Simon

Please, I need urgent help! You need a little bit of back story. Please bear with me. My wife and I have recently moved out from living with my parents. Our aviary is fairly large so we haven’t moved it yet. That's the back story. I went round today to check on the birds and found that one is very ill. I tried to get a photo but was unsuccessful. Hopefully I’ll trigger some solutions just by describing her symptoms. Stella, our budgie, is missing a lot of feathers from around her bum and is flying very awkwardly. All around her bum is all black as well. She also has something black all around the edge of her beak and it seems to be eating her beak away. I will be going back in the morning to catch her and have a closer look. I’ll bring her back to our place and apply whatever treatment is needed. Please, any help will be greatly appreciated! Simon

Thanks Maesie. Good tips. I'll give them a crack

My wife and I decided to have a go at taming a budgie. All our other birds love corn, celery, millet spray. We've tried all three of these on Peanut and he hasn't touched any of them. Any suggestions? He is about 6 wks old. Thanks Simon

Thanks guys and thanks for the link Hannah! It is a great article!

Please help! My budige was hatched around nov 22 last year. He (i think) is a Lutino and his beak wasn't quite right so we decided to keep him and tame him. He had like scratches on his beak. I just noticed today that it looks like his beak is being eaten away. One side of his beak at the edge is white, not the normal colour. I took him out to have a look and I'm not sure. Any advice? Does this ring a bell with anyone? What can I give him to strengthen his beak? He has cuttlefish. Thanks. Please hurry. I want to catch this early. Simon

Elly, I had a quick look for you FAQ's but had no luck. Any chance you could give me a link? Simon

My wife and I have just finished with our third batch of chicks! Very exciting. We kept the first batch, sold the second and we are hand taming one of the third! I'm just looking for some tips for taming and training my boy. He is a lutino, hatched on Nov 22 so is about 5 wks old. His name is Peanut and he is VERY active. We put a toy in for him and he loves it. It is a heap of strands of cotton or something like that with beads tied into it. He tries to rip it apart and hides in it. Its great to watch! So far we have got him standing on our fingers when we push on his belly. We put our hands in his cage and he jumps on our hands and tries everything to get out the door! Little punk! I can also put my finger out in front of him and he steps on, if he feels like it. Any tips would be great! Thanks Simon

Our little guy is perching! Not sure if he's flying very well yet, but he's perching so thats a start. He looked very proud on the branch!

He has four bro/sis that we're taking down to the pet store tomorrow. They are some beautiful colours. Their father is green and gold but the mother is a rainbow of budgie colours and she's passed that onto her offspring. I think this little guy might be staying with us. I've wanted a budgie to hand tame for a while but it just hasn't happened. I might make him a little jungle gym with some platforms and stuff. He seems to like it on the floor though. I have a ladder in his current cage but he stays on the floor. Thanks for your help guys. Now I can avoid this in the future! I'll keep you posted on our little guy! I've got four cockatiel eggs and a CRAZY father at the moment as well! Thanks again Simon

Our budgie doesn't look like the first picture. It sits on the ground all the time but not with its foot out in such a pronounced way. He has started flying a little bit. When he perches on my finger he tends to lean to one side. Sometimes he grips with both feet, but often one will have toes straight, not gripping. Possibly a broken foot?

No photos yet. I think he is getting worse though... He, well I'm saying he because I figure thats better than it!, is still on the bottom of the cage, not flying, lying on his chest and doesn't seem to be getting any better. He sits up sometimes and we have been taking him out of the cage and making him stand on our fingers or a stick but he tires really quickly. His leg doesn't stick out to the side much. He tends to lean to one side and doesn't use one of his feet at all. I'll try for photos.

I'll try a picture tomorrow when I get it out. Its a big ordeal! I've been looking at some pics online. Its not as bad as some I saw. Some have both legs out 90 degrees. This chick has just one leg that sticks out a little. We will be selling the healthy chicks and this one if someone wants it. If not, I'm happy to keep it and hand tame it. Does it take a lot to care for a budgie with a splayed leg? Thanks for your help! I really appreciate this and the cockatiel forum! What would I do without you! The internets not all **** and Nigerian emails after all!

Should I separate this budgie from the others? Will it get picked on? And how do I prevent this in the future? Thanks for your help by the way.

Just recently, its been about 5 wks now I'd say, I hatched 5 baby budgies. Well I didn't hatch them, but I watched intently! 4 of the 5 seem to be okay and are now sitting up on the perches. The last hasn't quite gotten there yet. It spends all its time on the ground, often lying flat on its stomach. I think there must be something wrong with one of its feet. It tends to lean to one side when it is standing up and when I put it on my finger it doesn't clasp with both feet and finds it VERY hard to balance. Do male budgies have a history of being aggressive with their young? I think we caught the father rough housing some of the babies so we took him out a few days ago. Several of the budgies seemed to have the foot problem but they seem to have gotten over it. Any suggestions? I have been taking the ground budgie out daily and holding it on my finger to see if I can strengthen it or get it used to perching, but I don't know if its helping. It seems to get really tired. Am I doing the right thing? Any suggestions? Thanks Simon

One of my girls is getting this crustiness around one of her eyes. It almost looks like her cere is expanding. Any advice? Thanks Simon

I have a pair of quails who hatched 7 babies on Aug 5. In the days following, I noticed that the father pecked at the chicks feet so we put the mother in a cage with the chicks away from the father. Now some of the chicks have been pecking the other chicks feet. Today I noticed blood on their cuttlefish. I've taken out two of the chicks and have them in a shoe box with a lamp on them and some water and food. My question is will they be okay without the mother at this age? Thanks. Simon

My Budgie, Romeo, is balding. He has started losing feathers just above his cere. He was paired with another budgie, Stella previously but they had no luck so we have put him in a cage with Rosie to see if we can get any results. Rosie has had one clutch of eggs to a different male. They are both old enough to breed. One more thing, we have a mouse roaming around and i think it may be getting into the cage. I put some ratsak out last night so hopefully that will get rid of that! Any advice? He doesn't seem any different. He is still a great singer, he gets around fine, he is eating and drinking. Please help. Thanks Simon

I have seen my female and her son doing things in the aviary. This is the reason we have separated them. I'm worried that she may get egg bound so i have put a box in so she can lay. How does a bird get egg bound? So should I take the box out for 2 weeks and then return it? Thanks.

I am trying to pair up two of my birds who have been close to other birds. I have separated the two I want together in a cage apart from the aviary. Any advice on how I can encourage them to breed? Thanks. Simon

In February, late Feb, we had our first babies hatch. Sadly, I stupidly lost the father and so the mother raised the chicks by herself. She did a really good job too, 2 lutinos and 1 spitting image of the father. So keeping in mind that the babies are about 4 mths old, I just caught the mother and one of her offspring in the throngs of passion. I know he is too young to breed. Is there a problem with related birds breeding. This probably sounds like a stupid question, and I'm sure there will be birth defects in the hatchlings, but I thought I'd ask. At the moment they are in an aviary with no nestboxes. I plan to seperate them to individual cages to breed. To solve this problem, we thought of a solution, but I need to introduce you to the rest of the family. Romeo and Stella are our original pair. We tried breeding them in the February session with no success. First, someone was eating the eggs, then Stella laid 5 eggs but nothing came of them. She wasn't very good at sitting on them and liked to investigate every noise. Next we have Rosie. Rosie is the mother of Daffy (the lutino we kept) and Jnr. Daffy is a girl by the way and Jnr a boy. Jack was the father that I lost. okay, our cunning plan. We pair up Stella and Jnr (who I know is too young to breed yet), Romeo and Daffy or Rosie and we get a new male for Daffy or Rosie. Is this okay? I feel bad splitting up Romeo and Stella but they had no success last time. Is it okay to split them up? They will be breeding in individual cages. Any advice would be great. Sorry for the worlds longest post! Simon.

Thanks guys. I wasn't sure on the pellets. I think I'll just add a little pellet to thier seed mix. Thanks again. BBC, always a fount of knowledge! Simon

So I went to the pet store last night to get food ready for the arrival of my tiels today and was talking to one of the staff. She advised us to get Passwell's Crumble. Its good for our tiels and budgies and the staff member said it was better than seed. She also said that seed was quite fatty and the birds having seed all the time is like us eating pizza all the time. Is this right? I've never heard that anywhere else. I buy seed from the same pet store and also offer our birds carrot, corn, celery, an occasional millet spray. Thanks. Simon

Liv, can you tell me a bit about your closed aviary breeding? Do you just take a pair out and put them in another cage to breed? Do they need to be in line of sight of other budgies or is hearing enough? And when do you know to isolate them? One last thing. I have a pair of budgies that are related and seem to be taking an interest in each other. Sadly, I lost the father. :WobbleSign: Any suggestions? Thanks. Simon

I have the opportunity of acquiring some cockatiels for free! I have just finished my aviary and my budgies are enjoying their new home with some quails. Is it okay to pur cockatiels in with budgies? Thanks Simon

I don't know of many places around me that sell quails. Anyone live in the Brisbane area? Towards Cleveland? How many quails can you have in my 1.2m x 1.5m area? Stuff I've read says you can have two ladies to one lucky guy. I'm thinking I might just get one pair though. Anybody? I would like to get King quails too I think. Are they the native ones? Apart from lifting the feathers!, how do you tell boys from girls in quails? This forum is so helpful!