Finnie

Update: I've had Alaina in isolation for about 7 weeks now. Actually, for about half that time I've had a cock in there with her to keep her company, because she would just sit there not moving much. The idea was to have her under less stress, to see if her conditon improved. All alone seemed stressful, so I thought a friend would help. I don't know if having Ariel (the cock, I know- girl's name.) in with her was more or less stressful. But they seemed to get along fine, and lately they have been preening and feeding each other, so I think she was happy with him. Well, I never put Ivermectin on her before, because I didn't see any sign of mites. But today I decided I should have done it, and also that if she had any, the rest of my flock could be infected with them, since she used to live in the main cage. So I decided to catch them all up and dose them. I also decided to re-evaluate Alaina. She really is no better than she was seven weeks ago. If anything, she is worse. I haven't noticed her doing any excessive preening, What I do notice, is that whenever I have to do anything in the cage, like feed them, she will always jump/fall to the bottom of the cage, flop around a while, and then climb the bars back up to the high perch. It caused a bit of ruckus catching Ariel and putting Ivermectin on him, and by the time I got to doing Alaina, both of her wings were like bloody stumps! I have not noticed any bleeding during the 7 week isolation, but today, it was like she just busted open all her short little feather stubs. I tried to pluck a couple, to see if that would stop the bleeding, but that didn't seem to help. It just seemed to hurt her. I did find one feather in the bottom of her cage, though, and it has black things in the quill. I got a couple of pictures to show you: I really can't tell what it looks like in there. I will probably end up taking the feather in to the vet's office for them to look at, and probably have to take Alaina in, too. If it was French Moult, it doesn't seem like it would be so bloody. And it doesnt seem as though she's self mutilating. Ariel certainly doesn't attack her. In fact, I decided that she was better off without him, so after his Ivermectin, he went back into the main cage. If she does have some kind of feather or quill mite, I don't want him with her anymore. Hopefully the ivermectin I put on everybody will stop it from spreading. None of the other birds have this problem, and up until seven weeks ago, she was in there with all of them. She doesn't seem to be getting any better, so I guess I better take her to the vet and see if I can find out what is really going on. I know those are pretty bad pictures, but if anyone recognizes what is wrong with that quill, I would appreciate any input. After all, I have all weekend to speculate on this while I wait for the vet to be open.

Earlier today, I noticed Kevin and Teagan looking like they wanted to start a second round. Since Teagan is in no shape for that, I decided to get the "spa" ready for her, so I could take her out at the first sign of an egg. I was hoping I could leave her in as long as possible, though, until her two chicks are older. Well, no sooner than I had the spa set up this evening, and I went down to see how they were doing, and I saw Teagan with blood all over her! There was blood all over the perches, and some inside the nest box. (Both chicks are fine, though.) Kevin only had a little blood on one wing and on his cere. Actually, I think the blood on his wing is Teagan's. Teagan also had a very bald back of the head, but no blood there. I immediately took Teagan out to the hospital cage, and went back to see if Kevin was being nice to the chicks, and he was in the nest box pecking at them! So I took him out and put him in one of the other empty breeding cages, for now. He really doesn't seem in need of a hospital, I just want to isolate him for a while. So now the chicks, ages 26 and 23 days, are in the nest box, with no parent. So I have taken "Uncle" Patrick away from his duties with Donovan and Finnie's chicks, and put him in the breeding cage with the "orphan" chicks. I really hope he steps up to the plate and starts feeding these two little ones. They have food in their crops for now, so I have left them for the night, and I guess I will start hand feeding them in the morning, like I did when Finnie had to leave her chicks. I'm hoping that Finnie's chicks don't need Patrick anymore. They are all out of the nest box, and I'm planning to put them in a kindy cage soon. (I was going to put Patrick in there with them, to show them the ropes, but now I guess they will be on their own.) Thankfully, within 5 minutes of removing Patrick, all four were on the floor of the cage pecking at seed! Meanwhile, up in the hospital cage, Teagan's foot was bleeding all over her perch. And there was blood dripping from the perch into a little puddle on the newspaper below her. I washed off her foot and put white pepper on it. I think the wound is a split between two toes. The white pepper helped, but I think putting her back in the cage caused it to bleed again, although only a little bit, now. She also has some blood coming from her beak. Again, only a smal amount. Her body got a little bit wet from the foot wash, and with her bald head, she is sitting there looking really pitiful. She has 3 sides of her cage covered, and a lamp near her perch, and other than that, there's not much else I can do without stressing her more. I guess I'll just have to see if she makes it until morning. The poor thing. If only I had taken her out earlier in the evening! But to be honest, I saw her bowing down for Kevin earlier, so I thought they were getting along a little too well. And my goal was to let her raise her chicks as long as possible, before taking her away. I had also planned to let the two of them have a good long rest, build them back up into better condition, and let them breed again, later on. Now I don't know if I can even ever use Kevin again. I'm afraid he's going to be a killer cock. What do the rest of you do with a cock that attacks his hen? As for using Teagan again in the future, (if she lives) I guess it would depend on whether she gains back good condition. Her injuries don't seem crippling, just a lot of blood loss. So it's likely she may bounce back fine, I guess. I was hoping she would be a better mother the next time around. This seems to be just one more pitfall from having put down hens that weren't in good enough condition. I'm guessing that she just wasn't in any shape to breed with Kevin again, and that's probably what caused the fight. Plus she's been under a lot of stress. Another thing, I'm blaming myself for, is that I caused a bit of a ruckus downstairs today, by catching up all the birds in the main cage to put Ivermectin on them. (That's a whole other story, which I'm planning to update in my "Is this French Moult" topic.) Maybe all the commotion just caused Kevin to freak out, even though it was in other cages. Whatever the cause, I just have more dramas with these birds than I need right now.

I have a yellow cock that was very similar. His eyes look black, even very close up. Redness would only show up in flash photos. Or if you get him in a certain light at a certain angle, it can look like dark plum. It had me confused for a long time, because other inos I'd seen were very obviously red eyed, and with a pinkish cast to the rings, as well. But he fathered several ino chicks, so mine is a lutino. But yours doesn't look ino from those photos, so I would go with DF spangle, unless the redness gets more noticeable with age, or until you breed it and know for sure. As for age, I don't have a lot of experience, but none of my babies ever got rings like that at 3 months. It was always later, around 5-6 months, and then the ring is paler. Could yours be older than 6 months?

Hey- no holding out! We want to see the chick!!

Oh, she is so cute, Grant!! I know what you mean about getting Oscar a friend. So many times I have been tempted to get my little Liesl a friend, because they are so cute and playful, they just make you want to be able to see TWO dachshunds playing together! (We have other dogs, she can get by as an only doxie. ) You think she is small because you see her next to Oscar. But judging by your photo, I think she is already bigger than mine, who is almost one year old now. I am jealous of you! Have a TON of fun with her!!

Love the egg pillow! And is that dommie pied cock the same one I picked out before? Love him, too!

Hey- no holding out! We want to see the chick!!

Pearce, it's good to see you. I've been wondering what happened to you. Sorry to hear about the loss of most of your budgies. Right now I am worried about French molt in my own flock, but am at the stage of waiting to see if that's really what I have. I hope not. I hope you are able to get back into budgies again soon.

Squeak, what I have highlighted in red above is NOT TRUE. Many many bird breeders successfully raise and hand feed all kinds of baby birds using syringes and spoons. You shouldn't give such a sweeping statement based only your own experience. Lovejoy, if your baby was thriving on the hand rearing formula, and then suddenly died, it may have been due to other causes than nutrition. Squeak has a good point about the father. Is he not able to feed the chick? Do you have another experienced cock who might have the instincts to feed a squawking youngster? However, if the baby is suffering from an illness, there is the risk that the illness might be transferred to the cock. You will have to weigh the risks, and if you suspect an illness, then you should probably call an avian vet, as Squeak suggested. I had a similar situation to yours, but I only had to hand feed the chicks for two days before the cock and another cock I put in with them took over the feeding duties. Sorry I can't give you more help with hand feeding, but hopefully someone with more experience will have some pointers for you. In the meantime, if you have a chance, go to the Budgie Faq's section at the top of the page, and read the articles about raising baby budgies. You will probably find the info in there helpful.

Am I seeing things no one else is? I think this cocks looks like a yellowface. Maybe it's just my monitor.

I want to thank you, Dean, for caring enough to look up that information. Also, I didn't mention it before, but Kaz, I also really appreciate your asking your friends about my babies' problems. :hi: I did some research on Giardia, and then I also started looking up French Molt, too. But as for the French molt, I had just recently done some research on it, because a couple of months ago, I was wondering if one of my other hens had it. At the time, I was really concerned, because I had already set up my breeding pairs, and some were already on eggs, and I was worried about having French Moult in my bird room. What I found out before about French Moult was that it can vary from killing the chicks young, (like Dean pointed out with the quote from the article), to damaging the chicks feathers, from which they never recover, to less damage that they do recover from, to not even affecting some of the chicks. Everything I read before said that there will usually be both affected and unaffected chicks in the same nest. (Of course, that doesn't mean it's always the case. I could get French Molt that kills ALL the chicks, I suppose.) But, from what I've read, breeders should be able to identify that they have French moult by the way the chicks feather up (or rather, don't feather up.) Well, it turns out that I do have a nest that has two survivors, (Survivors of what, we don't know yet, other than poor mothering.) And they are at the stage to get their feathers. And I have noticed they look a little unusual, from what few chicks I have experience with. I'll put the photos of them here, and any one who wants, can look and see if they think it looks like French Moult. Chick #1, 18 days old: same chick, armpit shots: Chick #2, 15days: Another thing I've read in my search on French moult is that poor nutrition exacerbates it. So, I'm still of the opinion that my chicks had problems because their mothers lacked condition, and fed them improperly. But if French moult is added to the mix, it makes sense that these chicks would be the ones harder hit than most. Also, the consensus with my other hen was that it didn't really seem like French moult. But I think the jury is still out on that one. She's had one month to "recover", and I'm planning to give her another one before I re-evaluate her and post more pictures. Here is the link to that thread, in case anyone thinks it's relevant: Is this French Moult? Now as to the possibility of Giardia, I'm still working on that one. I've called the Health Department, about getting my well water tested. And also the Dept of Natural Services, who said it's pretty unlikely that surface contaminants could make their way down into the ground water table to infect my well. But they gave me the number of the department of environmental management, who would know about what types of contaminants/ diseases would be found in my area. But from what I have been able to find out about avian Giardia, is that it is more likely to come in with an infected/carrier bird that showed no symptoms.

Hi Kate, welcome to the forum! :hi: I hope you have good luck finding a baby budgie, and of course, then we will all be wanting to see photos of it!

Splat, I'm glad you had all this rain to figure this out before you started lining with wood. You have saved the wood getting wet, or being in the way of your waterproofing work. Just think if you had gotten almost all the way finished, and THEN found out you had leaks!

That photo is just too cute! Congrats!

That's a major sticking point! Maybe when you get answers, it will help Ken feel more definite, one way or the other.

Here are pics of one of the chicks missing from yesterdays photos. (Would have got pics of both, but camera battery died.) Donovan and Finnie Chick #4 Normal Mauve girl The mark on this tail concerns me. I compared it to the photos of the feather quill mites found HERE They don't look quite the same, but maybe this chick has a less advanced case?

No, it couldn't work like spangle, Ratzy. If a gene doesn't show up in single factor version, then it is recessive. When we can see the effect of the recessive gene, that really means that the bird is double factor for the recessive gene. Spangle is incomplete dominance, because in single factor, we see a partial effect, and in double factor we see the total effect.

Actually, the green ones are split for blue OR yf2. The yf2 cock must be single factor, to have produced blue chicks. so he could have given either one to the green chicks. You won't know unless you breed them when they grow up.

Congratulations on your first two chicks! Exciting days ahead.

Congratulations on your wins! It must have been a lot of fun.

Did you mean to say one infertile egg? Your babies look nice and healthy!

Nice chicks, Amy! I especially like the opaline. Very pretty.

Thank you Squeak and Amy! Thank you for the compliment on my photos- I must be improving a bit, because historically my photos have been pretty lousy! That opaline chick is my favorite! I won't be too sad if she never sells....

I'm familiar with Giardia in dogs, which is also supposed to be quite frustrating to deal with. After reading this article, I'm quite worried about the future of my breeding hobby. If this is truly what I have, it sounds like even with treatment and continual re-testing, it could hang on and crop back up randomly. Even if it were controlled and my birds were healthy, it sounds as though any future baby birds I bred and sold could be carriers that could pass it on to my customers other birds. Also, it sounds as though the testing is difficult and often likely to come up with a false negative, which would lull one to believe the giardia was gone, when it might not be. I think I will need to look around for more info on this. I think my only hope lies in the chance that my birds don't have this. In my favor, I already use bottled water for my birds, because we are on a well here, and I never have trusted the water that comes out of the tap. I do use the tap water to wash and rinse things, though. I wonder if giardia spores can be left behind from that. And I rinse all their vegetabes and greens in tap water, so those could be contaminated, I guess. I may have to look into whether there is a water test for the specific avian giardia that I can have done on my well. Odd that the source of the giardia was the town water source. I would think that treated water would tend to be safe. But I have a suspicion that if it's a strain that is not dangerous to humans, it wouldn't be tested or treated for in the municipal system. (Although you wouldn't think it would get past what treatment the water goes through for other nasties.) I appreciate the tip even though I already do that, Squeak, thanks.

Picture update of good chicks Donovan x Finnie: Chick #1 (31 days old) Chick #2, not in todays photos Chick #3, (28 days old) Plum eyed when born, so assuming it's a cinnamon female, although it is also greywing or dilute, so no cinnamon shows Chick #4 not pictured Kevin x Teagan: Chick #1 (14 days old) Chick #2 (11 days old) This chick was not big enough to ring until it was 9 days old.