Finnie

Top photo is two females. Next photo looks male, but not a good enough photo to tell. Bottom photo not good either, can't tell. A lot of males have a little bit of white or lighter blue around their nostrils or at the top of their cere, so really can't say until we get some better front on photos, no flash, and no super bright glare from windows, etc. I think those last two could go either way.

They are cute.

I wonder if Ringnecks are different, maybe not as obsessed with their reflections? I know a budgie can learn that a window is a wall, and not a passageway, when they get used to the rooms they fly in. But I guess I thought this was more of a problem with the budgie being obsessed with the "other bird", not so much about him crashing into the mirror.

Sorry, Flip-trainer, this will never work. The reason mirrors drive budgies crazy is because they just can't understand that there is no other bird there. Laurie, can you take him to a different room, away from the mirrors, and away from his cage, for his training sessions? Some room that he is unfamiliar with, so that he comes to see you as his "safety zone".

That's great, Nerwen! Congratulations. What amazing detail that ultrasound shows of his/her facial features!

I sympathise with you. It can be a hard decision to tell whether their suffering is bad enough to warrant euthanasia. It seems as though you've gone the extra mile with vet care, trying to diagnose this. What medications and treatments has the vet already done? Because even if the vet can't make a firm diagnosis, it seems like they would at least try antibiotics or whatever other medications they have in their arsenal before just giving up and euthanizing. Also, you don't mention seeds in her diet. I know a lot of people, including vets, think that seeds are bad for birds, and they should be on a pellet only diet. Is that the case here? Because I would suggest that it might just make her a little bit happier if she can have some seeds in her diet. (That's not meant as a cure, just a way of perhaps lowering her stress, and providing nutrients that can only be found in seeds, that pellets cannot duplicate, no matter how carefully formulated they are.) ( It is obvious that I fall in the seed camp, not the pellet camp. I think they make an okay supplement, but not a proper mainstay.) It's not likely that people here can diagnose over the internet what the vet on hand has failed to find. But perhaps someone who has had success with the symptoms you mention can give you some ideas. Good luck, I hope you are able to help your bird. Oh, and welcome to the forum. Cheers. She is eating pellets because she was feeling worse when on a seed diet. Pellets made her feel much better a year ago, but are not helping now. I give her a bit of seed at times, and millet, to make her feel better at least psychologically. The vet has tried a number of things. One medicin we had earlier is Mycostatin, i cant remember what the medicin does. Then also tried a medicin starting on M... that should releave pain. (just in case). She has gotten antibiotics too when it all started, cause my other birds had an infection, and i treated them all together. At that time i had gotten a new bird and started to take grass and grass seeds from outside for the first time, and she became sick at that time, almost 3 years ago. Wow, poor budgie on the video. No Malish doesnt have any sounds like that. She sounds quite normal. We are going to give her another dose of her treatment tomorrow at the vet, but im not too hopeful now. if it doesnt help i have to think of her and put her to sleep. Which is devastating, but i believe she´s suffering. And Ive done almost everything i can to help her. I can look it up on the net, Thyroid problem and symptoms. Her cere is switching between brown and light blue. She has been in her own cage with a budgie friend. so ive tried to make it less stressful for her. She has a warm lamp under which she often sits. And im giving her access to the toys she love, everything to make her last weeks more happy. I let her fly too, she seems to enjoy that. Well, I feel real bad for you, Zingo. It sounds like you've spent years trying everything you could to help her. You may be right about it's being time to let her go. If you do end up putting her to sleep, you can comfort yourself with the knowledge that you did all you could to try to help her, and that when all of that did not work, you ended her suffering instead of just keeping her hanging on without hope.

Well, this is the point I was trying to make. You CAN'T stop them from picking through and only getting what they like. If you try to force them to eat ALL of it, you'll starve them. You have to make sure they get their two tablespoons per day from the parts they like, and all the rest of the cr*p in your seed mix is above and beyond that amount. The more stuff in the seed mix they don't like, the more you're going to waste every day. If you can make up your own seed mix with only varieties you know they will eat, go for it. Some people serve the different seeds in different dishes, too, so they can monitor what gets eaten, and how much.

It's possible that you are worrying too much and jumping to the conclusion that your birds have the same thing your friend's birds had. BUT, you are doing the right thing by observing your birds and paying attention to what you notice. The keel bone shouldn't feel sharp, so if your bird is thin, it's good to take a look at any other symptoms, including how he eats, as you have done. One of the symptoms of mega-bac is that the bird seems to be eating all the time but still losing weight. This is because the bird is picking up food but not actually eating it. So you should watch and see whether the bird is husking the seeds or just picking up and dropping whole seeds. Is this thinness in all of your birds, or just some of them? Do any of your birds show any other signs of not being well? (Sitting fluffed up, runny poos, staining above the cere, any thing else that just seems "not right".) Something else to consider is your method of feeding them. There are a few things about how budgies eat that can sometimes lead to trouble, if you aren't aware of them. One thing is that for some reason, they don't realize to dig down into their food dish to find good seeds at the bottom. As they eat, they husk their seeds and let the seeds fall back into the bowl. Then the husks pile up and bury the good seeds. Then the budgie thinks it is out of food. So even if your food bowls are full, you need to check that the good seed isn't buried under the husks. This is one reason why I feed my birds on the floor in wide shallow pans and saucers. They don't all do that. Most of mine will kick the seeds all over looking for the ones they want, which leads me to another one of their quirks. They are finicky eaters. If there is a particular seed or seeds in their food mix that they don't want to eat, they will kick those seeds aside, and it's as if to your bird, those seeds don't even exist. Apparently, they will starve to death before they eat the reject seeds. So as bird keepers, we not only have to make sure they always have plenty of seed, but we have to make sure that the seed they have left in their dishes isn't just the rejects piling up. You may already be on top of those two issues, but it bears mentioning. Sometimes how we feed our birds needs to be tweaked, even though we thought we were already doing a great job. Or sometimes we get a bad batch of seed, and that throws off a good system. So that's a couple of things to consider. Other people might have more ideas. Keep in mind that all we can do is give you suggestions. We can't cure birds over the internet. If it really were megabacteria, then internet advice won't be enough.

Wow. Ditto to what everyone else has said. A warm lamp might give him some added comfort, too, while he is fighting off his parasites and trying to put weight back on. As I was reading your story, I thought you were going to end up by saying that the other three birds had scaley face too, and you took all of them. (For free, the rat deserves no money to reward this!) If he was so clueless about this bird's condition until it got this bad, I think it's very likely that his other birds also have scaley face, and if they aren't this far gone, he tells himself they are "healthy".

Awesome

Yeah, for me it's more for the practice of observing all the little differences and stages they go through. For instance, this is the same one that I noticed had really blue feet, in my other thread. So now I'll be watching to see if that pink area turns out to mean anything or not. I'll try to remember to put up photos of the chick later, when it's feathered.

I'm so sorry for your loss, Dave. He was special.

Hi Catharine, welcome to the forum. I'm so glad your husband was able to catch him! What good luck!

Thank you for sharing that, Birdluv. I remember when you were silent around here for a little while. I look forward to reading more of your entries, so I'll be bookmarking this. But can I just jump forward to the end and ask, you did regain your walking ability, right?

Kaz was describing how the budgies will eat the dead carcass AFTER it has died for some other reason,. It is still possible that he died from something else. But if she is chronically aggressive to her cage mates, then maybe alone is best after all.

Yeah, but I went and took a clear picture just for you! Oh, and here's the tail. The two clear center tail pins were easier to see before the other tail feathers grew in the way. (I've always known this one was spangle. Well, not always )

Wow, what a noticeable difference! Those birds are lucky they own you!

That's interesting. There appear to be both males and females with red on them, so it could be the option to indicate sold.

Thank you, Neville, for your thoughtful and informative answers to my questions. I was thinking the same things that you have said about Opal, Maude and Pearl. (No, Pearl isn't spangle.) The reason I think Finnie may be split to dilute is that I bred her to a dilute cock, and some of the chicks seemed to come out as dilutes. But I'm planning to wait and see if they darken up once the molt. It surprised me to get dilutes, because I had been leaning toward Finnie being full body greywing, which would be greywing/clearwing, with no possiblity of being split to dilute. But I guess she could possibly be a clearwing/dilute, which would mean that she was what they call a "dirty" clearwing. From a distance, her wings look kind of light, but up close, you can see that they have well defined grey markings. And of course, there is also the possibility that she is one of those "regular" greywings that just have no dilution to their body color, so they look as though they are full body greywings. I have bred Opal to a dilute cock, and am hoping that her chicks, when they feather up, will tell me more information. And I'm hoping to also breed Donovan to a dilute hen, if I can figure out whether the ones I have available are truly dilutes. I drew up a whole bunch of Punnet squares for all the different possible genetic combinations of both Finnie and Donovan, and compared what the possible outcomes would be for each one, to what Opal and Maude could possibly be. But it is subject to interpretation based on whether Opal and Maude can be classified as being the same type, or whether they cannot be considered the same type. (Due to the fact that they look so different to each other.) If they can be considered variations of the same mutation, then pretty much anything is up for grabs. But if Opal can be considered full body greywing and Maude a clearwing, then only two of the Punnet squares can fit. Those are for Donovan to be split to clearwing and Finnie to be greywing and split to either dilute or clearwing. The other Punnet squares don't support Opal and Maude having different genetics to each other. As Neville pointed out, they both have bright cheek patches and body color. It is the level of grey markings on their wings that is open to interpretation. Not all of us can breed budgies for exhibiton. But for some of us there is geat enjoyment in mixing and matching the color genes available in our flock, much like using an artist's pallet. Some of you are lucky enough to do both.

Bird Junky, you are missing the point here. People study genetics and learn how they behave. They can predict what the mathematical outcomes of certain pairings can produce. This is an excercise in learning how the genes for normal, greywing, clearwing and dilute work together. As well as learning how to identify what those combinations of genes can look like. If it is your opinion that it is never possible to figure out what a bird's genetics are, then for you, the whole field of genetics and color mutations is meaningless.

You are right, tomato would not cause that. Look around for something of a chalky substance, like a pink or red mineral block. Although it is curious that the pink is only on the tops of their heads, not around their faces and beaks.

Funkypanda, I doubt that you have looked through the FAQ section. If you had, you would have come up with some specific questions, and NOT be saying "even though there is probably nothing to worry about." If you had read up on all the aspects of raising a clutch, you would be aware that there are PLENTY of things that can go wrong, and that you need to worry about in advance. Please don't vaguely ask us for general tips on breeding. That is the same as saying "Please teach me everything all at once right here in this thread." That would be like re-writing the whole fourm. It's all already out there. Look around, read stuff, and then ask for clarification of the parts you don't understand. As for your supposed "male" that this really good budgie breeder told you you had, you stated previously that when you got "him", it had a crusty brown cere, which then flaked off. That tells you it is a FEMALE. Here are some photos of breeding cages. (courtesy of Splat's post) (Courtesy of Daz' post) (courtesy of Kaz' post) You can see that they are rectangular, and wide. The nest box usually attaches on the outside of the cage to leave more room inside for the parents. Funky, the best way to learn about breeding is to spend some time reading the FAQs, and reading threads written by experienced breeders. Learn from how they do things. Do your homework, though. Even if you ask us for tips, and we were to regurgitate everything we know, YOU still have to take the time to read the answers. Please, take the time to read what's already here.

Ha ha! I suppose I can try! I just meant this pink area in the circle. It's not grey like the rest of the wing.

Normally at this stage, I can tell whether a chick is going to be normal or pied by the skin color on it's wings as the pin feathers are starting to come in. What I mean is, as the little pinkies start to get some grey skin color, I look to see if it is random and spotty, or covers the whole wing. The dominant pieds have the whole lower half of their wing skin clear. This chick seemed to be normal, as it started getting more and more grey area, but then it didn't fill in the whole wing. It is a spangle, by the way, if that has anything to do with it. There is also an older sibling who is recessive pied.

I realize these photos aren't perfect, but they were taken in natural daylight, and I think they are at least good enough to give us some food for thought. These were taken in November of 2010. I want to know what this clutch of chicks can tell us about the genetics of the parents. What I know about the parents is this: Mother= Finnie She has very strong body color, so I've always thought either full body greywing or clearwing. But I think I have discovered based on this year's offspring, that she is split to dilute, so that could rule out full body greywing. Father= Donovan He's a normal spangle, split to something, but what? (For the record, he's also split to cinnamon and opaline.) Additionally, both parents have one dark factor. Now for the photos Additional information about the chicks, from left to right: Ist chick= Pearl Born with plum eyes, so she is cinnamon. I don't expect to be able to tell what type of greywing she is, due to the effects of the cinnamon. 2nd chick= Opal, who is also an opaline. (I know, not a very creative name ) 3rd chick=Tom. He's been sold. All he really does in this photo is to serve as a visual reference for his normal mauve color. 4th chick=Maude (Hey, it's better than Mauve, which was what I was calling her in the nest. ) As she was growing up, her body color was always identical to Tom's. I know that people will probably want to see adult photos of these chicks. I'll have to get to that later. But what I really am trying to do here is to learn how to identify the differences between chicks when they are in nest feather. Because what I have here are four chicks with four different phenotypes (what their genetics look like visually) but which are limited genetically to what their parents genotypes are, and thus what they could have inherited. Finnie has two types of greywing genes to donate, and Donovan only has one. If Finnie is ?/dilute, and Donovan is normal/?, what combinations of ?s can produce chicks that look so different to each other? Keeping in mind that Pearl's cinnamon washes out what she really is. I guess my questions boil down to: 1.) Can anyone tell what Opal and Mauve really are? Can they use that information to figure out what Finnie and Donovan really are? I think I've already worked out one fact. Donovan and Finnie cannot both be split to dilute. (Otherwise, Opal and Maude would have to be either dilute or identical.)