Hello fellow budgie lovers,
I have been reading this forum for a while and have finally decided to join and say hello!
Into a growing menagerie of animals; dogs, cats, goldfish and siamese fighters; I have recently added budgies.
It is my youngest daughter's 'fault' as she bought home an albino budgie she named Adalard (meaning: noble and brave) near the beginning of the year. Around August I found the poor thing with no water and I felt so badly for it. Thankfully it seemed to have suffered no ill effects, but I tore strips off my daughter and started to look after it myself.
Goodness me... who knew where that would lead. I had seen this huge cage, more like an aviary, that I couldn't resist and Adalard took up residence in my room. Of course, one little budgie in a big cage doesn't quite feel right, so, I was 'casually' looking around at budgies one day when I found 2 georgeous budgies that I couldn't leave behind. Tealah (meaning: sea green/blue) joined us, along with Keely (meaning: slender; beautiful).
Now, I had 3 budgies, and a still very large cage. Shopping for supplies there awaited another handsome budgie, and Beau (meaning: beautiful) came home with me.
okay, so now you are starting to see an emerging pattern.....
Finally, or so I thought, I actually went looking for one more bird, to complete my flock, and I came across a very unusual looking budgie who had a yellow face, a sky blue body and very pale yellow and grey wings. She was in a pet shop in a small cage, not with the others. After spending maybe 20 - 30 minutes checking out all the birds again and again I pointed out my desired purchase to the assistant only to be told "Oh, no you can't take that one - that is a package deal with the cage". After making it clear I didn't want any other one she finally relented and Dekota (meaning: friend) was my very last addition.
Dekota, By The Way, has been undergoing a molt in the last couple of weeks and she has changed from having the exact same sky blue body as Beau (she looked identical except for the light yellow face and slight yellow wing colouring) to now having green patches on the back of her head and a light greeny-blue body. Her blue cheek patches are now also white.
Well, as I had 3 blue bodied budgies and only one green (obviously before Dekota turned green), I did decide in October to try to address this imbalance and was going to look for another green budgie when I found Zanthie (meaning: from the greek Xanthe - yellow/golden haired).
So, there you have it. I really am going to stop now...... No more budgies.
My daughter's bird, Adalard, had problems with it's molt and was becoming quite bald, so he got moved back into his own small cage when he started to have trouble flying. He was having to climb up the side of the cage all the time to get back to his favourite perch. he has since grown back a lot of the feathers on his head, but his flight feathers are still quite scant.
Phew, there you have it. As this post has turned into somewhat of an epic tale I will post photos in the pics section.
Regards,
Feathers.