Finnie

Well, while buying dog and cat food today, I checked the labels on the bird seeds. Almost all of the different formulas for different species (finch, canary, budgies) had red or white millet, canary grass seed and oat groats. The canary ones had more on the list such as flax seed and nigerseed, and the finch ones had even more seeds listed. Then they all went on to list non-seed ingredients, such as wheat, soy flour, vitamins, etc. I checked several different brands in "regular" and "deluxe" or "gold" or what have you. None of them seemed to vary too much. One might have had flax in their budgie mix, some included poppy and sesame seeds! It seems as if budgie mix is basically millet, canary grass seed, oat groats and fortified pellets. If I could find a way to get each of these things separately, and put them in separate feeder cups, maybe I could find out which ones are being eaten and which ones are passed over. And if I'm buying fortified, nutritionally balanced pellets in one bag, why do I need to buy them in the seed bag, as well? Maybe a lot of what I'm seeing in the waste is the pellet part of the mix.

Ah, yes. This is why we love budgies!

I have the same questions, Krosp. I feel like "budgie mix" contains a lot of seeds they don't eat, and I would like to find a mix that only contains the "right" seeds. It bothers me to throw away so much uneaten seed. The only seed I have heard referred to as "bad seed" is millet. Supposedly it is only good for occasional treats, since it its high in fat. But every seed mix I find contains it. I sometimes wonder if that is the only seed my birds are picking out, and rejecting all the rest! I recently read Kaz saying that they will eat up all of the "canary mix" (I think that's what it was). So next time I'm in a pet store, I'm planning to check the label on that. It would be nice if I could just buy seed separately, in bulk, and make up my own mix. But that doesn't seem to be an option. (Around here, anyway)

Wow, Anne, they are looking really nice. So cute! In the order they are sitting, to me it looks like boy, boy, girl. I looked back through the other pictures in this post, and honestly, that didn't help- they all looked female to me! :raincloud: I'm no expert, but just thought I'd throw in my guess. :raincloud:

Yes, 3 nestboxes and a hollowed out cocounut they all adore. Thanks. It'll be interesting to watch them and see what they do. If they all adore the one coconut, watch out, they will fight over it. I had two females who got along really great, until I put in a thick wreath-thing made out of grapevine. Boy did they love it! (It was very nest-like.) Until they started getting possesive of it and fighting with each other. I had to take it out, but they are back to being friends again.

You all are bringing up some very good points. It just goes to show how many facets there are to this issue. Jimmy, I really like your idea about checking the id on the ring. I hope that works out for you. I've added a few birds to my flock lately , and I've gotten experience now with both types of private breeders and good and bad pet shops. I've made "email pals" with the good breeder I found, which is helpful, and fun. If I lived near GB, I would dearly LOVE to be able to buy birds from her!!

They are all adorable. It might be a tough choice! I like the one in the front left of this photo. I have one quite like it. I am a fan of Dalmatians, and I didn't realize until I got home with it, that I had picked out a "Dalmatian" budgie!

Having raised several puppies, the smell of vinegar does NOT remind me of fish and chips...! :rofl: ... ... :rofl: My thoughts, exactly!

Kaz, you're a genius! :bow: Now I know what to do with my many perches that are too small to fit in my new, larger cages!!! No reason this wouldn't work inside a regular cage, as well as an aviary. :bliss: By the way, it's great watching your new aviary shape up. You must be getting pretty excited now that soon you will be putting the birds in. They are so going to love it in there! :grbud: :dbb1: :ausb: :oliveb: :redalbino: :fly:

That's great news, Birdluv!

I noticed something else about Mystery/Mr.E. yesterday. Originally, since his cinnamon markings look so green to me, I wondered if he could be opaline. But he is all clear in the areas where I would look for opaline markings, so I couldn't tell. And since none of you said opaline, I figured it must be the cinnamon that makes his wing markings greenish. But yesterday when he was bending forward to preen himself, it caused the feathers on the back of his neck to spread apart, and then I very clearly saw a bright green sheen or suffusion there. Since he's not an opaline, does this suffusion mean he could be split to opaline? Or does it just mean he is "poorly marked" (if there is such a thing in pet budgies! Ha ha! ) And another question while you all are looking at him, does he look French Moult to you? He had a short tail when I bought him, but full flights on his wings, and I observed him fly really well, so I took a chance on him. He was moulting at the time, and a couple days later his 2 main wing feathers came out. They were whole, and normal looking, so I took that to mean he was okay, but I thought I'd bring it up for reassurance. Thanks again, -Finnie

Thanks for the replies, everyone! I guess it wasn't so much of a mystery Other than the cinnamon part, I had it right. I guess the cinnamon affects the wing markings, because they look green, so I was confused. I've been told that if he was a boy, his name should be Mr. E, so Mr. E it is!

This is Mystery. I named him/her that because I don't know anything about his/her mutations, except for a couple of guesses. I'm sure it's a recessive pied, I think olive green, and I'm leaning towards boy. I'm having a hard time getting any good pictures, so if these aren't good enough, I will try to add more later. So if anyone has any ideas about what mutations to label it with, please have a go! "> " > "> ">

:yes: :yes:

OOOOOHHH..... Now I get it!!! :laughter:

Woohoo! I got one right! (I think I'm better at the newborns than I am with the older chicks)

Would the youngest one be a boy, then?

well all birds i buy i ask to hold to check over if i cant do that i dont buy but if hen has no sighn of age i feel to see if she has layed yet .. if yes well thats 6 months straight their as around here the breeders breed them young sometimes before culling ( crul but they do it ) so then i look at way they sit is it slouched ,tall, is she active so on if i decide to by i just call her 6 months as that way she is covered cocks also i look for their masculinity but its easyer now as i just look for the colour ring with the show birds and with the pet types well i breed my own hens as you do for show and used same principle Wow, that's interesting. Maybe when I gain some experience, I will be able to tell if a hen has layed, or what signs of masculinity are.

Now I am getting confused! I thought that if the cock was opaline, that meant he has two genes for opaline (Xo), and therefore 100% of his hen chicks will get the opaline gene, and 100% of his cock chicks would be split for it ? (And maybe showing for it if they get one from their mother, too?) Splat, why do you say 50%, and everyone is agreeing, so I must have it wrong

These are great! Who needs lolcats?!

This seems like a good place for me to add some input. Please, I am no expert, but these types of feedback back and forth can help Jenn144 and me (and others) to learn. So here is how I figure my birds' ages: If it has bars all the way to its cere when I buy it, I figure it hasn't had its first moult yet. Then I assume that it was taken from its parents at the youngest possible age (bad breeder- out to make a buck! ) So I figure it is about 1-2 months old. (This is to err on the young side.) Then I wait for it to go into its first moult, and count back 3 months to see if my first guess was close. Then I sort of make an average of the two guesses, as to how old it is. Then I wait for its second moult, and check back to see if the original guesses place it in the 6-9 month range. I will sometimes make an adjustment as to when I think its birthday is, but I still try to err on the young side. If I buy one who already has its cap, and or iris rings, I check it over for pin feathers, and make a guess based on if I think its still in its first moult (3-4 mos), or if I think it's well past it's first moult. (5-6 mos) Then again, I wait for the next moult. If I have to wait a long time, I figure it was young when I bought it, and barely out of it's first moult. If the next moult comes quick, I figure it must have been a little bit older, so maybe almost 6 months old when I bought it. So what do you guys think? Am I on the right track, here? Critiques and pointers would be good for us newbies

I've always done just a little bit each day, too. And if I made a tad too much, it would go into ice cube trays to freeze. I found that on days when I was rushed, it was nice to have the cubes handy. This is the first time I made up a big batch, and I don't really think it took much longer than the usual, considering it's the same amount of cleanup, as far as knife, cutting board, chopper, mess all over the counter . (Just a bigger bowl.) Anyway, I got the idea because I got a big box of baby spinach leaves on sale at the store, and I knew from past experience, that using a little of it day by day, I end up throwing away half of it. And Cory, this is where I am lucky, because I am the mom!

Hi Cory! Nice to see you back. -Finnie

Okay, wouldn't want to do that, would I? I'd say about 1 tablespoon per bird, per day. Probably take me a year to go through it all, if it keeps. (I'll have to do an update post on how many years the stuff can freeze for! ) Here's the recipe. I adjusted Kaz's a little, for American measurements: 1 cup whole cornmeal pinch salt 2T olive oil (Kaz had peanut oil in it, which I don't have. I'm thinking of trying wheat germ oil, next time.) 2 cups all purpose flour, mixed with 1T baking powder (Whole wheat flour might be better, too) 3 eggs, including the shells 1/2 cup water (It was quite dry, which is okay. Maybe increase the water or the oil, or the eggs to make it more moist.) Mix all together, put in greased 7" x 11" pan, bake at 350 degrees for 40 minutes, or until golden. (I'm sure any size pan will do, just adjust the time to compensate for thickness, or even use muffin tins!) Sorry, I don't know what the metric equivalent of 350 degrees is, but it would be whatever you normally bake cakes, etc at. I'll try to remember to come back here and update, if I learn anything new about how this works out.

Soft food experiment, day 2: Today's discovery is that it is much less tedious to scoop the veggies onto a tray with an ice cream scooper, than it is to pack it into ice cube trays: "> I froze it like this, and then put the scoops into a freezer bag. I also discovered that once you mix in the egg biscuit crumbles, it no longer packs well. So to freeze that part of it, I just spread it out into a pan, froze it, and then broke it up and put it in a freezer bag. Here it is in the tray before freezing: "> This is how the egg biscuit loaf turned out: "> And here are the budgies eagerly waiting for me to get done chopping vegetables and give them some! :fingerscrossed: : "> That was yesterday. Today was day 3 of the experiment. I poured out a little bit of the vegetable-biscuit crumble mix into a bowl and thawed it in the microwave, just like I always do with the vegetable only mix. Only this time, I didn't give any to the budgies- I just left the test bowl of crumble to sit on the counter for 3 hours, to see how well it kept. I did the same thing with some of the egg-biscuit loaf that I had frozen all by itself. After thawing in the microwave, they both seemed just fine. After sitting on the counter for three hours, they still seemed fine. No different than the regular stuff I give the budgies. My result so far is that freezing the veg-biscuit mix overnight does not seem to affect its quality. It also doesn't seem to matter if the biscuit is mixed with vegetables or not. Next I plan to wait a week, and then do another thaw test with more of the biscuit crumbles, with and without veggies, and see if longer term freezing changes anything. In the meantime, I will keep offering whole pieces of egg biscuit loaf to the birds in hopes that they will eventually try it. (By the way, this is Kaz's egg biscuit recipe from the faq's section.)