krosp

Actually I thought it might be a few weeks before I can get a picture because next time I go there it's going to be at night. But maybe I can get my brother or my parents to take a photo of her in the day some time soon. I'll dig up some more old ones of Sunny Boy and his other daughters too. Never heard of white down being a sign of opaline... what is that, as opposed to light grey? I don't remember ever noticing a difference!

Thanks Kaz Maybe I'll give this one to them for two days, and then find a better one to give them in 14 days time for the 3-5 days.

okay...... This one is by aristopet and it's called Worm-Enda Plus: Praziquantel bird worming syrup. It's 10mg/mL Levamisole Hydrochloride and 2mg/mL Praziquantel. Directions for use: Administer diluted to drinking water. Dilute by adding 0.5ml (10 drops) to 20mL water. Use this as the sole source of water for 24 hours. Repeat treatment after 14 days. And then it goes on to say stuff like dilute it more in hot weather etc. That all means nothing to me but just in case that helps anyone know whether leaving it in longer than 24 hours is okay.

So far I've already noticed differences between Cosmo and Piccolo. I think Piccolo is younger than Cosmo when we got him, but both were younger than their first moult. Cosmo was social, noisy, and curious from the start, but very terrified of hands, and hated his cage. He spent the first few days trying to escape from his cage. He was obsessed with calling out to passing birds. Piccolo is extremely quiet and placid. He barely does anything lol. He LOVES curling his feet up into a ball and sleeping. He is really slow at eating, although he eats a fair bit. The only time he makes any noise is when he hears the shower running. He doesn't usually call out to passing birds, or if he does, he does it quietly. Cosmo was very afraid of our hands at first and very untame, but he tamed super quickly. Piccolo wasn't too afraid of our hands (as in, he is untame but lets us touch him and will sometimes step up) but I expect he will take longer to tame. I don't know because I haven't tried doing much with him yet, because I haven't seen any progress yet. It's very early days though. I don't think Piccolo is sick, he is still alert and responsive to his environment and doesn't fluff up or anything like that. He's probably either just anxious or has a quieter personality than Cosmo. Interesting to see the little differences even from now. I bet there'll be heaps more especially when we can eventually put them together. My bet is on Cosmo being the dominant one

^ Hehe... if I had a Newman, he would very quickly learn how to say "Hello Newman"

I am worming both my budgies at the moment as they are in quarantine. It says on the bottle to leave the mixture in the water for 24 hours. Do you think it's okay if I leave it a little longer than 24 hours or will they be poisoned if they consume more than they would in 24 hours? Just that I wouldn't be surprised if Piccolo is still too afraid to drink as much as usual, or if Cosmo will be spoilt and fussy and refuse to drink something pink. I think they could go without drinking for 24 hours if they decide to and I want to make sure they get it into them, but not at the risk of poisoning them.

Cosmo is a normal, and he is probably over 10 months old by now, and his iris ring is still dark grey not light grey. I don't know why, but I'm not complaining - I like the baby eyes

dek - that is where Cosmo's name came from Thanks Maesie - can't take credit for it though.... found a good website with lots of name ideas.Although it repeats itself a lot http://www.cockatielcottage.net/names1.html

We narrowed it down to a bunch of names and tried them all out on him... and decided that he best suited.... Piccolo! He is small and sweet and high pitched And it sounds Italian like Cosmo. Other contenders were Astro, Toby, Echo, Bingo, Jeronimo, Claudio, Nimbus But they didn't quite fit when we tried calling him that (or at least, that both of us could agree on) So Piccolo it is!

I'm trying to think back to the babies they had.... but sadly I have lost my records from back then. I think this pair only had seven babies in total... Two olive normal cocks Three yellow cinnamon spangle hens (body colour was a dirty yellow - one of them may have been greywing instead of cinnamon) Two olive spangle hens (including Millie- and I think the other one we lost fairly young) It is possible that all of those hens showed some kind of opaline, but the yellow ones it would've been hard to tell because they looked quite yellow all over.

Aww yes he is sweet like a marshmallow or a cloud. Still on the quest for a perfect name, and we are definitely getting closer. Here's a slightly better photo of him... the lighting is still no good in that room even though I tried to open it up to natural sunlight as much as possible. So I don't think this photo shows his cere as well as it could. I am sure he's a boy though.

Kaz - she looks a lot like your last picture. She has a lot more olive in her wings than a spangle. Interesting! I have had ones before which were spangle, started out with grey tipped markings on their wings, and then after a few moults, they had their blue body colour instead of the grey markings.. but were still spangles- the majority of each wing feather was still white. Is that opalescence? Millie really looks olive all over her wings. I'll try to get a picture but it might not be for a while. But she does look pretty much like Kaz's last one (only not a show type)

Shannon - they are lovely. I think girl for the last one... would be interested to hear what others think

Yesterday I had a good look at my mum's budgies. I was totally surprised by how one of them looked. I could swear Millie was born a spangle (in 1999 - she's still going strong!) I even have a picture of her as a baby. Her mother was a green spangle, and her father was unusual, but there's a thread about him somewhere else on here. This is Millie as a baby: Yesterday when I saw her, her head was still yellow and spangled. But she had olive completely all throughout her wings, but still had the spangle markings. There is no way that her wings were just a yellow continuation of her head, if you get what I mean. But.... she didn't always look like that! Sorry I don't have a current picture. Hopefully you can understand my description. Is it possible that she was opaline all along but it only manifested more and more with each moult? Or, is she spangle and the colour is coming through her wings now for some other reason? She's definitely a hen. That's what makes this all so puzzling. Her mother was definitely NOT opaline. Her parents: Dad on the left, Mum in the middle... (ignore the dude on the right ) Sorry it's not totally clear. So my question is -- could she be an opaline, and if so, why was she born looking like a spangle? If not, then why does she have coloured wings now? Thanks

Totally agree that the blue one is a female, but I can't tell for certain the green one in that picture -- probably a male though.

I'm very sure he's a boy. Will get a better photo when he's more comfortable. The room we have him in really isn't good for photos though. His cere is just one even colour all over it, and it's dark pink. I would be extremely surprised if he was a girl, especially because he had an identical sister, whose cere was white/blue and there was an obvious difference between the two ceres. It's hard - I found a long list of bird names online and made a list of ones I would consider, and my husband finds some of those names okay, but nothing totally stands out yet. We want it to be cute and quirky, but also easy for us and the budgie to say... but it would be nice if it reflected his character or appearance in some way too. I'm sure we'll get there soon!

We got our new budgie this afternoon! We don't have a name for him yet. It was much harder than I expected finding a budgie that both my husband and I liked! I imagine it will take us a little while to agree on a name He's very sweet... didn't mind being handled to get his wing clipped, and when I tried to put him back in the cage, he preferred to stay on my hand for a couple of minutes before he was happy to explore. Quite different from Cosmo when we first got him. I know his breeder did handle him a bit, but I don't think he's very tame yet. Time will tell if he's just more gentle natured, or whether he's actually not but is one of the ones that freezes when anxious. I would say he's a sky opaline, am I right? Cosmo and him don't know of each others' existence yet... I plan to keep it that way as long as possible and quarantine for a minimum of 6 weeks, probably longer because I am paranoid... they are both too precious Any name suggestions? (Although no offense if we don't select it- it has to go through two picky people who both don't have very similar tastes to each other )

Well even stress won't guarantee it will come out. It could survive three stressors and then the illness come out the fourth time or something. Much better to just get a vet check if you're worried! Cosmo looks so healthy, but he could be a carrier for all I know. And hopefully I'll never have to know. I guess even once quarantine is over, you still have to be vigilant for watching for early signs of sickness and can save them if it's caught early enough.

Don't worry -I'm definitely having them on different storeys of the house. There's only one big room downstairs where Cosmo's cage is, so it's either in the same room or upstairs. Even if it was okay, I would rather them not be in the same room. I reckon it would torment them both to be able to see and hear each other all the time and not be able to get to each other. They'll be too noisy if they're in the same room but different cages I reckon. Yeah okay this kind of confirms what I was already planning to do... which was have them in separate cages for 30-90 days (probably somewhere in between depending on numerous factors- how confident I am that they're both well, how tame the new one is going, how much time I have and when I think would be ideal to put them together in terms of being free to keep an eye on them, etc) and monitor them closely, wash hands and keep them apart, but not go overboard on not allowing anything touching anything nearby them to go near the other. Thanks

I just want to know how extreme I have to be with quarantine. I am planning on keeping them in separate cages, separate rooms (actually, separate storeys of our house) and washing my hands after touching them. Should I always change clothes after having one on me? Should I not allow them to be outside of their cage in a room that the other one has recently been free in? Should I feed them out of separate packets of seed so that the seed box doesn't bring things from room to room? I mean really- I could take it to an unnecessary extreme, and I know the basics, but I would just like to hear all your thoughts on the grey areas. I want to tame the new one while they're in quarantine.

I don't mind and it's my thread :rofl: Just that people might not answer because they think they already know what this thread is about so may not look and see that another question is asked... so you may get more responses in your own thread, that's all No hard feelings and good luck getting a great cage

Here it is, not really the best photo but you can see how tiny he is in his big new cage! He is right at the top. He was very scared of the cage at first and was trying to escape but as soon as we put his precious beloved bell inside he was at home in there We'll keep an eye on him over the next few days, may need to move some of the branches, just experimenting so far.

I think girl, and she is really sweet

*UPDATE* We got the big black one in the third picture... for $169! We were looking for one in that style (sturdy, black, and on a stand) so when we found these two and realised there was one for $169 and one way bigger for $189, we were very disappointed to find the bigger one sold already. We couldn't really bring ourselves to buy the smaller one when we liked the bigger one so much and it was only $20 more. We kept going back to that pet shop and they didn't restock it because it had gone up too much in price. Today we went to the Pet Superstore on Stafford Rd ... and they had the exact cage we wanted! The bigger one.... and we asked how much it cost, and the lady said $159! So we were like --- woohoo we get the bigger one for $10 less than the smaller one was at that other shop! Then when we went to get it, we found out she had made a mistake and it was actually $179. So they offered it to us for $169. So we ended up getting the bigger one for the price of the smaller one and ending up with the exact cage we wanted

Thanks AV The strange thing is that they must have slipped Cosmo in somehow in the first place without following the rules, and told us it was okay. Basically, I think the real estate forgot that we put him on our application, and then when we were signing the lease and it said no pets, I said "What about our budgie?" and she said "oh yeah that is fine" But we never had to sign a pet agreement or ask body corporate so we must have had him without being meant to, but we were told it was okay so assumed it was. So I guess the way I see it now is that if I have to ask body corp, I'm going to have to explain that the real estate said we could have one and we assumed it had been cleared with them and it probably hadn't. Which is a bit messy, and in a way it's not even really our problem since the real estate told us it was totally fine, we didn't do anything against instructions. Now we have to sign a pet agreement, and it has all these stupid rules, including one saying that birds are not to be allowed out of their cages But since we didn't even have that agreement with Cosmo, we have been letting him out of his cage all along without knowing that we weren't "allowed" to. So any damages that may be done, we could just say that it happened before the agreement came in. They made a mistake I think, so they don't really have a leg to stand on if anything happens. I don't intend on lying to them or anything though, I will continue to be honest, but I just hope that since they've probably let something slip by that they shouldn't have, that they now decide not to make a big deal about our birds to avoid themselves getting in trouble! I honestly don't think there will be any problems though. There is SO much bird noise here from nature already, and we do take great care of our property and also take responsibility for things. Anyway... I know who the head of the body corporate is. On some days he bends over backwards to help everyone, and on other days he's quite aggro. So I might wait until a good opportunity comes up to discuss this with him, and it should be fine. I know he has fish himself but I will talk to him and I guess then it will all be above board from then on.