Phoebes

Emmy is still doing that thing this time I got a short film. http://s1055.photobucket.com/user/bbbirdie/media/eatingtheswing082_zps87a70290.mp4.html

Robyn is right the spacing looks wrong when you scroll down they talk about spacing that is more than one half inch on the second cage.

I've only had one clutch myself but from what I heard it may depend on the mum. Mine did not care at all how long I took her babies for and just continued to take great care of them. I have heard that some birds do not like it.

Personally I much better like the second option because the bird can get more light. It would be really hard to put a lamp properly above the first cage. I mean even if you use a clamp light it would mean the only side that has a view has a light in the birds face.

I've had a stroke and it affected my capacity to build new memories. I looked at the first picture of babies and it is dated April 16th. She got the baby at three months of age. I will try to get her to upload the petting video. It is so cute. Taken April 16 of this year. Now she lets herself be thoroughly rubbed around the head and neck.

My daughter has one of the babies of my birds. He is the only bird in their home. She kept it up and finally the bird loves being scratched now. I think it's a good idea for the birds mental health to know they have a friend in the home. I think it's lovely to see her getting a great scratch and worth the wait and long training. Also the bird has a playtop cage and recently when she flew far from the cage my daughter said she just let her pick her up and put her back in the cage. That must be well worth it. I can't really get my birds in their cages but I got all six at the same time so it's impossible to train them or nearly.

Do you feed your bird boiled eggs or egg food? I would make sure to supplement some kind of protein till I get him to a vet. I know that parasite infestations can also cause more white blood cells than usual. How this effects the cere color I'm not sure. The only other thing I heard a brown cere could mean is testicular cancer. Please let us know how this turns out for him.

Found an interesting article on the subject of mites. http://www.avianweb.com/mites.html

I don't know much about bird diseases but could that be a feather mite or quill mite inside a feather? The end of it kind of looks like a feather shaft. http://www.birdmites.org/mites.html http://www.federmilb.../en/living.html My sister is a doctor so the one thing I know about any kind of infestation of parasites is that the host will show abnormalities in the levels of protein in the blood.

Your budgies are beautiful. I really love their colors. I have never had this happen however you could take just one to the vet and the advice you get would be good for all the birds. I have heard of people using Vaseline as well but they always say not to get any into the nostrils. I guess they apply it with a Q-tip sparingly or something. Your birds don't look like they have scaly face to me but I have poor eyesight. Once I thought one of my girls had it but it turned out she just had a bit of hyperkeratosis. You could pick out the one you think is the worst and bring him or her to the vet. I'm sure whatever treatment she prescribes could be arguably given to all the others as a preventative. This would save on costs. Here a vet visit would be around 60 dollars. Robyn can people get Ivamectin online? Also I have seen the two spellings Ivermectin and Ivamectin is it the same thing? Dr Foster and smith seems to have both but for horses so the doses would be really wrong. That's why I have to go to the vet I really would have no idea how to get the product otherwise.

I had problems with males fighting when I had a ratio of three males to one female. However Noah who initiated it all still wants all the girls. The other two boys don't fight. It might depend on the character of your boys.

I've been looking around on forums and so far your image is the best one for people growing stuff for their budgies. You should be very proud of this crop.

When Allie started biting I am not sure she even knew it was my hand. My daughter observed the same thing with her bird. The bird would start to bite and she would stick her face in the cage and talk softly and she stopped biting. When I would say to Allie "go gently" she would look up startled like "I'm biting this, what does that have to do with you". When my daughters bird bit her hand she then kissed her face like the two had no connection. That is how she figured out to use this to her advantage. Birds seem to like fingernails and act like they might be little beaks. I think it's just a territorial thing with their cage. Like a teenager in his room listening to music being disturbed by a parent. This worked for my daughter. My technique is not really great. I just let Allie bite me for twenty minutes and after that she was not interested in biting convinced it did nothing. My hand was sore for days though. So I can't recommend it.

Thanks I'm kind of bored these days. I'm so glad to share my "bedaines" (we call them bellies) with someone.

Sorry about your loss. I hope the others are fine.

Sorry I forgot the vet asked me to try to add more fruit. I have been putting apple slices through the bars of the cage.

I've been at this less then two years but I think he is a boy. Wait for more experienced members to confirm though. To me the cere looks blue. I don't see white around the nostrils but then my glasses are broken so...

Can't let these guys out at the same time because Noah backs Charlie into a corner and tries to have his way with Emerald. They decide it's nap-time.

My birds splash corn all over the walls and it dries there. When you look at the painted wall close up it's kind of like the surface of a golf ball. There are all kinds of places the corn just sticks. The corn came off the poster nice today.

It looks like hyperkeratosis to me. My bird had a slight case of it. My vet did not recommend any changes to the diet. We have been giving her booster since we had her. We put the booster on the seed. My vet does not like anything in the water, she says it makes bacteria grow. My case was very light probably because we have basically been treating her since she got here before the signs even showed up. She came to us very tiny for her age. Maybe the vet could give yours vitamins directly. We give grated carrots and biological broccoli, also the birds took some time to get used to boiled egg. I put one in every once in a while and left it there for two hours and finally after quite some time the birds took a liking to it.

Love the photo's, looks like they are all healthy and so beautiful.

Well you guys are a treasure house. That garden is so inspiring as are the images. Where did you get the seeds Martine? Do you mean you planted the white millet? I tried the red and got very small stuff they could not eat. After reading this I am less discouraged about my spinfex failure. Pauli I have tried the seed I feed the birds and I think I did not start it early enough. The balcony here gets no light so it's a poor growing season. However I am going to purchase new lights very soon for getting a better head start. I am going to purchase a 48 inch one like this. http://www.wayfair.c...V4-HYF1017.html

I only had one clutch and had the same worries. Glad you cleared it up.

I ordered one avian background to see what it looked like. The size is perfect. I wish I would have taken more care putting it up. I just threw it up real quick and it's six inches too high. Unfortunately the velcro tapes don't come off the wall so easy and I'll have to touch up the paint when I want to move it down. That's what I get for being lazy. I guess I should have used a pencil to get the height exact. It is exactly the width of my cages and a bit longer. The plastic is nice and thick so when my bird room is repainted I will put one up behind each cage. I'm not sure the birds notice it.

I had ordered seeds online with the intent of growing a budgie garden of things they eat in Australia like spinefex grass. Unfortunately everything froze in the mail and nothing grew. I do get lemongrass easily during the summer but they have destroyed all of it along with the eucalyptus tree. I can't stand the idea of giving them lettuce and things with pesticides so I'm limited in what greens I can give them. They have been playing with the alfalfa blocks but it's obviously too compacted and dry. I searched high and low for the steam cut stuff which is impossible to buy here. When I find biological broccoli it's always so old looking. Before I lived outside of town and had a garden (I'm in a condo) I grew my own. Broccoli often gets these larva on it when it's not treated with pesticides and usually it is soaked in salty water so they will let go and float to the surface of the water. The salt probably removes much of the broccoli's water making it last a very short time on store shelves. I may try another website for the seed. I need a company that knocks when the seed arrives instead of leaving it in the mailbox when it's minus 40 out. I can easily get biological carrots and corn is said to retain less pesticides than many other veggies.