Shann_rk

This is the little guy I'm hand rearing at the moment. He/she's just under 3 weeks old. I'm debating whether to name him/her Archimedes or Artemis depending on what sex he/she turns out to be... Its been a while since I've bred budgies but from what I can remember he (I'm just going call him a 'him' for now) seems to be quite big for his age. I'll post more photos when his feathers come through properly

Thanks I tried it this morning and he took a lot more of the food much quicker, and I didn't have to reheat. Also, does anyone know roughly how much weight he should be putting on each day/week? I'm weighing him each time I feed him and this morning he was 1g lighter than when I pulled him from the nest but has put that 1g back on this arvo... and he's eating about 2-4g food each meal. Any ideas if that sounds right?

I've read once that its to tell other birds "I'm okay, I'm relaxed, I'm healthy" but I can't say for certain. All my birds do that when I walk past or when the other birds approach and it doesn't seem to be an aggressive thing... But who knows?

Hi again, So I came home to my parents place for the weekend so that I could bring the new budgie (who we've finally decided to call Lady) and I went to check on the baby budgie I have in the aviary. He's about 2.5 weeks old but as he's an only child he seems to be developing quite quickly. Anyway, there are 3 breeding boxes in the aviary because I always like to give them a few options (theres only one female in there at present) and I noticed that she was going in to sit in one of the empty ones and dad was following her in. Turns out she's left the baby alone and has started to lay eggs in the other box . This is the second clutch she's layed this season (although only one egg hatched and survived, she trampled 5 babies and although all of the 16 eggs she layed were fertile, only 6 hatched and only 1 survived ... Thinking I may not breed from her again.) So I've decided to hand raise the little one. I've reared lorikeets before but never a budgie and I just had a few questions. I've read up on how often to feed and temperatures etc and even though I've only fed him twice so far he has taken well to being hand fed. Firstly, does anyone have any handy tips for keeping the temp of the food warm long enough to complete the feed as he refuses the food the moment it gets below luke warm, which means I'm reheating the food 2 or 3 times each feed. Secondly, I've bought a budgie hand rearing formula but should I been supplimenting with anything else? The food seems to be fairly complete but I'm paranoid about having him become deficient in something. And lastly, I don't own an incubator but I do have a heat mat that sits at 27 degrees, will this be sufficient for the little one at night if I cover it with a towel and make sure it only sits at one end of the box I'm keeping him in (so there should be a range of temperatures within the box, which at the moment is just covered by a towel, obviously as he gets older I'll move him into a cage). Thats about it at the moment, but any advice would be appreciated

The vet seemed to think it wasn't anything serious, she said it was most likely a bacterial infection/imbalance brought on by the stress of being moved around so much over the last couple of weeks but prescribed a course of psittavet (a type of tetracycline I think) just in case and told me to come back in a few days if she doesn't improve (I've decided that I think its a girl, but its always difficult to tell with recessive pied budgies ). Hopefully the antibiotics will kick in soon and she'll be okay

I usually go to Cannon and Ball down at Wollongong (thats where my parents live and they keep most of my birds while I'm at uni) and they're great. But its good to know there's other avian vets close by

Yeah I've had a couple of budgies like him/her (I'm leaning more towards a her at the moment) whose names were Casper and Cirrus. My friend and I took her to the vet today and I had to give them a name, unfortunately my friend got in before me so at that vet at least she'll be forever known as Lady Pooper-Smith... I suppose I could shorten it to Lady, or following your advice maybe Nimbus?

So this is DT (which stands for d*ck toggs according to one of my housemates) or Lady Pooper-Smith (according to the other housemate)... I'm trying to think up a better and less embarrassing name for the little one, but its a work in progress ... making a mess ... chasing after Shia, my rainbow lorikeet (Don't worry, I was supervising the entire time) ... and Shia running away becuase she's a big pushover

Thanks I'll take him to a vet to get him checked out... maybe not the same vet I got him from

I have a male budgie who's a bit homicidal. He used to rip the throats out of other male birds in the aviary (at first I thought it was a rat or something but I caught him at it one day). Admittedly this is very unusual and the only reason I could ever think of is that he didn't have the mate that he wanted and was eliminating the competition (because he never touched the females). Basically my point is not to rule out the idea that males can be responsible. In my experience if all else fails its best to remove the problem female during breeding season as hormones make them more territorial at that time...

Hi guys, I've just adopted a new budgie, well its probably more accurate to say that I had him dropped on me by my housemate who works at a vet surgery (the vet was going to put him down just because they couldn't find a new home for him!) Anyway he is a recessive pied (with violet colouring), and we named him DT. I'm pretty sure he was hand raised as he's VERY friendly and I plan to put him out in the aviary once I make sure he's healthy. I just wanted some opinions about some odd things I've noticed him doing... First thing is that at night he raises the top part of his beak, regurgitates and then chews on the regurgitated food, its like he's ruminating... At first I thought he was just grinding his beak, but you can see the food. I've never seen that in any of my other birds. The second thing is that he constantly worries at his feet and while they don't seem to be inflamed, there is a lot of dead skin that seems to be bothering him. Any ideas why this could be? Apart from that he seems bright and happy (as long as he's out of the cage and sitting with me or one of my housemates), although he doesn't seem to know what to do with vegetables and grass yet but I'm working on it. Any insight would be appreciated, Shannon