melbournebudgies

This is about the best I can do just as quick drawings of a couple of the photos you have posted, the lab and one of your new budgies. Don't know if you like that sort of style but if you want colour I just have to buy some special blending pencils. I can pretty much do whatever you want as far as postures, etc I would just need to do some research into the way the different animals sit, turn their heads, etc.

My bay Tingles is in my sig. I don't have any photos o the others as theyare aviary birds and they are a bit freaked out about being inside at the moment so I'm trying to only fiddle with them when I have to. They are looking great tonight.

The bloke found the dog growling at the possum on the ground this morning but didn't think the dog had bitten him. He obviously hadn't looked all that closely at him because he clearly has a bite mark on his shoulder. It probably happened over night sometime as all healthy possums will be back in bed well before day break.

Everyone needs to keep their fingers crossed for this little possy. He has been bitten by a dog and isn't in a good way. He's taking glucose water and has had some antibiotic treatment but he isn't interested in food of any sort at the moment.

My aviary is right at the back of the garden and the bins are up in the garage so I have a fifteen litre plastic storage tub which I keep in a corner of the aviary and top up once a week, that way I don't have to cart seed down from the garage every day.

I don't use enough seed to store eight bags, I use rubbish bins (the round type we used to have before we had big bins), they take a 30kg bag of seed or 20kg of dog food perfectly. I have three. one for budgie/tiel mix, one for parrot mix and one for dog food. They have nice tight fitting lids so nothing gets in.

The hen looks to be in breeding condition to me, I can see the slightly crusty texture of her cere on my screen. Being recessive pied your male won't show the typical blue cere.

They still had their original food available, plus their usual supply of apples and other seasonal fruit.

The vet believes it is a bacterial infection and has tested one of my other birds. The birds are on antibiotics and are looking substantially better already. I used to work as a vet nurse in a clinic that treated many small animals and birds so I know many of the early signs and got onto the survivors pretty quick with some meds. All the cages have been disinfected and they will actually be getting brand new cages next week which were set up for breeding so once they are completely healthy they will go straight into their new cages.

Thanks for the bump Kaz Very interesting, now we know what to look for in our opalines

Garage is used as a bird room only so no car or other nasties in there. The garage has a full size roller door on the back and front which gets opened during the day so they get plenty of sunlight through there. I haven't bred them yet I was hoping to start getting them ready for breeding once I got my new cages next week. I really think it must have been a disease of some sort as all my other birds who aren't in contact with the lories are fine

Not likely, it happened during the day and they are in my garage area which opens up with a roller door onto the backyard. They are used to the dog and she wouldn't have bothered them plus she keeps any other critters out of the yard.

I lost an entire aviary last time, two galahs, four cockatiels and even some quails got blown away.

Oh yes they will stay inside on meds for a full course, they are just looking well enough that I felt the light up igh was a little overkill

Well the rest are looking substantially better this morning, so I have turned the heat lights down to the lower setting.

Any of the flowers on herb plants should be okay. Also I would say roses are fine since our possums love them and larger parrots like the rose hips, the other flowers we commonly offer the possums is plumbago which is a scrambly shrub with blue flowers, I think it is from Europe originally so you may have it there, also Jacaranda, it's South African but seems to have been planted all over the world. If you can get an native Australian plants there most would be okay but it's best to ask if you aren't sure.

Not really Elly normally we ust get heaps of rain, the wind seems to be just this year Welcome to the La Nina

Don't forget that there is a good chance that any blue series chicks in the clutches will be split for grey too

No, in reality in the amount of time it will take to have it done I will probably know for sure whether the rest will be okay anyway. They are sitting in the cages preening each other now and they have finished their apples and they are looking alot brighter since getting into the warm room. I suspect it will be one of those cases of the next 12 hours will tell and if they are okay by tomorrow then with continued treatment they should continue to recover. Because I do wildlife care I keep a number of medications in the house for emergency treatment so I will take one of them to be checked tomorrow to confirm my treatment and get more medication. They weren't all in the same cage but the cages were next to each other, they get cleaned very regularly because they are messy critters. The ones that died were a pair(in a cage together) and a hen who left her mate behind.

Wow, I'm glad I changed my mind about whether you should take them out now!!! I would have felt awful if they had still been in there because of what I originally said My aviary is tied down so fingers crossed everything will be fine. I have nowhere to put the birds from the aviary so they will just have to tough it out unfortunately.

Dry mix is specially formulated mix which is a fine powder. Haven't added any new birds for a while, I leave the garage door open during the day and I wonder whether a wild bird has visited.

ANthracite body colour while called black is actually a VERY dark grey so it can still be distinguished from the cheek patches as you can see in that photo. The colouration on my hens is true black not a suffusion due to a dark factor. Unfortunately any mutations we want in Australia will have to be developed by Aussie breeders due to the import bans(unless we can disguise budgies as pigeons ). Thanks LB for those inspiring words.

I have a feeling that's not in Aus AV (like the Netherlands or somewhere) and we really have no way of getting it sice we can't import birds here from Europe.

Nerwn Harley is definately blue, I've seen him in real life. Cloud is a spangle with pale blue spangles

Oh wow!!! Atleast your quarantine birds have come from pretty good sources so I'm sure everything will be fine.