Cara

UPDATE: Well Molly loves the foraging tray and after about a week and a half, she has all her bits and pieces in it for her to play with. Last week she had mostly native bits and pieces such as grasses, parsley, gum leaves, a few pony beads, a couple of rocks which was hiding millet spray, lucern pellets and her other favourite cry foods. She loved this one and eventually I started to introduce the other things i bought from the shops (buttons of different sizes and more pony beads). Today Molly got a bit of rabbit/guinea pig mixture: lucern pellets, grains and dried grasses, 1 sunflower seed to keep her really interested and some soup mix (dried peas and things) as she loves to throw this around. Over the top I but all the big and small buttons, smooth rocks, bark and twigs which you can see her playing with in the photos below. One picture is of one of last weeks tray. Sorry guys about the picture quality...

Make sure that the catalogues dont have the shinny paper as this is toxic to budgies.. The safest thing I would use would be white paper towel as the colour ink on news paper can also be toxic depending on where you live

Well these past couple of days Molly has been coming out and playing on the top of her cage for about an hour and a half every morning. We can now walk up to her and clean around her cage (my grandads favourite job, cleaning seed and bird feathers of the floor all the time) without her freaking out and going back into her cage. She has also been coming close to the front of the cage next to the door to chat, and goes down to her foraging tray and plays with the pony beads all while im standing right there infront of her talking to her. This is really amazing, seen as its come this far in about a week, before that she freaked when ever someone even thought about coming near her cage and when Blue died she never came out either. The only thing she still freaks out about is hands so I have to hide my hands behind my back before she will even think about coming up to the door. Maybe I will try offering her millet again when she comes up close and chats?? Any other suggestions, advice? You have all helped me to get her this far, thanks guys :]

When we found Molly her wings were cut extremely low, so that maybe the issue causing her not to fly, but at 2 and a half she still is "flying" the same way she did when we first got her. I have tried Millet as i mentioned in my previous posts. Well its taken 2 and half years of trying different techniques to get her this far.

Yes it sounds similar apart from the fact the Molly can't fly (we think it was a calcium deficentcy) as well as she seems to have a slight case of spayed legs, he feet turn slightly inwards. So she wouldn't be able to get away from danger. When we had Blue, she used to come out to the top of the cage with him and try to fly with him but always landed on the ground, thats the only time she would trust my hand enough to get on it, a helping hand to her cage. After he died she never showed any interest in coming out even when opening the cage in the morning was the morning ritual she had with Blue for free flight time... until now she is finally showing some interest coming out around mid morning.

UPDATE: The slow hand approach still isn't working BUT these past couple of days I have be watching Molly from the other side of the room trying to bit/attack the bars of her cage. Today she was doing it again so I though I would see what she would be like if I slowly approached her, she was on the bars closest to me. I talked to her calmly and approached quietly, one step she was watching me (but had stopped chirping and bitting the bars) just watching, I stepped closer again, still watching me, again, again until I was only about 10cm away from where she was perched on the bars. I thought maybe she wants to come out, as soon as i moved my hand to the door she went to the back of the cage. I opened the door and moved back over to the other side of the room, she eventually came over to the open side of her cage and perched in the door way for a while and started chirping, then i came and sat next to her cage and she went up to her swing and preened herself and chatted to me while I was talking calmy to her. Is this a good indication of slowly, ever so slowly building trust in my rescue bird again?? Shes never done this before. I had tried many other techniques such as offering millet but she just freaks and gets worked up. The only time she doesn't freak is when im changing her food, water and foraging tray etc in the morning. She oviously had a bad experience with hands. Any advice on what to do next?

Yes, were did you find it, I looked on every page of the nutrition forum and then on all the other forums, I am dumb founded Thanks for finding it

There used to be a seperate topic for each vitamin with a list of foods that contain that vitamin, were has it gone or am i not looking hard enough??? Until today I have always been able to find it

i useto feed jack rabbit rabbit food so..... and ginnipig food when i breed them but changed to red hen Thanks for that, I will try a little rabbit mixture, but we don't have a local produce shop to get the chicken stuff from without driving a far distance

okay, but i have read on this forum you can give them rabbit/guinea pig pellets.. so is it okay to give the rabbit/guinea pig mixture that just has a few bits extra as i mentioned above?

My female budgie does this also with her newspaper im gonna see what she does with paper towels. There so funny whenthey get under the paper and all you can see is the paper moving then a head pops out :]

Is it the beak or the top of the beak were the nostrils are (Cere)??? Would help with pictures, but if its the Cere then this is normal for a female budgie, just means shes coming into her breeding season.

I was looking around the shops yesturday for bits and pieces of foraging things, I came across guineapig/rabbit/rat mixture that has pellets, grains, seeds and dried grasses in it. Would this be safe to use as part of a foraging idea??

I could use the lid but i got something even bigger for only 99c at crazy clarks

Well when i got home today, Molly had not only ripped her favourite newspaper corner to pieces and eaten the pine nuts i put under her special corner but had also chewed another corner and made a whole in the middle of the news paper too. Shes a fast learner, so i will do this again but change were i put the food tomorrow and see if she picks it up. I will do this for a couple of days before introducing the new tray i got her thats bigger and not so deep, I haven't added any colourful toys in yet, but i will teach her to find the food under the newspaper on the tray first before adding anything else.

I had this happen to my budgie Auzzie around his vent area, I don't want to upset you but it ended up being a tumour and he had to be put down, but this maybe different, so wait for other replies also. I would get your bird to a vet ASAP

okay so i have stepped back a notch, i guess i got a bit carried away. I first need to get Molly to forage, she loves to chew a certain newspaper corner to bits so I decided to hide a couple of sunflower seeds and pine nuts under thier for her to get, but she went down this morning and noticed these strange things under the paper, she looks nervous but keeps going down to check them out (even though she has eaten these before). I also sprinkled a bit of budgie seed and pine nuts on the floor of her cage to get her to forage. I removed all the other bits and pieces and will introduce them gradually. Once she has eating from the floor of cage down pat and descovers the food under the newspaper I will then try and change that to a tray which im gonna go and look for today at the shops. Any other suggestions???

okay thanks for the advice, thats all i could find for now, i was going to use a show box lid but thought the coloured stuff on the outside would be bad and then i cant continously replace the shoe box lid. So will look for something different when i go to the shops tomorrow. Until then that will have to do. No molly isn't a tame bird, i have never been able to tame molly as she was a rescue bird from a rather bad situation. ANy other suggestions would be much appreciated.

Here is the picture of my first attept, so far Molly is not interested

I was doing some research lately on the importance of captive foraging and thought i would give it a go with MOlly. So today i found some bits and pieces for her foraging tray. Here is what she has in it today: - Pasta - Rice - Pine nuts - Plastic buttons -Newspaper (This is because she loves to ripe certain corners to shreads and she also hides under it, something familiar to her in this new thing) - Soup mix (peas, carrot and other grains) - A cat toy thing with a bell in the middle - a few sun flower seeds to make it more enticing until i get some millet spray - a couple of small, smooth black rocks - And a spring of oregano With budgie seed sprinkled on top Im going to try a range of different things so anyone got anymore suggestions that i can try, Im going to get some photos of it as I think it looks pritty good if I don't say so myself, i hope she decides to play in it :]

Yes okay, i will stop with the mite spray.... But why do my other family members bird live to 9+ years with hardly any care and mine struggle to get to the 5+ years????? Thats why my family say i kill my birds with kindness.

I spray the cage because thats what the back of the packaging says to do weekly to prevent mites....

Everyone in my family says i kill my birds with kindness. This is what i do for my budgie/s: Everyday: - Fresh water - blow out husks of seed - Change newspaper as Molly chews it to shreds - Fresh fruit and veg - Free flight time (when i had Blue and Auzzie, Molly can't fly, has never been able to and she isn't tame or friendly... you can read about her story in another forum) Weekly: - Clean out cage, toys etc - Change all natural perches - Change cage around - Rotate toys - Mite spray cage only: i never sprayed birds and have had no trouble with mites Yearly: (On birthday usually) - They get some sun flower seeds Occationally: - They get other treats (millet, seed stick etc) *Plus worming and vet checks on a regular basis Auzzie my first budgies died at the age of 2 1/2: he developed a tumour Bluie my second budgie: not sure how old he was vet said about 5 years old/ don't know cause of death Molly: we still have her, she has just turned 2 My other family members budgie Tweety died at the age of 9 or older: She had a complete seed diet Water changed only once a week Cage cleaned when ever they could be bothered (unless i was staying then I cleaned it regularly) No natural perches etc No fresh seed regularly Didnt come out of cage at all not even while they were cleaning it cause they only cleaned the bottom plastic part So my question is am i killing my birds with kindness???? What does everyone think??? What should i be doing, what shouldn't i be doing in regards to my birds care???

Well Molly is 2 years old now and I have had really no success in taming her. I even tried the chop stick/ stick approach were she steps up to it instead of the hand but no she only freaks out even more. I have recently removed any shiny objects that I could think of that would make her see herself in it to see if that helps but i don't think it will as she doesn't play with any toys anyway even though im always buying bits and pieces for her she likes shreading news paper better. Does anyone have anymore suggestions i could try?

Can you use plastic buttons that you would normally find on clothes and things in toy making for budgies? Would it be safe? I have read somewhere that said wooden buttons from clothing shouldnt be used as they are treated but what about plastic?