ILoveSy&Cilla

My housemate just got mice tonight! Yay! More pets for our house! But I just wanted to ask, can mice make budgies sick or anything? And will my budgies attack them? hehe..I have shown the mice to the birds and they just looked suspicious..otherwise no reaction. They'll probably stay separate anyway, but just need to check that there will be no problems/what precautions to take, etc. Thanks!!

my goodness Jessie, how many do you have now?? Gorgeous pics! I looooove the grey one :rofl: Next time I'm in Melb I am sooo coming to see your flock!

"Look what I found!!"

oh my goodness, Kaz, that is sooooo cute!!! I totally gotta get them some of those bracelets. There's no end to the cute things our babies do!!

thanks for the replies! I'm relieved to hear they're okay considering my girls love them so much! It's pretty funny watching them play with it..Sy get's very excited and even swings on it..Cilla, as always, has a more calm approach...poor little darling tries her best to get some time with the new toy, and Sy comes along and snaps at her to go away so she can have it all to herself!! Cheeky!

I bought a plastic toy for my birds today which is basically just a few rings linked together with a little plastic bell on the end...I hung it from the top of their cage so they can play with it from different perches. They love it and have been going crazy over it since I put it in. I just wanted to check and make sure these are safe though...? I noticed Sy poking her head through one of the rings as if she was going to try to squeeze her whole body through..but on realising she's too big, she just backed out again..anyhow, can someone let me know if these things are okay?? Thanks!

Amazing stuff!! I'll def be keeping up with your progress and taking plenty of tips from you!! It's good to hear about other birds who are further down the track..it'll be exciting watching my baby hopefully follow the same path!!

haha, yeah, those hen bites can cain!! Welcome! Your babies are sooo incredibly gorgeous

I know babe..sending you big hugs and love xoxoxoxoxoxo you know where I am if you need to talk!!

okay, so I'm ready to tell the story in more detail now...hopefully the comp won't delete it again!! So my little Cilla has only ever lived alongside my beautiful blue bird, Sy, meaning we haven't had much chance at all to bond one-on-one. But lately I have been noticing that she seems to be really "clued in" and intelligent. So I decided I should try some stuff with her. I tried clicker training with Sy a few months ago, but it didn't work...lol..Sy is the cheeky, clumsy one of the pair, while Cilla is the calm, intelligent one. First I sat and gave her seed from my fingers, which she responded to really quickly. After just a few minutes I introduced the clicker and again she responded quickly...she understood what the click meant after 5 - 10 mins. I worked on this with her for about 2 days and today decided to go on to the next step - targeting. I wanted her to learn to beak the end of a paddle pop stick. At first she was really scared of the stick and ran/flew away from it. Cilla does all her training on their little playground, so I find that it really helps to put Sy up there with her. So once she was more settled with Sy beside her, I kept moving the stick very slowly towards her, hiding most of it in my hand, with just the end sticking out. After a couple times of running away, she started just leaning back on her perch. Each time, I just slowly took the stick away and then slowly moved it back again. Once she seemed less scared of it, I touched it against her beak to let her know it wouldn't hurt her. I did that a few times and clicked and gave her seed after touching her beak. Before long she was interested in the stick, reaching forward, then leaning back in uncertainty, inspecting it at different angles, etc. I would let her stand and look at it, then pull it away and start again..then she began to reach out and beak it, quite often even giving it a nibble. She was earning treats galore!! Sometimes she is still slow to beak it, but if I move it around in front of her face, she will move her head to follow it. All this happened in about 20mins. I'm very proud of my little white baby!! Feedback anyone? I've never done this before, so am I doing things wrong/right? Anything I could do differently or change or not do?? All advice welcome from those more experienced than I am!!

Jessie I'm so sorry hunny xoxo

BAAAHAHAHAHA!!! That is simply gorgeous!! Budgies are such characters!! okay, so right after I wrote that, I looked over at my budgie cage to see Sy hanging upside down from their rope perch...LOL! She didn't stay that way for long though...

So my little 4 month old Cilla (pictured below) started clicker training this week! She's gone from never even taking a seed from my fingers, to now beaking a paddle pop stick All this in just 2-3 days..I'm very proud! I wrote about it all in more detail, but then my computer did something weird and I lost it all and couldn't be bothered typing it all out again!

Jess!! They're gorgeous! Man I wish I could come meet your flock!!!!

Here's the calcium perch responsible for Sy's fake yellow face..haha!

what a stunning bird!!!

aaawwwwww! I think your "ugly duckling" is incredibly gorgeous anyway..sweet lil thing

lol...I don't know what recessive or dominant pied mean anyway :bluebudgie:

woah, okay now you've lost me!! DF dom pied and iris rings?!?! haha..is the iris ring the white ring around the outside of the eye? Sy has that but not Cilla.

Those white birds are simply DEVINE!!! Gorgeous, beautiful, love them!!

haha Chrissy, something along those lines, but I haven't learnt much about all the colour mutations yet I think Jess (jwancia) said Sy is a skyblue opaline spangle and Cilla is a mauve recessive pied...oh, and Sy actually doesn't have any yellow on her face at all..it's completely white..in some of the pictures it is a bit yellow, but that was due to a yellow calcium perch that she liked to rub her face on...I've taken it out of the cage now and Sy's little face has gone back to white...

I will try it for sure!

this behaviour seems to be increasing daily...every few minutes Sy is at it unless she's sleeping or in a calm mood...i just don't get it...it's not like her at all!

hmmm...I think she's about 4 months..yeah, that's about right!

here's some more! snuggles on the playground Sy was right in the middle of moulting here, hence the shabbyness...hehe.. Sy after her first bath not long after I'd bought her...she's still crazy for her baths now!