melbournebudgies

The problem is probably the mirror, since it has only been a week since you took that out I would give him a little more time. Try working out what his favorite food treats are(mine love celery tops) and only give those in your hand, bribery works wonders

You could always do it as soon as you get home from work and then keep an eye on him for a few hours. At that stage they will start to kick up a stink if dad hasn't fed them. Personally I try and steer clear of seperating them(by leaving some in the box and putting another box of some sort onthe floor) as I feel there is more chance of someone getting forgotten that way.

At that stage I put the nest box on the floor of the cage with the end 'door' left off. If it is the type of box with the top lid instead of a sliding door then I lie the box on it's side. That way they still seem to recognise it as the nest box and if the older babies get out they can easily get back in again.

19% is the same as what is in the chicken crumbles.

I put this out wet for them sometimes but it spoils very quickly obviously and I find it difficult to judge how much they will eat so often lots goes to waste. Has anyone had any luck with their birds eating it dry? With this cold weather I have noticed that some of the birds are losing condition a little and I think maybe I need to increase the protein and to a lesser extent the fat in their diets to give them a bit of a boost until the weather starts to warm again. I thought the crumble might just give them a bit of oomph.

Put Lumina with Bailey and then when Sky finihshes quarantine put her with George

I don't see why you would need to wait to move the female. Either way there will be a boy on it's own for two weeks until she is quarantined so go ahead and move her now.

Well if your current female is getting nowhere with that boy why not put her with the other boy and then when your new female comes out of quarantine she could go in with mr lonely heart.

If you specifically want them to breed then I wold put them in another room where they can't see the other male since i sounds like he is distracting her. If you don't mind which of them breeds you could put all three together for a couple of weeks without a nest box, see who bonds and then take the other cock out and put the nest box back or try your hen with the other male on thier own. Since it sounds like you only have the three it doesn't really matter which way you do it you will end up with a boy on it's own.

There is a famous story about the helmetted honeyeaters at Healesville Sanctuary. There were less than 50 or something of these birds left in the wild and 12 pairs were brought in to breed in captivity. One day someone gave them their Vitamin A supplement and got the dose wrong and over dosed them, only one bird out of 24 survived, like half the population killed in one accident!

Is he spending alot of time on sawdust or anything like that? Maybe something is irritating him

Sunnie I know exactly what you mean, if you look at my signature, almost all of those birds live inside my house

'Cold' is a term used to describe a set of symptoms which include sneezing, etc and may be caused by lots of different viruses or bacteria. The issue with draughts is that they put stress on a bird and when they are stressed their immune response is poor and they can't fight of infections. Most of us are probably carrying all sorts of things in small amounts in our bodies but with good immune function we fight them off and may not even develop any symptoms if they aren't particularly virulent. i would put your baby in a warm draght free room with a 20 watt globe above if you can. Might be worth a vet visit also.

Since your boy is raising babies at the moment I would avoid the spinach as it can mess with calcium absorption, as far as I am aware the other two are fine. When I run low on fresh vegies I use frozen vegies(peas, corn, carrots, etc)

Thanks Derek, I replied to that one myself but couldn't recall what other members ad thought and couldn't find the thread when I went looking.

Cracks me up too, it'd be great caption comp one too. "Don't talk to me about bad hair days"

If she started sitting straight away you should only have a fortnight until your first baby, how exciting for you!

Gosh I so want a sun conure!

Tullick he is beautiful, identical to my boy blondie who I am about to breed. Those babies of his must be beauties.

Hmmm. sounds like most people are sitting on the fence. Maybe I will let them have one go now, if they seem to be struggling I can foster the eggs, if the eggs are clear well we will wait a few more months and try again. I am totally convinced that if there was a nest box in the aviary they already would have had a go by now, they were in love when he was about 5 months old! Atleast the hen is older so she will be the one that really needs the extra age, if he is a dodgy dad she might still handle things if he does manage to fill the eggs.

Is that yes I should let them have a go or yes he's too young. If they were both young I would definately have held off but given she is older I was thinking it wasprobably okay.

Hey guys, I know for show type budgies 8 months would be considered too young but I have a male pet type who has bonded strongly with an 'older woman'. He is about 8 or 9 months old and she is about 18 months. I have tried putting her with other males but she completely ignores them and is only happy again once I give up and put her back in the aviary where she races to her 'mate'. Just to check whether it was just the difference betwen the cage and the aviary I brought both of them plus another male in to see how she reacted and the bonded pair are tucked over one side together feeding each other and preening and the other cock is being ignored. I really want to breed this girl before she gets much older but it seems the only way it is going to happen is with her younger man. What do you guys think, should I let them have a go?

The best one I have had was an almighty racket at about 3am which consisted of lots of squealing accompanied by the cat growling and stampeding through the hose at high speed. Thinkig it was a possum or something I raced out of bed switching lights on in a mad panic until I found my cat sitting calmly in the family room looking very casual! On closer inspection I discovered a half grown rat clinging desperately at thetop of my back wire door loking like it definately regretted the decision to investigate my accidentally left ajar laundry door. I somehow managed to slide the backdoor open without it jumping onto me and shooed it outside using the broom! All the while with the cat looking at me as if to say "What, it wasn't me, I didn't do anything, your going crazy mum"

Unlikely they will have babies like him(most likely they will be yellow and blue/grey pieds) but my next planned clutch should be very much like him so let me know if they really want that colour as I can probably help out. I plan to breed that pair in love you pointed out in the back corner with the very pale goldenface spangle(blondie) and his GF normal girlfriend.

It takes about 10 days for an egg to develop. Just because she was in the box for those first 4 days though doesn't mean she had a fertile egg starting then though.. I think that's right but I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong.