Amy S

:question: Yeti HAHAHAHAHAHA I love it!! :raincloud: Moose is good too

I caught my Bugalugs this morning as I thought he looked abit "off". Turns out he is fine, he was just having a quiet moment haha In the process, I checked his eyes - he does have the faintest hint of an iris ring after all. whoops

When I first saw this thread I thought someone had used the canary red color factor liquid drops to change the feather colour...until stupid me remembered that the red factor liquid would enhance ALL feathers, not just the wings. I think budgies looking the way these ones do are rather strange and not really something I'd want in my aviary. We all like colors and mutations but if it IS due to someone playing around with chemicals and not an act of nature, then it's very much a definite no no. AHAHA If budgies really did look like that, wouldn't we go rub budda's tummy for more good luck? Or go see Mary because its a miracle? Just out of curiosity too - to get that orange color naturally, wouldn't you need a yellow budgie to breed with a red one?

Yes the photo is working now It looks like Pip is a hen coming into breeding condition, thought I'm not entirely sure. How old is Pip? What exact colour was the cere before? Completely blue? or blue and white?

The actions of Cutie sounds to me like a baby who has only recently come out of the nest box. When they are with their siblings IN the nest box they burrow in together and "hide". When they have recently come out, they do this also, but on the floor usually in a container of some sort - icrcream containers work well with one side cut out, and these are placed in the bottom of the cage for them Maybe it was taken from its nest too early? Not sure, one of the more experienced members will be able to help more than I can

The photo isn't showing - you may have moved the picture in photobucket causing the link to break?

The Cere is the coloured bit above the beak (nose) In females it can be brown, brown with white, pale blue with white (out of breeding condition)Males have deep blue or purplish blue, but they DON'T have any signs of white - white on the cere indicates a female. As they are young, it may be harder to tell what sex they are too. Which is why a close up of their ceres would be good These are my birds. The first hen Skylah, has a white and brown cere. My hen on the right "Cinnamon" has a nice deep brown - she is in breeding condition. Santa, Sprite and Bugalugs all have deep blue ceres, though you can't really see Santa's in those Sorry I can't show you some young ones (with purply blueish ceres) as I don't have young birds and I don't take download other people's photos without permission

I'm so very happy for you. They look to be doing well and well fed I can't wait to start breeding, and having my own pinkies to put on here. I'm going to wait for awhile though p.s I love the before and during photos of new hatchling

I love him too Finnie! I love his markings

They're looking really good Dave

I've not heard of doing that BUT if it works, then why not? I would think that a little bit of sting from pepper is much better than a sad slow death from blood loss. Besides - don't we sting when we put betadine/antiseptics or salt/salt water/sea water in our wounds? Wounds always seem to heal much better, don't they?

Gosh wow!! What a difference! He's a beauty, though he was rather cute when he was pale :rofl: All your greywings are stunning

Want an opinion from a newly fledged budgie owner? Too bad you're gonna get it anyway :rofl: To me a Bird Mill is: a nasty, unclean, smelly, disgusting looking lot of tiny aviaries and/or cages - filled with piles of bird poop, mites, bugs and hundreds of straggly tatty looking birds that have never seen daylight, nor had fresh air and have eggs, new pinkies and young fledglings all in the same cage. Most likely no perches. They may have a newspaper floor if they're lucky, but even that will get feral within a day They have murky water, husks instead of seed and feathers galore from constant mite and disease moult and often lots of dead, dying or sick and diseased birds. These birds will often go unnoticed as the cages are so overcrowded that it wont be until there is an empty cage that the owner will find sad little piles of feathers and bones... To be honest I don't even know if a person of this sort would even know what illness their birds would have and how to treat them. To me, Kaz, your aviaries are: A hotel resort for budgies. It's clean, tidy, doesn't smell. There are no poops piled up anywhere, nor are there dead birds (or skeletons of), Definitely NO tatty looking diseased or sick birds nor murky water. They are medicated when necessary.They have an abundant amount of fresh seed, broccoli, carrot, beetroot, millet sprays - all sorts of yummy treats - peppermint gum, eucalyptus leaves. I even said to you I'd live in your aviary!! You don't breed a hen 20 times a year - or even 4 times. If you were going to do that, you'd have let Omelette** go for gold and continue to raise clutch after clutch after clutch. ** I say Omelette as she is the only one I know of that has wanted to keep raising clutches** You know what is wrong with your ill birds and you treat them, and on the odd occasion you don't what is wrong with them - off to the vet they go! I don't pretend to know much about budgies yet, but I WILL say this forum and its members have been the best source of information I've managed to find! Kaz, you are wise and filled with so much information, I can't believe someone has dared fault you in any way. Besides if you've made a mistake with things - you correct them :rofl: On different note though - even owning two budgies in a cage and they accidently breed would be enough to classify as a bird mill to some people.

I was going to say how exciting!! But oh gosh what disappointment and frustration you must be feeling! I do hope you are able to have it all rectified, so much effort and hassle for someone else's mistake. I agree - Paypal is the way to go. I know they act fast and it works. I made a claim through them once after the seller refused to make contact with me (I made 4 enquiries over two weeks) and PAypal got onto it straight away. The seller made contact quick smart after that. Good luck :raincloud:

oh it may not have been me haha but my skyblue cock as she seems to have bonded with him :raincloud: I caught them snuggling together and preening each other just before. I know, I feel abit silly now, placing it in that category. I'm just so lucky she has come back.

Lots of pinkies! How exciting for you! I'm very pleased for you Finnie

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Callistemon That is a link to a page Dave put on here a few weeks ago I'm pretty sure willow bottlebrush is safe as it is a member of the callistemon family but just check on there to see if its the one you have

SHE CAME BACK!!!!! :rofl: :rofl: awwwww soooo happy! I found her clinging to the side of her cage this morning! Wow what a relief, I am sooooo sooo happy! :raincloud: I was so worried. Now my beautiful girl is back :rofl:

I thought after I wrote this that I should have put this in Budgie Safety. Thanks Kaz, I'll do just that tomorrow! My next door neighbour has a massive aviary and another house down the road also has a large one - I shall ask them to keep a look out. And do a lost leaflet for the letter boxes. It has gotten me abit flustered as I'm trying so hard to do the right thing by my birds I do hope she comes back, she was a loud little bird but i adored her so much.

My lovely sky blue/cobalt spangle hen, Skylah flew away today I went to check on my budgies today as I had swapped them over to the mini aviary/cage for their release into the big aviary tomorrow. They were skittish (understandably) and had knocked over their seed container. I refilled it and as I placed it back in the cage - she spooked, tried to take flight and flitted out the cage door - right next to my wrist If I were only slightly more to the left, I'd still have her. She was my first hen whom was given to me as a youngster when her previous owner didn't want her and was going to release her. I was slowly bringing her back to good health. Poor thing was almost featherless, very skinny and had mites all over her. I must have been doing something right because she had had her first moult and her colours became a vivid cobalt almost violet (instead of her sky blue) and was coming into breeding condition, which surprised me greatly but was extremely pleased about. She would have been perfect for my Santa and trial breeding (before show breeding) to see what colours I could get. Unfortunately I am no longer able to do that. Hopefully I can get another similar to her again one day If only those types of cage/aviaries had safety doors (AND my own stupidity ) then I'd still have my beautiful girl. Hopefully someone finds her and gives her a good home, but sadly that rarely happens. Love you beautiful girl Sorry if this

Hi and welcome Would love to see some of your birds when you have time to post pics up I love seeing everyone's photos.

My dad suggested this too when we had numerous male cats prowling around our house. Nasty smelly things, used to pee all over everything marking our yard as THEIR territory. My cat is female but STERILISED and still she paraded around as though she were on heat. Floozy of a cat! We have not done this to rid our cat problem I don't know what has happened, but they haven't been around for almost a year now (YAYAYAY) We have a cat trap we used, but never caught anything in it.

I was going to answer, but KAz beat me to it haha Yes I definitely have the wire. I just built the shade cloth into the framework of the aviary. I am planning on it and very much looking forward to it! Would love to meet you, and every other budgie nut around! Thanks so much!! I noticed when I was trying to post more pictures that they kept adding to the previous post I had done, so I waited until someone else had posted and then I added more! I do completely agree that apart from everyone enjoying photos, like we all do - it gives brilliant ideas, information and suggestions - which I totally love. There have been numerous ideas to my dream aviary which I have taken on board and my plans are beginning to look a bit different from when I started.

I did that with my aviary I just got. I also took all the clips off the toys that I have built and purchased and gave them a good dousing too I am well aware of the risks. I once had a beautiful little sky blue spangle cock who got zinc poisoning. The vet said he didn't have long to live and sure enough died not long after That was when I was about 8 and no one told us when we were starting out with budgies what we were meant to do.

On hot days I've been putting cooler packs on top of the cages, underneath shade covers. The budgies sit on the top perch closest to the cooler packs - they work SOOO well. I bought a set of three from Woolies. I also have a plastic bowl that has the outer edge hollow for filling with either hot water to keep bowl contents warm or cold water to keep bowl contents cool. I have been freezing it and then once it is frozen, I fill to bowl up with water and it stays cool for a few hours during the day - its brilliant Does that make sense?