Finnie

Hi Sootie, how is Django doing now? After a course of antibiotics, it is a good idea to give some probiotics to replenish the good bacteria that may have gotten killed off by the antibiotics. Or some yogurt with live cultures.

????? Even if you can reach it, you still have to be able to look inside of it without moving it. Where it is located in this photo, I don't see any way that you can look inside. It's just something to consider. Have you read about care of chicks in the nest yet?

Definitely nice colors! I love the spangles and congrats on your first albino!

Healthy and playful is good. The stronger and healthier they are, the better they will be able to raise their chicks, with less drain on their own bodies. However, breeding condition refers to their hormonal state, which triggers them to begin laying eggs. When you read up on the breeding of budgies, you will learn how to tell what stage of their cycle they are in by the color of their ceres.

That does look like a very nice space for a pair of budgies to breed in. I have a question though. How are you going to be able to check the nest box when there are chicks in it? It looks like it is too far back to reach. One suggestion would be to move it to the front of the cage. You could make a small square door in the upper left part of the front, and you could hang the nest box on the outside of the cage, with the opening facing in the small square door. Then you would be able to look into the back or the top of the nest box to check on the babies. (Which is something you will need to do at least once per day, preferably twice. To make sure they are fed, and to clean off any poop or food messes that can impair their development. All stuff you should have read in the FAQs by now.) Just because they mate doesn't mean they have to lay eggs. But since you've given them a box, they will. To stop them from breeding, you can remove the box until you are prepared.

Oh! That's the same one I'm on. I"ll have to look for you over there.

Hi Steve, welcome to the forum. I'm SO sorry for your loss of birds. How heartbreaking and frustrating! I agree with you, they are definitely addictive.

Hi! Welcome to the forum!

Hi. 4-5 weeks is pretty young. I find that my parent raised chicks just come out of the nest at 4 weeks, and of course, have never flown before. The first time they find themselves outside a cage, they take off flying and don't know what to do. They fly around and around looking for a way to stop. They don't know how to land, so they crash into things a bit. Eventually they learn how to grab things and land. It takes them a couple of flight experiences before they get the hang of it. All this to say: They really NEED a chance to fly around and learn how to use their wing muscles BEFORE they ever have their first clip. From what I have read, a baby bird who gets clipped before it learns to fly, might never learn to fly in its life. I haven't tested this theory, and I don't plan to. I want them to learn to fly. Then I only clip them if they are slated to be sold, and I need to have some control over them, work with taming them. I DO recommend clipping wings of older, non-tame birds, if they are prone to freaking out and crashing into things. But in the case of a baby that's just learning to fly, let it learn. And if it was hand raised, it shouldn't freak out. A little bit of miscalculation while it learns a new room is expected, and won't hurt him. I'm not saying not to clip him, I'm just saying that with hand raised, you shouldn't have to, but if you want to, make sure he knows how to fly well, first.

Thank you for the tips, BJ

So Flip, about finch forums, which one did you join?

I think #1 looks violet, not mauve, and I agree with Twisted that it's a male. I agree with Twisted, Neville and Kaz about #2. Gorgeous bird! On #3, I think one photo shows brown cere and one photo shows pink cere, so I'm not convinced it's a hen, but creamino, yes.

His body color looks dilute, but his wing markings look a little cinnamon, maybe? It's hard to see on a spangle and on a computer screen. Definitely a nice looking bird!

I wonder if the tests you had done before were false positives. That is not uncommon in the lab test world. They also say that different people (doctors or technicians) can interpret test results differently and do physical exams differently. Also, if the ALV that Shann RK mentioned is mainly a chicken disease, it's possible that your old vet never considered testing a budgie for that one. If it can come about by infection, that could explain why it affected unrelated birds. We could speculate that your birds that are healthy now may have developed an immunity to it, whereas the other ones succombed. (Since we really don't know and all we have is speculation.) I'm just glad they seem to be all better now. Congratulations on that!

As long as it's working to keep them in the nest, I would let it continue. As long as the mother doesn't show any signs of trying to start a new clutch. Probably with no cock in there, that won't happen, but I have had hens who, after I took them out of a breeding cage to a resting cage, started (or kept on) laying eggs on the floor. Sometimes they want to lay, even with no cock. So when the oldest chick is around four weeks old, I would just look for signs that the mother might be ready to kick the chicks out or turn on them. (I'm not trying to scare you, probably it may never happen, just know to be alert, as always. )

I ran across this site a few days ago. Scroll down about half way. Maybe light and hormones are at work in your birds. http://users.skynet.be/fa398872/engoulm03.htm

Oh hey, I like this trick, BJ. It sounds like something even I could teach a bird to do! And I have just the bird to try it with. A one year old hand fed hen that got returned to me because the owner became allergic to her. Poor bird is missing her mommy, and could use some attention. Problem is, she has some nasty habits, and one of them is biting. Maybe I could distract her with something constructive to do.

Hi. Welcome!

He's definitely normal, not dom pied. From the back he looks like a dark green. From the front, he looks like a golden face cobalt, but I think that's because the flash is distorting his colors. He's probably a normal dark green. On my monitor, that hen looks like a cinnamon. Is she?

This sounds like my budgies (pet types). I put one pair in a breeding cage, and barely turn around after pairing up a second pair, and the first pair are already at it! But I agree with Kaz advice to give them more time. A lot of times you never see them mate, you just take it on faith that they are, because they are, well, budgies.

Why do you think the hen is a cinnamon greywing? It can be hard to see cinnamon in a greywing, if you just go by looking. But if you know the breeder, they might be able to tell you whether she had plum eyes when she hatched, or if her father is cinnamon or split to it. I think you are probably right about the dark eyed clear. Unless he gets iris rings and a blue cere when he grows up. Then he would be a double factor spangle.

These are nice new photos. Now I wonder if the cock might be spangle AND greywing. But he has really dark body color and cheek patches, so that would make him either full body greywing or clearwing. I think the cock is a dark green and the hen is a light green.

A four week old is old enough to eat mostly on his own, if he has already been having practice on how to crack the seed. If he's never seen seeds before in his life, it may take him a while to figure it out. That's why it's good to keep them with their parents as long as possible, because they learn by copying. That's also why it's a good idea to put seeds into the nest box as bedding once the chicks reach the two week mark. Because they learn to eat on their own before they fledge. So I would suggest that you put some seed in with the chicks. You said you took all 4 out of the nest. So give them seed as bedding in wherever it is that you are keeping them now. You can also give them oats (the kind we make oatmeal out of) and oat groats, which are like whole oat seeds. I get mine at a health food store. Those seem to be easy things for beginners to eat. I also give my beginner eaters vegetables and greens, oranges, and egg biscuit. It's called Abundance Weaning. They have a lot of different things to sample, and it gets them used to eating a varied healthy diet. If you're worried that he's getting sick due to lack of eating, you may have to crop feed him, if you can get a hold of a crop needle and syringe. I find that once they are past three weeks old, they really don't want to accept a hand feeding of formula. If I have one that age that won't eat formula, and whose parents won't feed it, I make sure it has a good supply of food, and cross my fingers that it will learn to eat on its own. (And all of mine have, probably because they already knew how to eat seed.) But I think it's odd that his siblings won't feed him, because in my experience, the ones that won't accept a feeding from me go and beg off of their sibs. It's like the piggiest chick eats a lot from me, and then goes and distributes it to all the other chicks. What you have described about the mother staying out of the box is normal. After around two weeks, the chicks don't need her to keep them warm much any more, and the mother will stop spending much time in there. She will just go in to feed them, and it is normal for them to sqwauk loudly when they get hungry. i almost wonder if this is not a feeding issue, but some kind of illness that has struck. ??

Hi Lori. I'm glad you have come out of the woodwork to say hello. I hope you will post photos of your budgies, so they can say hello, too!

That is a cute baby! What ever happened to the eggs in the incubator?