We are SO excited to welcome our baby girl (?I think?) to our home. She was hand-reared for us, and I would like to know how to go about continuing to tame her and bond with her. I think she is about 7 weeks old. The breeder told me the baby hatched around May 1st (she forgot to write it down), but I think she's a little off. I only hope this baby really is hand-raised, and that the breeder didn't just say that...

 

Thanks,

Caryn

 

Meet "Inyoni" (the Zulu word for "bird")

http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c137/sem...h/Photos001.jpg

Edited June 2, 200619 yr by Caryn

Congratulations on your new addition, gorgeous coloration. I believe an opaline clearwing.

 

You can start at, www.budgietalk.com, is a great site to start reading on, this is eterri's stie one of our members.

 

The first thing I would do is get rid of the dowel perches, they do not exercise your budgies feet and either put in natural wood branches that you can make yourself from safe wood or you can purchase already made at the pet store. Rope perches are also excellent because they are soft for their feet, stay away from sandpaper covers.

 

You will know if your baby was handled by humans from a young age, she or he should not be too frightened by you and should finger perch quickly. Those who have not been handled by humans are more timid in the beginning. You can tell by their behavior.

 

Make sure you start to provide your new budgie veggies of all kinds on a daily basis, in the health food section you will find suggestions and even pinned topics on what is unsafe. Along with providing a good quality seed diet or/and pellet.

 

Provide a cuttlebone in the cage and fresh water daily. Do not put water and food dishes under perches or the bird will soil in their food and water.

 

As for taming, have your new budgie around you as much as you can. Around you doesn't always mean out of the cage and sitting on you but the cage in the same room where you are (avoid the kitchen area when cooking because of toxic fumes), spend 15 mins on training and you can do that 2x a day.

 

Quick questions for you

 

How does your new bird act when you approach the cage?

When you put your hand in the cage?

Will he or she come out readly for you already?

 

Giving us some information on he/she is already behaving helps us give you suggestions too.

 

Ask more questions and post more pictures as he/she progresses. Do you know the sex?

Thank you so much for all that input. I will change the perches as soon as possible!

 

I got 2 better pics of the bird:

picture #1

picture #2

 

From what I can see, I think she's a girl. Looks like there are white circles on here ceres. Her brother (1 week older) had a clearly blue ceres.

 

She arrived at our house in the same box as her brother who has a clearly blue ceres. When I opened the box in the cage, they flew out, and she actually sat on my arm for quite some time. Eventually I had to encourage her onto the perch to get my arm out! Then I had to go back in and catch her to put her in her own cage and that didn't go too smoothly - she avoided me. Once she was in her cage she sat on the perch quietly for the longest time. I'm not sure if it was a good or bad decision but I decided to hang a toy in the cage so I went back in. She avoided me again (not that I blame her!). She hopped onto the swing and has been there ever since. I'm sitting next to the cage ght now making reassuring noises and talking to her every now and then, and she is closing her eyes.

 

I know that the last time she had water was before she went into the box for transportation, which was 7 hours ago. How often do they normally drink?

everything sounds normal, did you take her brother too?

 

Go to Terri's site and follow the instructions about finger taming in the cage, I could repeat it but she does such a better job of explaining it.

 

Also if you keep her cage on all three sides covered she will feel secure and then slow remove it a little bit every day. That is what I did with Pretty, Merlin was never scared of me he was handled alot by his previous owner.

 

That second picture is wonderful the first doesn't show her yellow did you use a flash? If you can get a closer picture of her cere we can tell you at least try and let you know the sex.

We did take her brother, but he's with my brother-in-law, since I didn't want to bite off more than I could chew! It's been many years since I had a budgie, and I really want to focus on taming her for now. Breeding (with English Budgies) will hopefully come later! I was told that you can't keep 2 budgies in the same cage and expect them to bond with you.

 

I got some much better pictures (no flash)...

 

 

This is her back

 

This is her Front

 

And this is one of her cere (well, half of it!)

 

Actually, this one is probably a better one of her cere

 

I will cover 3 sides of her cage...

That is what I did, I had Pretty for 9 months before I brought another one into our home which is Merlin (he is an English). It was a good decision to wait, Pretty bonded with me, he started to talk and he continues to be a good companion and still love Merlin. They have been together for a week now since (I did the 30 day quarantine).

 

As for your bird, I hope more will come on it is hard to say. I see the slightness of blue in the white and Pretty has white around his nostrils too and so does Merlin with the light bluish in there so right now I will say boy because it looks very close to Merlin's (but you never know).

 

Just a gorgeous baby you have there . If you want to see if I am right on her mutation you can post her pictures in Budgie Mutations. I believe he is an Yellowface Opaline Clearwing and in this picture I think I see dominant pied in there too. So Skyblue Yellowface Opaline Clearwing Pied, see that the others say.

Is it true that cocks are generally less moody than hens? If so, I hope she is a he

 

I tried my hand at identifying the mutations using budgietalk.com and I came up with pretty much what you did! I said a skyblue, opaline, clearwing, Type 2 yellowface, Recessive Pied!

 

I think the budgie I had when I was a kid was a British budgie, because he was much bigger than this one!

 

She still hasn't moved from her perch! When should I start getting worried that she hasn't had any water?

Edited June 2, 200619 yr by Caryn

I think everyone has their different opinions on moodness of the different sexes. I know Rainbow here prefers her hens over her cocks, me personally. I have only had boys so I don't know about hens. I have heard they are biter and chew more but when any bird is hormonal they can be moody.

 

I would change the recessive to dominant pied since she/he has the band across the belly, Pretty is a recessive in my signature. There are actually 3 different types of pieds. Merlin is a pied too he has a spot on the back of his head.

 

Type 2 would be if the yellow is going through the belly area is it? I only saw it on the face and wings which I believe is normal for the Type 1 mutation. Her 2 pictures look different the first one makes her very yellow and the second one is only a little bit of yellow which one denotes her coloring better? Flash makes a different.

 

English budgies are bigger and fluffier, Merlin is an English Pretty is an American budgie in my siggy.

 

As for water don't worry you usually don't see them drink water it is very normal, in the wild they don't drink much. As she becomes comfortable you may see it later on. I am only just seeing Pretty drink water after 9 months, Merlin was within a week.

 

It is normal for her to be super quiet, as long as she is not fluffied up and looking sickly she is okay. Remember each budgie has a different personality. Merlin was playing immediately and Pretty was sitting in one spot for 9 month (Laughing out loud) (he was a quieter budgie).

 

Keep us updated, I see that alot of people think girl - I am going to go boy for right now because my experience with boy my budgies have clear bluish whitish nostril rings. Time will tell the cere will continue to change over the course of a couple months.

I think it's a girl.

I think it's a girl.

l agree , she looks like a girl .

she is real pretty .

What a beautiful bird!!!! I think male.