Michelle

You know, I been looking at Godzilla since a couple days and I noticed that his flight feathers are messy. They aren't all neat like Bud's for example... Hers aren't split like that. Pat has messy flight feathers like that too, but he also has a messy tail. You told me Pat might have french moult... Say, do you guys think there might be something going on with Godzilla here?

I have the same balls nicknack have... I had two sets. First set they have since a long time but there's a ball missing. Second set just broke apart and are now just little balls that they throw around to test the Law of Gravity. But their favorite toy... They like the rope toys I get 'em but their favorite toy has to be their own moulted away feathers They just can't resist coming over whenever I hold one of these up. EDIT: Oh. And Bud likes Nintendo DS consoles. She stands on the top of the first screen and stares down at whatever is going on and tries to eat the graphics. Silly silly big girl.

Oh yea, I'm not getting fooled by that. I just thought it might be something fun... I like growing stuff. I'm gonna go ahead and continue with budgie seeds afterwards.

I was at the petshop today to buy some seeds and treats and I found that neat little product http://www.bird.com/itemdy00.asp?T1=524142 This looks fun!!! I never seen it before. (Have you? o_O) So I bought a cup to try it out. I'm gonna get it started now.

*blinks* He looks like that shirt I bleached by accident the other day... Cute birdie.

What a nice little couple. They sure look like a smart match. That'll make pretty baybees.

Yayyy! It's merlin. I seriously like your bird. Glad to see he's back okay.

Somehow I have the bad feeling it's been put down. It's more simple to put a bird down for them than to spend the time needed to treat it. And probably more cost-effective.

That looks so cool! I really like it. With natural branches like that it really gives a great look to the thingie. :hap: Give 'em time and I bet they'll LOVE it.

They're so prettyyyyy!

"Yawr! I'm fierce!" That's my american cocker, Comet. (It's actually a frame out of a video... Whenever I film him I have to crank up the contrast or else he just looks like a silhouette. S'why the floor is overexposed.)

Well, I seen that website... http://www.birds-online.de/gesundheit/gesg...nzmauser_en.htm Some of the cases there look pretty bad. I can't believe that the last picture would ever go back to being normal... So I guess that french moult can still cause bad damage to chicks and that's why they suggest that breeding FM budgies is bad?

yep, I been thinking of doing that. I'll go ahead and buy some this weekend. As for Lemon, she's just fine. The "messy feathers" she had were just pin feathers. I think he misunderstood me.

Pat isn't a mother... He's a father! Motherhood is Bud's job. That's reassuring! I liked my breeding experience. It was a bit stressful but it was special, and I liked playing with these little buggers when they were nearly all ready to leave the nest. They're so hyperactive then, it's so fun to see them crawl over the couch with big curious eyes! I'm not quite sure yet if I wanna repeat it this year, but I'll think and see. Maybe I will. So I guess I shouldn't be that overly worried about FM... I'll just give Pat extra smoochies.

Thanks a lot Feathers for the info. It makes me sad that I shouldn't breed Pat anymore... Bud and him had such pretty babies, and I really liked the experience. I maybe wanted to repeat that again next month or so but... Now I guess I can't huh? I went back and took a glimpse at baby pictures of the clutch Bud had last summer. All the babies had healthy feathers from what I saw, no sign of anything like Pat's feathers. I'm not a pro or anything like you guys but there wasn't anything that made me go "Uh, that's odd." And Godzilla is Pat's son and he doesn't have any similar problem. Never has. I also paid lots of attention to Lemon's baby pictures, and she had wonderful feathers (so pretty!!!!). So frankly, it must be that she's just having a big moult right now and she's looking messy. :3 I'll still go over and check her out (I really like that bird anyway, so I do anything to see her again!!!). I'm probably gonna try and go see my aunt's budgies soon enough too... I wanna look at their creepy inbred newborn kid too anyway... I doubt they got any feather problem either. And switching the cage around... I thought about it but I concluded it's near impossible for me. I'd have to figure out how to make a decent bottom for the cage. I think it would be much easier to just buy a new wider one someday. Something like that. That's Godzilla's cage. It's the same dimensions but it IS built sideway (and way the bottom's designed the cage is actually bigger than his parents'). So maybe another one like that. ...I thought of putting all three together in that cage, even extending it upwards using parts from Bud and Pat's cage. That's very doable. But... Then I thought about Bud and I figured she'd hate that. She'd be mad, Pat always prefers hanging with Godzilla and that makes her have jealous fits here and then... So by having Pat and Bud together that makes sure that Bud gets his attention during the day. I really need two cages. Thanks a lot for all the info folks, I feel much better now.

You know, that's such videos that make me think that... Yea, birds have small brains but gosh they know how to use it! Sometimes better than some humans. Man! Your birds are SO clever! I love them! And that is SO CUTE!!!!!!!! I have a spare cage with slides door like that... It's my sister's. She had a budgie in there, it's so tiny and so badly designed, I can't believe someone would put a bird in there! http://www.chinatraderonline.com/Files/Hou...23592022102.jpg ^looked something like that. Not exactly but pretty much the same. ...Well, I had Pat in there for a couple weeks a few days after I bought him. Bud was being too rough on him so I thought "I'll split them for a while so Bud can cool down... We'll see." ...Took him 10 minutes to figure out he could open all three doors. <_< I had to lock them with a pin!!!

Thanks folks! I gotta admit my camera did a nice job. Hehe. Yep! Pat's the one. @Phoebe: Yah, Bud's a girl. :3 The eggs that came out of her behind confirmed that. She's really impressive, I mean, she weights much more than the two boys and she's really chubby or muscular looking. There's really a presence to her. The two boys are sorta shy sometimes but not Bud. She's got lots of confidence and it shows.

I made lots of pictures of my budgies lately, and here are a few That's the best closeup I ever made of Bud! (Click for a bigger piccie!) Bud is chubby and impressive. Great angle for an electoral panel...Bud for president! Godzilla enjoying some millet remainders while Bud pecks around out of frame More of pretty Godzilla! Godzilla (on perch) and Pat (on grid) during a preening session Pat taking it cool. More Pat! "You know, I think I see food there!"

"There’s no Canada like French Canada, its the best Canada in the land, cos’ the other Canada is a BS Canada, if you went there for a day you’d understand!" ...I don't think that's true mind you, I just love that South Park episode. Anyway, I'm in Quebec. Quebec City to be precise. I'll PM Aly and point her here! thanks Elly! I'll post this also... This picture should be the most usefull, a full shot of Pat from back. There's also that one but it's blurry. :X PHEW!!! I feel so much better now!!! ^^ Still, poor lil bugger. Bah! I'll just keep laughing of his ugly tail.

Oh tell me about it. I know petstores are nothing good. The lady that is taking care of the bird section at the big petstore I usually go to is great though, she's a bird fanatic... Brings her handfed chicks to work with her. I found that special. And she lets me play with the african greys whenever I want. But I bought Pat and that cage at the petstore in a mall... It's the same franchise, but that one is way way more mediocre. The staff is just a bunch of teens that don't quite care about you and fake being knowledgable. As for the vets... It's very very hard to get a good one, I know... I mean, it's not like human docs. If they make a gross error they know you can't come after them. Take my friend's cat for example. It's been terribly sick, she brought it to the vet. The vet shrugged it off and told her to put it down because it had either cancer or some uncureable virus. Good thing she didn't, a few days later the cat was all better after a good BM. Reason? Bowel obstruction. It's been eating litter. S'why I don't trust vets... Just had so many bad experiences. So, bottom line about the FM... Is it fatal? I hope not... And well, should I give him vitamins or something? (And I'll go check on Lemon tomorrow and take pictures of her to see if she has the same potential thing as pat...)

It's true that Bud and Pat's cage is pretty narrow, but Bud has no tail feather problems... S'what makes me think it might not be the cage. Maybe I should still look into a wider cage someday. It's not really appropriate for budgies, as it is more tall than wide.... Click for picture of Pat and Bud's cage. I got a bad tip from a seller at a petstore when I bought it. And she didn't even say that because she wanted more cash, that was the cheapest model... (I removed the grid at the bottom when they had kids, I didn't want the babies to fall and get stuck in there! Now they have wood pellets at the bottom. I think it's much tidier actually... Putting paper at the bottom of that cage is a feat because of the shape of the container. Have to cut it in a special shape...) I'm having troubles finding an avian vet in my area, s'why I ask so many questions here. That vet I have is a **** when it comes to birds. I remember taking Bud to him when I noticed she had runny poop. He just shrugged it off as "she's getting close to being mature that's all" and made me pay 60 bucks for that. It's been a year now and she's still as messy! He's lucky he's the only vet near my house, he ripped me off even for my dog. >( Still... Now it's pretty much too late to separate the budgies away from Pat. If they were to become carriers thanks to him, it's done already. I mean, Godzilla's his son and Bud lived with him for more than a year. Pat doesn't have much trouble flying by the way. With just the couple messy grown feathers he has he can take flight from the table to the top of his cage with no problem...

I cut my budgies's wings. He's due for a little trimming right now, like all the others. They moulted away and all... Also, see that fully grown feather on his wings? It's always that messy. He tries but he can't get it to look pretty like the other birds have... The tail just break all the time. Sometimes he has these long normal feathers, but within a week or so they will be bent or gone. He never kept a full tail.

Since KAZ mentioned in my ugly tail topic that Pat has a possible french moult infection I been worried. (especially that I was just laughing it off! I thought he was just messy, not sick!) Is it something potentially fatal or contagious??? I mean, I had Pat for over a year, he's always been looking like this... And of course, if it's contagious it means that my Bud and Godzilla both have it? I wanted to try to post more pictures of Pat that I took yesterday, but well, my computer at home is kaput right now. :\ I do have these two of his tail though! picture 2 (too big) (2nd picture is much older, you can really see he's had a messy tail since a long time.) I'm so worried for my birdies, especially that a workmate mentioned to me a couple days ago that Lemon has messy feathers... I'm gonna go see her and try to take pics tomorrow.

Maybe you can chisel it? Then some sand paper to finalize... That could do the job

Hey! When I got the permission to buy myself a budgie, I got myself a single one. I'm a full time worker, I leave at 7:30 and return at 6pm... But still, I had plenty of time to tame her good! So IMO, working full time and having just one budgie doesn't hurt. But I really think you need to get a 2nd one later on so they'll have each other during the day. I did a few months later, when I judged I had tamed my girl okay. I didn't do quarantine and put them together when I got home. I didn't know I had to quarantine anyway. Maybe I shouldn't have... Not cuz I was scared Pat was sick but more because Bud just spent a full day preening him quietly, and whenever he tried to leave she'd squeak and he'd freeze... Then she'd preen him again. o_O And he was just standing there staring at me in a "Woman, what the heck did you get me into here?"