Hi

It's been a while since I've been on here - not enough time to juggle work & kids...

Anyway, I have been trying to give Benny & Charlie a "Natural" environment with gum tree branches & Grevillea branches. However, they don't seem to like them. I have them pegges to the sides of the cage & hanging from the roof, I thought they might use them like a swing. All they seem to want to do is sit on the perch and go out of their way to avoid the branches by climbing around the outside of the cages rather than fly across from perch to perch. I have the brances at varying heights high & low, but still make sure there is enough room to fly across the cage around the middle. I thought when I first got them, that maybe as they had been pet shop birds, they might not know what they were and were scared of them, but after a couple of months, nothing has changed. I will try to capture a photo and post it, but until then, any ideas???

Thanks

ps... other than that, Benny and Charlie are doing well. Charlie still seems to be the tamer one, with Benny being more flighty. Their wings have just about grown back and are both flying quite well around the house.

Do they have favrite vegies? I get branches and break the twigs off them leaving about 1 1/2 cm of ength and then push treat foods onto them. Mine love celery, so their branches have chunks of celery stuck on them here and there. That certainly gets them there.

Do they have favrite vegies? I get branches and break the twigs off them leaving about 1 1/2 cm of ength and then push treat foods onto them. Mine love celery, so their branches have chunks of celery stuck on them here and there. That certainly gets them there.

 

That raises another issue. I have tried all sorts of vegies - carrot, celery, brocoli, banana etc. both as small individual pieces, and also as a pureed mix. they have never touched anything other than their seed (which they eat heaps of going by the mess they make over the floor...) I even tried to take away the seed for a day and only have a couple of dishes of different vegies and fruit. They didn't seem to have touched any any when I put the seed dish in the next day - they both dived in head first and didn't even seem to come up for breath.

Advice on that too would be helpful...

Take the straight seed away and give them a mix of grated vegies and apple and seed. That way if they want the seed they wil have to contnd with the vegies.

could always place seed sticks amongst the branches. when i place fresh branches into my aviary the branches are striped within a week

I like melbournebudgies idea. don't allow them to have straight seed mix the seed in with other thigs so if they want it they have to eat the other stuff...