Finnie

Yes

A warm lamp on one side of his cage that he can move closer to or farther from as he wishes is the usual first line of treatment whenever anything starts to go wrong with a bird. The aid it gives in just helping them keep up their body heat can sometimes be all that is required. But if you feel that he is suffering in spite of that, then yeah, you may have to make that decision.

Hi Dresie, Being in the U.S., I can't help you out with finding a home for Titch. But I wanted to extend my sympathy over your loss of Billy. I hope you are able to find a place for Titch where he will be happy. Good luck, Finnie.

I think you are right about him having either some kind of tumor or fatty liver disorder. I think budgies get susceptible to those kinds of things as they get older. Six isn't extremely old for a budgie, but also not young either. And for one who has always lived on a seed only diet, they say the fatty liver problem comes into play. But sometimes even budgies that are fed fresh foods still have such problems. I agree that taking him to a non-avian vet would be an unproductive use of your time as well as money. Especially with that growth at this late stage. Also, I wouldn't be surprised if that were the reason for his cere turning brown. In addition to hormone imbalances and lack of iodine, I have read that cancer can cause brown ceres in males. (Could be that cancer causes the hormone and iodine imbalance.) You have my sympathies for this sad time in Jeremy's life.

Hi Brax, welcome! Your idea to learn about how to breed before you start doing it is very smart. There are good articles on our FAQs page, as well as pinned threads in each section of the forum where you can learn a ton of things that will help you have a good start. Poor maz7! It sounds like she had an awful intro to birdkeeping. Well, it's not for everybody. You have to know your limitations, and like Nadene said, be wary of the addictiveness of it! Staying below the number of birds you can house and care for comfortably (for them as well as for yourself) can make the difference between enjoying it and hating it. Also, being prepared for all the possible pitfalls ahead of time will give you the ability to navigate through them more successfully. It's not all sick birds and dead chicks. One of the parts I enjoy the most is meeting the people coming to pick up their new pets, full of anticipation and happiness. And the fact that those are the few people who actually like to talk about birds with me, instead of being bored by it. Good luck with all of your endeavors, I wish you much success!

They are a beautiful collection, Robyn! I was sad that you had no more birds. I guess you probably were doubly so. Now you just watch, your house will sell real quick since you got them, and you will have to move the new birds with you!

Welcome back, mysixbabies. What a coincidence- the other day I too, got the bug to look back at my own first breeding journal, which was also in 2009! So long ago! Back then, my son was 11, and was helping me out with the birds. Now he is in High School, and driving, and has no interest in them whatsoever. I hope you have good luck this time around. Your parent birds are gorgeous.

I wonder if it could be a feather mite, or something related. A drop of Ivermectin on the back of the bird's neck will kill off some parasites, so maybe it would work on this bug.

What is her cere like? Perhaps she will behave herself better if you keep her separate from any males until she goes into proper breeding condition, and then she might be more likely to be in an accepting mood.

Hi GB, that's great that your show birds are improving! It must be fun making budgie friends in the real world. I hear you about Photobucket- it seems like every time I go on there (which is rarely), they have changed it all around. So I have to relearn it all over each time. Just not worth it. There are other image hosting websites out there. If they are any easier for you to use, then you could just use the url code from those. Or even post a link to their page. Do you still have your website? That's another way to link a photo, if you put a link to your own website page with photos on it. My feathered friends are doing fine, overly prolific! And a couple of years ago I added finches and Bourke's to my flock, so instead of only being a bird breeder for a "few years", which was my original agreement with Hubby, it's been five years with no real end in sight quite yet.

It's been a few days. How are your chicks now? What about the one you PM'd me about with the splayed legs?

Hi Rarity bird, welcome to the forum! I know I'm catching this a bit late. I hope you come back to the forum and let us know how your breeding experience is turning out. The folks on here are very friendly and helpful. (By the way, I see that we are both in Indiana. Was it maybe my website where you got the link? I wonder how close we are to each other.)

Did you go to this yesterday, Jimmy? 'Bout time you got yourself some budgies!

Hi Sherylw, any update on your birds? And welcome to the forum.

Hi GB! It's nice to see a familiar face again. It looks like you're still working with your show stock. How is the exhibiting coming along? (Yes, I know it's been a few weeks since you posted this, but it's kind of hit or miss how often I am getting on the forum lately. )

Hi FeatheredFriends, welcome to the forum!

Scummy, this sounds like a completely different problem. Yours was ill for months, but Paul's die within days of becoming ill. (Unless Paul is not able to recognize the signs of an ill bird until its final few days.) You may want to start your own thread for your problem. Paul, if you have birds dying every couple of weeks, I would not call them isolated incidents. It's more like one long epidemic. Instead of waiting for the next death, you might consider taking in a random sampling of your birds for testing. Take the ones that look the scruffiest, even if they don't look actually sick. If the vet can do tests to figure out what to treat for, you are apt to have better success controlling it. The sheer number of birds you stand to lose justifies the cost of the tests and treatments.

What a great set up, beautiful!

I concur in waiting a bit longer before making a decision about these eggs. I have found that sometimes candling at 5 days is too soon. If you foster the egg that is ready to hatch to the other hen, and it turns out that her eggs are fertile, but just haven't started developing yet, you will have an even bigger age gap in that nest than you do in the original nest. And, I have had hens raise clutches of 7 or more chicks, with two week gaps in age span, and the older chicks have not presented a problem to the younger ones. Sometimes an older chick will hog the parents attention and get all the food, but sometimes the older chicks will also help to feed the younger ones. okay, I just looked at the date of this question, and realize that whatever you were going to do, you have already done it! So how did things turn out?

I agree with all of the others, except that due to the clear band across the chest of chick number one, I think it is a dominant pied. I also agree with Jimmy that a shot of the back is needed, in order to see what the pattern of the wing markings looks like. Are these three siblings? What are their parents?

Hi Aquafroste, welcome to the forum. I split your question off from that old post you wrote it in and gave it a topic of it's own. It will be more likely to get noticed this way. More than likely once you have put the babies back in the box, the mother will calm down and go back in. (Which by the time I am reading your post, you will already have seen.) We take babies out of nests all the time for inspection, photo ops, cleaning the box, etc. Mother budgies are pretty cool with all of this. Let us know if she doesn't go back in, or if you have questions about other things. There is a lot of helpful information and resources in the FAQs section, and also some good articles and threads pinned in each area of the forum. Have fun reading up about breeding budgies! Hopefully the rest of your experience will go smoothly.

Hey JB, it's great to see you back around! I, too, rarely can ever scrounge up the time to come on the forum very much any more. But I do stop by every now and then and skim through some. Yeah, I remember back in the day when there would be so many new posts that it would take me hours to read through them all. The friends I knew back then seem to all be gone. I've heard that they all went over to Facebook groups, but I've tried Facebook, and I just don't care for it. Maesie resigned as a mod a couple of years ago because she was going on to different things in life. That's how it will probably be with me in a few years. Once my last child grows up, I will probably get a job outside the house, and then in will be Sayonara to the birds. (Breeding them, anyway.) What about you, Jimmy? Your son must be getting real big after all this time. And didn't I hear you mention you and your wife have more than one child now? Here are my answers to the questions: How long have you been a member of the forum for? Since March of 2009, so about five years now. How long have you kept budgies for? About 5 1/2 years. I was lurking on here during that time, between getting my first budgies and joining. What is your favourite mutation? Too many to list, but clearwing is one of the ones up near the top. Blue or Green Series? I was always partial to the blues and yellowfaces, but lately I've gotten attached to the greens. One of my current goals is to produce an olive green normal. And of over 170 babies that I've rung so far, not a single one has turned out to be a normal light green, so I'd kind of like to achieve one of those, too, lol! How many birds do you keep at the moment? Are we counting just budgies, or total all birds? My budgies are in the 30s, last I counted. But I've got about 50 finches and Bourke's parakeets now, too. What do you prefer Pet or Show type? Pet type, hands down. But I did just recently buy my first two show types, and the look of them is growing on me. What got you into budgies? I found two of them at a garage sale. And though I was not planning to ever own any birds at all, in my head I could hear the accumulated voices of my kids from over the years saying "Mom, we should get a BIRD!" So I knew that if I brought the two home, then I would really score some brownie points. One was green and one was blue, so I figured, cool, I have one of both colors they come in. Then I did some reading and found out that budgies come in more than just two colors. The rest is history....

Yes, that is what they look like to me.

Sorry that I threw in the wrong information about red eyes in TCBs. I guess I thought I had read that somewhere.