Anya

Our very kind neighbours have a huge outdoor aviary and one of their budgies got injured by another bird and hasn't recovered in a week or two. We have two happy birds, Sunshine and Cutie, and they asked us if we'd take the injured bird in, since we have a warmer (indoors), quiet cage with only two birds. Sunshine and Cutie are quite close, though they occasionally squabble. Both have clipped wings, are comfortable being handled, and are quite young with no health problems. Should we take in the injured bird? We are concerned that it might be prone to disease, which would be a problem. But even if it was okay outside from the injury trauma, is it a good idea? We'd like to help our neighbours, who are very loving pet owners. Any advice??

Thanks Elly this exactly my concern - when Cutie hides in his cage, do I gently bring him out and encourage him to interact? Or do I leave him on his own for a bit? When he "snuggles" when he's out, I guess we slowly encourage him to move out of his hiding place? We are finding that if we have both birds out together, it works well because Sunshine is so confident - so Cutie follows Sunshine around. They meander around on our bedspread nibbling at us. This seems like the right thing to do?

I agree baby birds tend to do this quite often. How old is he? Thanks everyone - really helpful. Intuitively I thought it might be something like this but we dont know their exact age. We bought them from the shop on Monday, already 'hand reared' . Will try to find out how old they are. I'd already given Cutie a little box from espresso cups to hide in, to see if that helped, and both he and Sunshine were found snuggling in it together. Good that this seems like the right thing to do. We are happy to help with the cuddles anyway.

We have two new budgies (2 days since they arrived), Sunshine and Cutie. Sunshine seems quite settled already, by Cutie seems more skittish, hops away from a hand in the cage but then when held, burrows into an armpit or palm, hiding his head. and snuggling into whatever small space he can find. Is this okay? Anya (new to forum)