see if any of the teaching vets will help me. She needs rads and mabe a biopsy. I have exams all week in the city but I'm going to call and book her for Monday night. She's been bright and alert otherwise, nothing about her demeanour gave it away except that tonight I happened to notice her wiggle a bit. Oh Milly, not you, I love you too much

Thanks guys for those suggestions - they are great, I promise I will do them at some point and pop them up here for you. However, it came upon me last night that there is a topic that is very important for birds, and close to my heart. That is: behaviour problems in psittacine birds. As you know it leads to the neglect, abuse, abandonment and even euthanasia of parrots and their smaller cousins because the owners couldn't handle them. I'm going to write it for small animal (dog and cat) vets because I think it is important that all vets should be advocates for avian health, not just bird vets. (Then I'm going to print it and pass it to all my friends). It just too common a problem and causes unncessary grief and stress for humans and birds. I will be covering budgies, although not as drastic as a feather plucking cockatoo, they too can bite and scream and as we all know, try to mate with everything including the owner's head. I know we aren't allowed to discuss management of non-budgies so when I'm done you can pm me if you want to see it. But I agree on some of those - French moult is indeed very confusing and hard to research so I will do that in my spare time. I also really like the parasite treatment idea. Thanks again all - I was so stuck but you got my thoughts rolling. I will research those topics mentioned here, organise it into something legible and post it here when I am done. I can't promise it will be very soon, but it is all part of my ongoing education so it will happen eventually. I know I ask for help a lot but I think it is important to have the opinions of breeders and pet owners - anyone know any really good websites about this topic? PM me or post just budgies since we aren't allowed to talk about others. I know we have some bird rescue people here and a lot of you know a lot about training and enrichment. I'm going to try and cover: biting, screaming, plucking, mating behaviour, night fright, egg laying. If there are any other major ones let me know. Thanks again.

Hi guys! I'm sorry I've been away for so long. I've barely had any time to even lurk around here! Busy busy busy as always with uni and study. Now, I have to write an essay for my small animals primary medicine rotation. I can do it in the form of an information sheet for owners or a detailed investigative logarithm for veterinarians. This is for Small Animal Primaries (as in dog and cat type of clinics) so it should be a common sort of topic and the treatment should be readily available (as in, no epic specialist surgeries or expensive tests). So I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions for a topic - what common disease or symptom should I write about? I am so stuck because there's just so many things I could write on! I would really like it to be avian. It would be nice to branch out a bit more from the common diseases I know of budgies, since I've learnt so much about them already (most of it from here ) but if anyone has a burning desire to know about a common disease I may oblige. It needs to be 2-3 pages long so nothing as quick as scaley face but also not as long and exhausting as an investigation on vomiting or diarrhoea. My first thought was egg binding but I sort of already know a lot about it from doing an non-uni assignment on it earlier in the year, and would like to learn something new. Any thoughts?

What a strange day. I post mortemed a budgie today - I'm getting quite a few of them since I got to know the bird pathologist on campus. (It really freaked me out the first time, but I've sort of learnt to shut that out). This budgie used to live on campus as a teaching budgie then retired to become the pet of one of the students. A totally unrelated thing to this post mortem - she was completely blind in both eyes - and had been for a year! She just knew exactly where all her perches and food/water was so she got along just fine. It never ceases to amaze me how they just adapt and carry on. I also post mortemed a raven - a very rare thing to see. It had been hit by a car. It was kind of bizarre walking into the fridge at the PM area - there were a whole bunch of dead foxes in there. They are considered a pest species in Australia so were probably baited or trapped then euthanased. One of the pathologists must have somehow gotten them for teaching. I've never seen a fox before and here was a whole bunch of them. A morbid, yet interesting kind of day - far from the normal furry pets and livestock I see all the time. I just found it really odd that I was suddenly dealing with animals we vets here consider 'exoitic' - birds, wildlife and feral animals. This was all after hours stuff, I was just suddenly called by the pathologist and there was all of this to do. I'm actually on Emergencies/Intensive Care this week and was not expecting to start it like that!

They are also testing out their environment - maybe thinking they can squeeze out of the holes somehow (they aren't the brightest sometimes) but mostly they just end up squeezing between their legs and flipping over! My budgies as babies did it, but so did one of the full grown birds I had that was used to living in an aviary.

Happy to oblige, MB Baby Squee ahead :hap: That last one is just baffling I have no idea how she got in (or out) of those positions... (I have plenty more of these!)

I do - lots! But do you really want me to post 20 pictures of Squee's acrobatics and 10 of Milly upside down? I'll sort through and find the best ones now :hap: Here's Milly Milly used to sit like that for ages, singing away. She doesn't quite match Squee on acrobatics but here is one of her best! Squee pics to come - there's a lot to go through!

Hey guys. I've been so swamped it's unbelievable. Horse week nearly killed me I think. I don't have the time right now to write up summaries (3 assignments just started and all due on Monday) so I'll show you some of the most interesting photos from the past month. Enjoy :hap: Meet Group D! ...Delicious. Paraclinical weeks were interesting. We went to do stuff with pigs and visited the abattoir (not fun but definitely eye-opening). The other days we did tutes on parasitology and clinical pathology. Pigs was great. We are lucky enough to be down the street from a pig research facility. We practised catching and taking blood from the pigs. They actually needed the blood to help develop a test for detecting some disease in pigs. It's a closed research facility with strict hygiene standards. This sight just made me laugh. Medicos have scrubs. Vets have gumboots. I have photos of a gorgeous donkey who was my case for horse week, but I'm not allowed to show it (didn't get permission). Horse week was... bad. Especially when on call. I had to check on my horse and donkey every four hours. Including through the night. This sounds like an okay time for sleeping. But procedures can take over an hour and then there was time to fall asleep. Which wasn't easy in the student computer room with the cleaners vacuuming around me. There was always something to do through the whole day so I'd be exhausted anyway, and there were many days where I had to just glomp down my food and rush to the next case. Let's just say, it was intense, and I'm glad it's over. "Agricultural animal" week came next. So it's interesting that group D went to the zoo! We are also down the road from the Open Range Zoo. An eland (antelope) at the zoo had died and they were having general problems with the elands so the sheep/goat vet who was supposed to be taking us for tutorials decided to take us to the zoo. (Lucky us! No one else got to do it.) The amazing thing is that we were supposed to be doing scenarios on investigating diseases on different farms. Well, it turned out we did exactly the same thing, but for real. Group D visits the zoo in our private... bus.. thingy. This guy was 2 metres away and put on a show while we were investigating the elands. Giraffes! I'd forgotten how giant they are. This guy was, literally, 2 metres away. A 2 tonne rhino. With nothing but a flimsy little rail on the bus between us. And apparently he didn't like the bus. The driver told us to be ready for a sudden takeoff! That had me slightly worried... But rhinos are definitely cool. I have so much to say and no time for it right now - I will be doing it eventually though, just give me time. Hope you liked the photos.