Kityakana

i will be very careful to only use a drop of an essential oil (which is pure and not synthetic) in a water filled oil burner. its what i use normally around the house instead of any airfreshners so its not going to be any more intense than that. i will have to use a scent ive not used before so peppermint or chamomile are my options within easy reach. peppermint is sharper so hoping to use that.

probably sound... only because their hearing is definately brilliant. so it would have to be a situation where it is only smell that is a factor.so if you made the formula in the "cone of silence" but then allowed the smell to waft afterwards we might have a valid demonstration of smelling! I believe that, pepperment is a very strong smell now THIS is the kind of thing i was hoping to find! this is a definate indication that although their sense of smell is not as acute as ours it is definately still there and would have some advantages if living in the wild... you would be able to tell when a certain tree might be in flower or learn what smells are bad or good to eat. and - something that wild budgies rely on - they might be able to smell rain/water. that would be tricky to prove but its something im very interested in now. ive done a series of experiments with Kit by presenting my budgie with smelly and not so smelly foliage. my previous observations of her allowed me to predict that she would preen in only the smelly foliage and just nibble at the not so smelly. I gave her: parsley, lettuce, spinach, rosemary, oregano and basil. my predictions were that she would investigate all of them by biting but only preen the stronger smelling ones (parsley, rosemany, oregano and basil) through her feathers and possibly linger and chew more on the herbs. not only were my predictions right but she seemed to really enjoy the rosemary and even started rolling on it! the next step will be to try and train her in an experiment similar to Pavlov's dogs, but i change the bell for a scent. i will use an essential oil that is strong smelling and distinct - probably peppermint - and add it to an oilburner in my room at the same time as i put a millet spray in her cage. the theory being she will associate with smell with the millet and if (after time) when i put the oil in and dont produce a millet spray, she will display agitative behaviour and possibly even actively seeking the millet. if anyone else as geeky as me is interested in doing this experiment, please let me know. i am very very interested in this and would like to ask Dr Karl about it sometime too. :)xx

yes i agree with urgings to not let your budgie drink from the fish tank. i have the same problem with my budgie when i let her out, but i chase her off immediately. however, im worried her first words are going to be "GET OFF THE FISH!" hehe

some of you may recall that i posted a question about my budgie Kit, liking the smell of herbs because she likes to preen them through her feathers... well ive done some reading into whether this could be the case (as the common thought is that birds generally have poor sence of smell, and therefore, taste) and apparently they do have olfactory receptors present but they are fewer in number to that of most mammals. so it is possible to assume that their sense of smell is less advanced than ours... but not possible to assume how much less! "The approximate numbers of olfactory cells on each side were 5,800,000 in the duck, 2,700,000 in the gull, 570,000 in the quail, 130,000 in the budgerigar, and 110,000 in the bengalee." Vol.12, No.1(19950215) pp. 117-123 The Zoological Society of Japan ISSN:02890003 "Yet the apparatus for detecting odors is present in the nasal passages of all birds," writes Paul Ehrlich, David Dobkin, and Darryl Wheye in The Birder's Handbook. By recording the electrical impulses transmitted through the bird's olfactory nerves, physiologists have documented sparrows, chickens, pigeons, ducks, shearwaters, albatrosses, and vultures can smell. here is a great site on some research if anyone else is interested. http://academic.scranton.edu/faculty/GOMEZG2/avianorn.htm please let me know if any of your budgies have ever shown a behaviour that might indicate an awareness of a scent or reaction to one.

oh i definately agree - thank you all for your great help and advice. im in no hurry to breed but think i might find her a boyfriend anyway. just cause i work 9-5 weekdays. shes got a million and one toys but i think a boy to play with would make her happier still! but i just bought her a gym for her birthday (think its in May going by when i got her, how young she was then... but have had to guess) and so will look for a friend for her to throw a party with. pass the parsley and Milletychairs!

hehe thank you all for your help - i feel so stupid now. having found a book (how to care for your budgie) on a store yesterday i flicked through and found a page on sexing your bird.... said something like "a females cere will begin clear or neutral with a blueish hue and gradually turn brown at 4 or 5 months of age." im feeling quite sheepish. having spent years studying their behaviour and even writing two university projects on them! i failed to pick up the basics of identifying sex! so back to the classroom for me! - but the great thing is that it does explain all the biting. .. and the nesting. ... and the obsession with the pink bead necklace in her cage. although thats probably just plain "budgie".... well shes lovely and im now wondering how much a breeding box is... haha

heres a tough one then - when i bought my budgie (was told a boy) he looked like this and this is a picture of him last week.... thats looking browner than it was... and even browner today! i think "he" is about 7/8 months old... maybe more. and has just started really doing the headbob and making eyes. does some nesting type things... loves wrigging in my hair and destroying bark. (but i think its just the mess it makes really) any thoughts?

haha well when i got Kit he was so nervous it was ridiculous! he was kinda manhandled in the shop and i was very annoyed at the staff cause they didnt seem to care.. but it just takes time. and i recommend wearing wool gloves or something soft and thick like that. that way if the bird does bite you, it dont hurt so much BUT also, more importantly, you dont react as much. and that sends the signal to the bird that biting A) doesnt help :hap: doesnt hurt you. it doesnt stop it all together but it really does help in training. plus you can always chill them out with some budgie dope like mine! I just joined this club and found this very funny! I just got 2 budgies today but have been baby sitting my Dads for 3 weeks and I wasnt looking forward to it going home so here i am with 2 scared little budgies one boy and a girl. I hope they will not be so skiddish in time. Anyways great story thanks

just uploaded a video of him doing this onto YouTube...

heres a tough one then - when i bought my budgie (was told a boy) he looked like this and this is a picture of him today.... thats looking browner than it was... i think "he" is about 7/8 months old... maybe more. and has just started really doing the headbob and making eyes. any thoughts?

couldnt agree more - drying paint isnt even nice for humans to smell all the time (well not legally anyway) and the same goes for snakes. sure their smell sensors are perhaps a bit more in tune... but i dont think you need great receptors to be affected by paint fumes. it still gets into the blood stream. okay, thanks, I'll definitely move them into another room and make sure the door between the rooms is shut to stop the fumes from transferring between rooms. A couple of weeks should be long enough?

haha no i realise there is nothing wrong with it, it merely suprised me and i had never seen another budgie do it before.at first i thought he was perhaps trying to add the green bits of leaf to his feathers (have seen a lovebird rip strips of paper off and slot them into his wings to make it look like he had more or longer ones) but it wasnt consistantly big pieces and it left him smelling more than anything. i suppose there must be an oil of some kind in the leaves... he could recognise that it would keep him waterproof. who knows! he doesnt preen too much so its not an obsessive thing. but its damn funny when he gets so involved in the "joy of parsley" that he ends up rolling off the potplant! it makes him happy and it makes me laugh - thats good enough for me! but do let me know if your budgie or any you know does the same!thanks elly! i wasnt sure about their sense of smell, but did some research and it seems to be inconclusive. some sites say they can smell many things, others say they cant (or dont need to)i think the best (and most reliable) bit of info was from the Hamilton & District Budgerigar & Cage Bird Society webpage about the Behaviour of Parakeets (they mean budgies) "Thus far there have been no conclusive studies about the parakeet's ability to smell and taste. All we have to go on is reports of individual parakeet keepers. Many bird owners let their pets taste human food, completely ignoring the warning that this habit is detrimental to the birds' health. These people like to tell stories of their pets' special preferences that would seem to indicate that parakeets do respond to taste. Perhaps the birds can tell the differences between bitter and salty and sweet and sour. We assume that almost all birds, including parakeets, lack a differentiated sense of smell. We know that many mammals define the borders of their territory by leaving scent marks and that they attract sexual partners with olfactory substances. Birds do neither." so while its reasonable to assume they dont... its still a possibility. i think the preening theory is more likely though.. but i will keep a close eye on this discussion to see how many other reports of similar behaviour with herbs or scented pot plants. because kit used to eat my heather plants (naughty) but he would just eat or chew them.. not preen them through his feathers. so its just parsley... which smells. and NickNaks does it with basil... also smelly...its interesting and im wondering how i can fit a possible study into my upcoming masters on wildlife.... haha

thanks everyone for the replies - all brilliant, thankyou. i know that (generally speaking) domesticated budgies are bigger, but its mostly only show stock or breeders that go for that. my current budgie, kit, purchased in a pet store in edinburgh is not that big and perhaps only a tiny bit bigger than a bush budgie (wild). i have seem many examples of how big domestic ones can get though, so yes i figured the genetics would allow to selectively breed smaller ones, but knew there would be medical issues. and an egg bound hen is not great... very interested to hear more on what you think and if anyone is interested in going for this breeding experiment? looking forward to your pics libby!

just wanted to see if anyone else has even seen their budgie do this... i bought my budgie a parsley plant to nibble and forage through (and roll when its wet) but as soon as he got it he started chewing the leaves (normal) and then running the juice and or bits of parsley through his feathers - similarly to the way he distributes from his oil/scent feather above his tail. so very broad sweeping motions, as though he is putting on parsley perfume! and he does smell like parsley afterwards! so my theory is because of the smell.. anyone else have any theories or has anyone seen their budgie do this before? :hap:

hi there, i had a dream last night that my budgie was a pygmy budgie - about the size of a finch or a grass wren type thing... he had a tiny wee body with a small head but a lovely long tail still... sure it was a dream, but he really was totally adorable in that size. so adorable i could not stop thinking about it when i woke up... so here i am at 8am on a saturday morning typing this out! is it possible to breed budgies selectively for smaller sizes? has anyone seen any genetic mutations that would support this idea/quest? and can anyone foresee any problems - medical or otherwise - that may arise from this kind of selection? love to hear what you think :hap: