Norm

Jodie rub some oil into their legs also, up as high as you can, as the mite can live in the scales there also. A little olive oil shouldn’t be harmful.

As Kaz has suggested applying some oil or Dettol would help certainly if it was caused by any mite as both are treatments used in the past [when I was young] to treat scaly mite. As others have suggested a photo would help us all, as I don't think I have ever seen this problem. Maybe one of the vitamin E skin creams could be worth a try, certainly better than filing it down, as that would be too stressful for the bird, even putting the cream on will be stressful. A little each day rubbed in, taking care not to block the nostrils as suggested.

Yeah Neat it takes time, for it to get into your head, I think I am slowly getting the idea or feel of what a bird should look like. When I see good birds on the net or on this forum I copy & keep so that I can look at them from time to time, so slowly it forms in your mind. The problem is that I don't agree will all that's in some of the birds, my thoughts are that the heads look quite good, but some need to have some of the body feathers trimmed down, so the bird is more sleek. So that you can see their feet & legs more & so you don't have to go trimming feathers around the vent to get fertile eggs. <br /><br /><br /> Erin its called directional feather & you have to select for it…it’s in their genes. Sorry it’s not as easy as a trip to the salon…LOL…

Nice chicks Pie, I like your favourite Green bird too, looks nice.

Like others have said it was probably oral Ivermectin, not spot on, I have read where they give one drop through the beak with Gouldian finches for air sac mites. I think Ivermectin has quite a long residue period, using the spot on I have never needed to repeat the dose so close, I would just keep a close eye on it, if it’s working the scaly mites should clear up pretty quick.

Yes Kaz as you say lots can go wrong between laying & hatching, mostly I wait & once they have something like 5 hatched, I will either take some of the older ones away or the youngest ones depending of what batches I have to foster to.

what kind of "hot food" ???? :hap: Take aways…Pizza…KFC…Big Max…some Budgie live the high life…it not only humans that have all the fun… :hap: Sorry about your bird Liv…I agree sounds like a tumour; they can come on pretty quick. I had a cock that grew one in a few weeks.

Some of them especially show types are getting more like battery hens. What I would like to do would be to cross one of those Kings Quails with a hen, they seem to lay an egg a day almost every day & the size of the egg compared to a laying hen is enormous. They seem to cover the ten okay, but feeding them if they all hatch well that's another thing. It used to be that Budgies just laid 6 eggs, most of mine are now laying 7 or 8, but as Dave said if you get a strain that all lay 10 eggs you will have to have pairs especially paired up as feeders.

Splayed legs may or may not be caused by lack of Calcium, but Rickets is caused by the lack of Calcium. Then there are genetic faults; I have a nice Yellow Faced Voilet hen I bought [show type] she had one young one in one of her batches of young that had legs going in all directions [not splayed legs] now two of her daughters all YF Violets have had the same in their batches. It must be quite a strong genetic thing as the hen line has been mated with three different lines & still it’s occurring, I’m hoping that in the next generation it will be removed. I euthanased all effected young.

I agree with the others YF2…so you got more than your wish, she isn’t split for Blue she is a Blue series bird, paired with a Blue you should get White Faced Blues & YF2 Blues.

They look good Pearce, yes you were right about the other Mutations. Good luck with your breeding. It looks like Lime is pretty well nearly finished his moult to me.

Welcome Aaron, I hope you enjoy the forum. Your Budgie is real cute.

I have a shed of Guinea pigs that I keep to eat all the garden weeds & household scraps & then their manure is amazing for the garden. I don’t fuss over them & they are kept together all the time & young females don’t appear to breed too early as far as I can see, as I have never had birthing problems. As Sailorwolf said though, if they don’t breed by a certain age they are useless for breeding from then on. I gave some to a neighbour & later they didn’t want them any more, I found out they couldn’t breed, they ran with the males all the time, but never got pregnant & died of old age. You must be aware that the minute they have one batch of babies they are highly receptive & will mate straight away, so if you want to control breeding they must be removed from males before they give birth.

Congratulations Sunnie, it will be good to see what they turn out like, best of luck.

As Kaz says, even the so-called experts can’t agree so it’s going to be hard for us to completely know the situation with FM. According to what I have read about it, it is supposed to spread by feather dust etc & they say that once it enters an aviary it is very contagious & most birds will contract it, but it only has any effect on young birds very early in life before they leave the nest. So even though adults may get it & shed the virus, after something like 6 to 12 months, most will get over it & be immune, but they think a few remain carriers. As others have stated, you can have batches where most young are healthy, but have one or more chicks effected, I suspect as others have said it’s to do with resistance, as some are resistant others more affected. But as Kaz said I have had lots of single cases that were the last young in a batch, so whether it was FM or some feed deficiency it’s very hard to say. In my experience most birds soon regrow their feathers & seem completely Normal from then on & I have bred from these birds without any sign of disease. But once you have had one case I have found that it just ticks over & you get a batch here or there with one or more chicks. A few birds especially young that have lost body feathers seem never to recover. I have read that once birds have had it they are weaker in some way, but I don’t see this at all. I have one or two sad cases with almost no feathers & no sign of recover & these & other FM effected birds seem extremely healthy & virile & I have never lost any of these birds, even though you would think they would be at a higher risk, but often loose birds that seem healthy, so I can’t see that they are weakened in fact some seem even stronger in my opinion. As Kaz stated, I also have had birds fostered that had it but the other chicks in that nest never got it. And other birds fostered to batches with FM but it didn’t affect them. So I think as they say, they must either be affected through the egg or very soon after hatching. There seem to be different strengths of the disease also, as you read that birds can die & you can have dead in shell, so it’s my theory that if you have a mild case it’s best to not worry about it just live with it & maybe it will give your birds some immunity & prevent them getting the more server form.

Yes sorry to hear that Kaz & Aly...I hope you have better luck with a different pairing.

From what I hear Zucchinis or Long Green Cucumbers are a common vegetable given by breeders to Budgies, Finches etc. I would just feed it as fresh as possible, if they have been kept in cold storage for a long time I wouldn’t use them. As with most Greens remove before they deteriorate, if you had a large number of birds I would just feed whole, but if only a small number only offer a small portion. As with most things they may need time to learn to like them.

I can’t believe you typed those three words Neat…my opinion is that if you read too much especially about diseases, you are only asking for trouble. You will discover you have all sorts of things that you never knew you had before, adding to your problems. As if there weren’t enough already…gladly I had never heard of such a problem. I’m quickly going to forget I ever saw those words, which at my age isn’t [luckily] that hard to do…LOL…

They were talking at our club the other month that they are going to open for importing of some birds again, but only for types of birds that are already here & getting low in biodiversity, no new exotic birds will be allowed into the country. Whether any Budgie will be allow I don’t know.

I’m trying to keep Pied out of my TCB’s but have already had some Recessive Pieds, which I didn’t know they were split for. But if you like them I would go ahead, but I don’t want Pied in my TCB’s or Spangles if I can help it, as if you get too much pied in them you loose the characteristic markings that I like, but that’s just my preference.

Good one Kaz, I'm waiting to hear they are fertile, that's always the big thing.

Congratulations Neat…

If you want to show you have to breed what they want, but if just breeding for yourself go for what you like, I’m breeding some lines of birds that you can’t show because that’s what I like, for example I think Opaline Spangles are beautiful birds, but I don’t think there’s a class for them.

I like the Yellows the best Sunnie, I'm no expert, but I think Griffin's colour is the desired one, Phoenix has Green suffusion, mine are the same some a nice Yellow others Greener with suffusion. I'm not so keen on the Blue series, but will breed some anyway; so far I haven't succeeded, even though I paired my Yellows up with some Blue birds. I'm not sure what a Violet TCB would look like as my idea of the desired Blue series, is that the bird be as White as possible. So not sure if Darker series birds are the best or Lighter, maybe someone that knows, will let us know. They say the Yellow is best using a Lutino to get the correct colour, but even though TCB has a special connection with Lutino in that it dominates it, I like TCB to TCB as I think you get less wastage with Lutinos & I think if you select always for the better Yellow I can't see why that wouldn't work. I think it's a good sign that they went down so quick, sounds like they are good breeders, my TCB's seem to be the same, there's no mucking around they go down quicker than most pairs.

Like I said earlier we have 13 feeders all with different feed. They seem to be primarily feeding at our millet tube feeder. Sorry I didn’t realise you had different foods in them. Just thought I would point that fact out but you already know by the looks of things. Good to feed separately as then you get less waste.