krosp

Sounds awesome. Do you have much halloween around there? I've actually never really seen any signs of halloween here, apart from last year my friend had a spooky birthday party because her birthday actually is on halloween.

I had a spangle once with a white spot on his head. And even Cosmo, who is a normal, looks like he has a spot because he has like two yellow feathers next to each other on the back of his head, but I assume that's just because he's still a patchy baby growing up. Reading this thread was interesting. I've never had pieds at all. So I was just wondering -- is the spot on the head only relevant to pieds? Why was it on my spangle? Ignore this if it's too far off topic.

I don't know about whether the male/female bonding thing is an old wives tale. I think there is definitely truth to it, just not sure how much. Males definitely learn to talk more readily than females. I had over 40 budgies when I was growing up, and most of them were at least slightly tame because we had them from babies, and only one female ever learned to talk. And she didn't talk at all clearly, compared to the males. I probably had at least 10 males who learned to talk, perhaps more - they all tended to talk at one point or another when they learned it off each other, but those ones didn't talk as often as the real pet ones we had. It is hard for me to say how easily females can tame, because although we did tame females, we only had females when we already had other birds, so they were hand tame in the sense that we could get them out and have them on us and around us, and get them to step up. But, they were bonded to the other birds of course. Whereas I've now had 3 male budgies completely on their own, and they bonded extremely well. But it's not fair to compare those to my females who never were an only budgie. I think all the budgies we had once we had more of them were similar - males and females - although females tended to bite more, and males seemed to prefer chatting back at us through the side of the cage and sometimes came over to the side for a kiss. So I think there could be some truth in it, but it's only from my experience, and it doesn't completely write off females -I'm sure they can make good pets too but I would like to hear from someone who's kept a female as an only budgie.

Well my husband thought he heard a wolf whistle today, and he's probably more likely to be skeptical about it so it seems more and more likely! Cosmo is really good at chatting along and responding to our voices as we talk to him. My other birds used to go silent when we talked to them and then as soon as we pretended to look away they'd go noisy again.

That's exciting! The way I see it, you have two options if you want to breed.... 1) Get a baby budgie now and tame him and have him as a nice pet, and then breed in a year 2) Get a young adult budgie now and breed them right away, but he probably won't be tame unless you get him from someone who has tamed him. Depends if you want him tame or not, and also depends how old your hen is because you don't want to leave her another year to breed if she's already really old. Just something else to think through! Are you planning on keeping any babies you have, or not? Because if you are, then you will have babies to tame soon enough anyway I guess, but if you aren't going to have the space or ability to keep them, then it might be nice to get a young male to tame and work towards breeding next year instead.

I don't know for sure, but I think a male can learn to talk at almost any age as long as it's repeated to them often enough. Can take a while. Females may never learn, but occasionally can.

Yeah that's what made me think it's just a coincidence -that everything's going a lot faster than I expected lol. Oh well I will just keep doing what I'm doing and see what happens.

That's a good sign! Hopefully it means he's getting less scared.

We have been talking to Cosmo a fair bit, as well as clicking the tongue and wolf whistles and other noises. Every other time I've taught a male budgie to talk, it's taken the good part of a year at least. So I am not at all expecting Cosmo to even be slightly close to talking this year. But there have been quite a few times now where I have heard that kind of pre-imitating noise, you know where you kind of think it's the sound you always make but you're not quite sure yet if it is or if it's a coincidence? I have heard him make noises that sound a lot like our tongue clicking, and also in the same kind of tone as the wolf whistle. I'm quite sure it's a coincidence or else he already knew how to make those sounds so we just happened to be copying him rather than him copying us if you know what I mean. But yesterday we had friends over, and he really enjoyed the noise everyone was making, and was chortling away, and one person whistled at him... and he kept whistling back exactly the same way. It wasn't mimicking like how they actually learn to sound like your voice etc, but it was definitely responsive. So it made me wonder -- maybe he really is deliberately copying some of our sounds? I'm sure actual talking takes a while, but he couldn't be copying whistles and clicks already right? We've only had him a few weeks and he's still a baby. Would love to know your opinions. I don't have my hopes up because as I said, I didn't expect to be having that "hey did you hear that? was it a whistle or not?" moment for many months more.

Name: Claire Pets: Just Cosmo... but my parents still have our cat and some of the budgies that I grew up with too. Just cos I've moved out doesn't mean they're not my pets anymore right? Favorite Color: aqua/teal blue or deep purple, but I appreciate most colours, especially really vivid vibrant colours Astrological Sign: Capricorn Age: 23 Weakness: man, this feels like a job interview lol... I'm really really bad at navigating and directions. It is impossible for me to remember how to go back the way I came, even within somebody's house. Strength: I love to learn and improve my skills Favorite Animal: frogs and birds Favorite T.V. Show: I don't watch TV much anymore, but used to be Seinfeld (hence Cosmo :party0011: ) Live: Brisbane How long have been a BBC member: Probably only 1-2 months. I was on here for a while getting moral support while I waited for my real estate to give permission. Then I got Cosmo. Anything else? I am learning Australian Sign Language (have been for quite a few years but it's really hard... don't think I'll ever be fluent unless I'm very immersed in the Deaf community) but I really really enjoy it. It's such a beautiful and expressive language.

He's beautiful! That cere is nothing like anything I've ever seen. It almost reminds me of a blood blister. I had a boy whose cere went brown once and then died soon after (at that time i'd never heard of the hormone imbalance thing), and it didn't look like that. Could it be a girl underneath whatever that reddish purple colour is? Because the top looks fairly white.

They are both really beautiful little birds. Are you sure Alpha is a male though? I can't really see his cere well from the photos. It does look blue, but I couldn't quite tell, but thought maybe I could see white around the nostrils? Would be good to see a clearer picture of his cere. It's a shame this thread has become so heated, although I can understand why it has. Maybe the best thing you can do if you really aren't going to get another cage, is treat them together for all that you can like worms etc. I don't know what all the treatments are but I did read in a recent thread what Neat does over a 6 week period with her separated birds, maybe you can do that with them together (although if you do see dodgy poos you won't know whose they are), and hope for the best.

Night time is not a good time to tame budgies. It is not their time to be sociable and friendly, it is their time to find a safe little nook to sleep in with no predators or disturbances. My Cosmo is pretty friendly to us during the day, but woe to us if we try to get him out of his cage at night haha. It's unfortunate that it's probably not really possible to get time during the day if you work, but early morning is fine even if it's not really light yet it's probably better than night time. Try and spend more time with her on weekends or days off if you can.

He looks fresh and fruity and tropical to me. Like a citrus flavoured iceblock on a summer's day. Maybe Calippo? Or Troppo lol hmm Tangy Splice hmmm again Fruit Punch haha I am going to stop now

We had to handraise some of ours that the mum plucked, and they made no better pets than any other. It's not necessary to take a baby away from its mother. It's extra hard work for you too, when the mum is doing it as he natural job anyway. You may not end up choosing the best one to tame anyway if you just pick one. I would suggest taking them all out for a bit of a cuddle one by one each day when they're a few weeks old, and play with them heaps when they actually fledge (although that can be hard because they never stay still when they're first learning to fly lol). They don't necessarily bond to you just because you fed them though. It's not like they stay bonded to their mothers their whole lives.

Why can't you get a male if you haven't tried it? Is it because your parents won't let you? Because it should be okay to get a male that you can keep as a pet separately from the female if they don't get along or if breeding doesn't work out. If you're not allowed though then that's a shame. I think the first place to start is in making sure you have the right set-up to breed... like the right sized space and nesting box. Then you'd have to think about whether you want to have two couples going at once so you can foster. If you only had one couple breeding, then you'd have to keep giving away most of the babies, because you couldn't end up with an entire flock of budgies that are all related - then brothers and sisters would start breeding with each other. And I am pretty sure that you won't want to just stop at one clutch of budgies once you've had the joy of it once To me those are the first steps, and if nothing goes wrong then it's great, but there are probably plenty of other steps other people could suggest to ensure things go well too.

I have heard that they can get air in the crop from a bacterial infection too? I can't remember the name of it. something like sourcrop is ringing a bell? I just remember it from a baby budgie we had once that my mum had to syringe feed, and she thought that the baby's crop was full of air because she was syringe feeding it wrongly, but then an avian vet told her it was actually an infection.. and then the baby died :what: Sorry to give you a fright. I've never seen air in the crop like that apart from that time though, and I was quite young when it happened so I don't remember the details of what was wrong with the bird. Hopefully someone else can clarify?

Yes he was named after the iceblocks :what: but we never had a Sambo

8 years ago. When was the last time you had spaghetti bolognaise?

Oh that's good that Neville's explanation fits neatly haha.Yes Sunny Boy and a spangle produced normals, but his daughter and a spangle did not.I can't really understand how that works, since Sunny Boy looked a lot like his daughter, and both mated with spangles, but oh well. I think I need to draw a diagram haha then I should get it. edit: okay I get it now... wow that's fascinating haha. I'd better stop, or I might get tempted to get into breeding again haha... just kidding.

Sunny Boy and his green spangle partner did have two olive normals, in the same clutch as an olive spangle. She did have another mate long after Sunny Boy, but he was a sky normal. With him, she had sky spangles, green spangles like herself, and one green normal. There is no chance that the olive normals had a different father than Sunny Boy. How strange!

Thank you - this is finally starting to make sense! :party0011: I'm assuming when you said the pair could have no spangles, you meant Sunny Boy's daughter and the sky spangle? Not Sunny Boy and his green spangle partner...because they did have normals. I am pretty sure this is what you meant.

I posted a few weeks back when I first got Cosmo, asking for advice on how to get to that initial step of him accepting my hand. Things have gone really well since then and I thought I'd give an update for those who are interested. We got Cosmo three weeks ago. At first he liked being talked to softly but flapped madly away from our hands. We started taming him by letting him out of the cage and teaching him to step up on a chopstick. Within the first week, he was happy to step up on the chopstick and even let us scratch his head with it. Now he's learned step up on our fingers, and we don't need the chopstick anymore... he'll step up onto our hand and even let us scratch his head with our fingers! (only happy to allow that within the past week). He also really likes sitting on our shoulders, and will choose to go there now straight away upon us opening the cage and getting him onto our finger. He's even started going onto my shoulder instead of sitting on his playgym on top of my computer. He'll fly to our shoulders from across the room sometimes too. So he's doing really well. He gets a bit cranky at us sometimes - grunts and snaps air - but we just ignore it and accept that he's just being assertive about what he does and doesn't like. We've managed to keep him distracted from his reflections in stools and mirrors this past week - it was a bit of a problem the week before but since he now likes sitting on our shoulder it's easy to distract him and he seems to have forgotten about the reflections for now. He chews everything, and when he's on my shoulder is constantly chewing my hair and collar of my shirt. He's slowly ripping his playgym up bit by bit haha. That's about it. I think he's going really well for 3 weeks and am looking forward to seeing how things go from now on! Thanks for all your advice and tips so far.

I don't know if Sunny Boy's eyes were red, because I got him at 4 months old and they weren't then but all his yellow kids had red eyes that had gone black by then, so his may well have been too. I just can't know that for sure. His partner was a spangle. The yellow females, as far as I remember, had red eyes that went black. All his yellow offspring were females (and may all have been cinnamon - at least two of the three were). He and his partner (who was spangle) did actually have a couple of olive normals too, as well as olive spangles. So the normal must have come from the mum then? So... (just guessing here)... Sunny Boy's daughter must have got the spangle gene from both her parents but appeared looking more like a drab yellow with markings... but when she herself mated with a sky spangle, they produced that bright yellow boy with no markings.... so does that make him a df spangle? or is he lutino or clearwing? (he had red eyes that went black). This is a good learning exercise for me haha

When I first got my budgie, he would try to escape from the cage by climbing into his seed dish and burrowing out. It had a lid on the top like yours seems to as well, but he actually managed to squeeze in. Then he tried to do it in the water too, so I took the lids off because I didn't want him to drown in the water or get stuck in the seed dish and not be able to turn around. He's stopped doing that now though, but when he was, he would totally empty his seed. You'd know about it though - it was all over the floor of his cage and also the floor outside his cage! You really have to check where all that seed is gone. It's not like her dish will be totally empty even if she has eaten the seeds - they always leave the husks behind. So if you can only see husks then your budgie probably is eating a lot... but most likely you'll be able to find full seeds, either mixed with the husks or on the bottom of the cage. Budgies really don't drink that much, so unless you have the cage in direct sunlight and there's no lid on it either, I doubt she's drinking that much and I doubt it's evaporating. So if she runs out of water, she's probably been paddling in it. Although 1/3 cup doesn't sound like much? But I'm not sure, because I'm no good at visualising spatial things haha.