My sister and I went to Petco today............and I am sure you can guess what happened! Of course we went and looked at the budgies....and she says "That one's really pretty!" and I agreed (she's soooo cute!) and so of course we left the store with her. She super cute, but she's also really clumsy....(Laughing out loud) She fell off the perch at the store! I'm pretty sure she's a girl, please correct me if I am wrong. Also let me know if you have any name ideas. Here she is-

 

FRONT-

 

BACK-

 

SIDE-

Aww!!!

 

 

Looks to me ike a REALLY REALLY REALLY dirty cinnamon mauve opaline odminant pied male...but oculd be female....

 

Why is she so dirty? Ive never been to a PetCo, ive only heard bad things from them...were they are that dirty? None the less...its stunning!

 

Kirb

I can't really tell from the picture if it is boy or girl, a better picture of the cere with no flash so it doesn't wash out would be excellent .

 

I agree though she looks very dirty...I hope she is healthy since you said she fell off her perch. I don't want to alarm you but to me that may be signs of an illness vs just being clumsy.

 

You may want her checked out by a registered bird vet. Make sure you quarentine (you probably knew that already though).

 

She/He is a very gorgeous bird.

Edited December 5, 200618 yr by lovey

Actually the store and the cage he was in was very clean, it's a pretty nice store. All the other budgies were totally clean, except for him/her and one other one that looked almost exactly like him. Do you think that he/she is definitely dirty?? And that that's not markings?? Because he/she was preening and cleaning him/herself and none of it came off. I am going to try giving him/her a bath and see if that does anything. And I think it really is that he/she is just clumsy. See because she fell off because she/he tried to climb on to another perch and lost her balance, and then was hanging there by one foot, and then one of the other budgies bumped him/her. And then she was sitting on something that was kind of thin, and so she was rocking backward and forward. So my sister and I were just joking about how clumsy she was. Do you really think I should take her to the vet?? Because besides being "clumsy" or whatever it is, she seems just fine. I know birds are good at hiding stuff, but he/she is eating, drinking, playing, and everything.

Watch her for awhile to be sure. I also think she is dirty, because the colour all over her isn't a mutation or type of colour. You can see under her wings is white and areas between where her flight feathers overlap is white too. She may be stained from a substance from her previous cage floor or nesting box. Someone could have sprayed her with a solution that has picked up colour from her original bedding. Check her for mites and lice. Remember that dirty feathers might mean she isn't caring for herself and preening as she should so watch her health. Maybe she needs a health check to be sure. Give her time to settle in before she gets a full wash or maybe mist her with a fine spray so she preens some more and gets herself clean. :bluebudgie:

Edited December 5, 200618 yr by Bubbles

Hi Budgie budgie,

 

 

just a quick tip. Find the 'macro' setting on your camera if you are taking pictures from that close. It normally looks like a tulip shaped flower. That setting will not only give you a more focussed photo, but will also tone down the flash as well.

 

Feathers

haha my baby girl was super clumpsie as well when she was a baby (up to 6 mths) but thankfully she grew out of it. I was concerned for a while but she was into everything.. trying to climb this at that, swinging and learning when to pull the wings out and fly rather then thud to the floor :bluebudgie: Now she is an insane acrobat and just loves hanging upside down even by one foot. She is my clever girl now :ausb:. Perhaps your baby is still a wee baby and hasn't found its sure feet.

Freeman- I think you might be right about the "clumsy" thing, because it's just like she tries to get into everything and is just kind of wobbly. And maybe she is just still a wobbly little baby, she does look kind of young. I'm not actually sure how old she is.

 

Bubbles- Actually when she spreads out her wings you can see brown on her flight feathers.

Bubbles- Actually when she spreads out her wings you can see brown on her flight feathers.

I didnt mean the brownish on her flight feathers, I think you can see white where they overlap which to me shows that the colour is something she has on her, not a part of her. The brownish all over her, I wouldn't think, is a colour from a type or mutation of budgie......it's something else. She seems to be a dominant pied, so the brownish colour isnt natural. One way to find out...wash her, I suppose. :bluebudgie:

Please keep us updated, I have become curious! :bluebudgie:

I agree with Bubbles, give her a bath and see what happens :bluebudgie:

I would consider a vet trip if you find it is dirt and it doesn't come off and if she behavior changes in any way.

Okay so I had her/him out for a little bit today because she/he seemed to be settled in pretty well. I also got another picture of him/her-

Is that any better??

Also I don't think that it is that she/he isn't caring for him/herself because he/she has been cleaning and preening him/herself. I will try misting her with a little water later to see if that helps any.

I would wash her throughly (she is a girl) under the faucet personally with luke warm water. Gently of course and see - it doesn't look right to my eye the coloring.

She is adorable, and I agree on her being a her as well.

 

The dirt...that is so odd! I would chalk it up to Petco's supplier, whoever gave them these birds. Petco doesn't breed them themselves but they arrange to have different suppliers instead. The stains don't look food-related and they certainly don't look like normal budgie markings. Still, that must have been one dirty cage (not the Petco one but the breeder's) for those babies to be so covered in dirt.

 

A bath may certainly help and it can encourage her to preen more but she may not look clean again until she molts out the dirty feathers. Because of the condition of the feathers, I would have her checked over by an avian vet complete with fecal tests to rule out any illness/disease that may (or may not) show signs later. This is especially important since you have other birds. Such dirty conditions make things like giardia and bacterial infections highly likely so make sure your vet looks out for those.

She does look very dirty. Especially in the last picture, you can see a great contrast between the color of the feathers on her wing and the color of the feathers near her vent. In the first picture the feathers look snow white near the wing, but not on her belly. I'll bet when she lifts her wings over her back for a stretch the ones underneath are bright white. What kind of substrate was in the cages at the pet store? But I don't think I would force a bath on her. For one, if the feathers are stained from the old cage bedding or something like that, it would take a lot of scrubbing to get them clean, and you don't scrub a budgie. At best, I'd offer her some large lettuce leaves in a small dish or on a saucer (or hang them from the cage bars next to her favorite perch) and see if she wants to bathe on her own. If she is not excessively preening I would say the staining doesn't bother her. If you can live with it until her next molt, I would just keep offering opportunities for her to bathe herself, but I would not "bathe" her per se. Her feathers seem to lay fine, and don't look too mussed up. I strongly recommend you finding an avian vet if you don't already have one and taking her in for a "new birdie" checkup during her quarantine. Not only will you hopefully catch any health problems early on, but your vet will have a benchmark of her overall condition should anything happen to her at a later date. It is much easier to get an appointment with a vet who has already seen your bird, rather than with one that hasn't. There isn't so much panic on your part that way either. Her baby bars still appear to be there, so I would guess her age to be somewhere between 8 and 16 weeks. In which case she will begin her baby molt soon and those stained feathers will drop out anyway. She is a pretty girl.

Edited December 5, 200618 yr by Rainbow

There is a store that I went to the other day that had 'dirty' looking budgies. They all had this very strange pinky/brown colour to them. I asked one of the staff about it. She said it was from the brown mineral stuff they had previously kept on the floor of the cages. They have since changed it to sand, but the birds will take some time to lose the 'dirty' colouring. Probably at their next molt.

 

That was a much clearer picture of her, budgie budgie, she is lovely

Feathers- So you think it's probably the same thing?? Or something like it??

Even if she is a dirty little budgie she is still very very cute!! :ausb:

It certainly looks like it is possibly the same thing. She is discoloured in very much the same way the store birds were.