I am new to budgies. I have an aviary with 8 budgies in it (well, seven now).

 

This morning I went to open up the blind on the aviary and discovered my budgie Charlie, dead on the floor

 

Charlie was a white (not albino) male, approx 4 months old. He was my fave, as he was such a happy, friendly, little fella, always showing off and yabbering on. I used to nickname him either Cheeky Charlie or Charlie Chatterbox. I got him when he was fledged and eating on his own. I kept him and the other budgie I got at the same time Aussie), together in a small cage until the aviary was ready for them to move into. They have been living in the aviary for about a month, and I have added 6 new budgies since then.

 

All the other budgies look healthy. Charlie himself seemed totally fine until yesterday afternoon. No real obvious signs of illness, wasn't puffed up or anything, but he did seem sleepy. At first I assumed he was simply ready for bed, as it was late in the afternoon and nearly time for me to close up the aviary for them anyway. But this morning when I went to say good morning to them, he was dead

 

Can anybody give me any ideas what might have happened?

 

Oh, and just add - they get fed seed (of course), they also get fruit or veges (apple, spinach, carrot, corn, peas), millet sprays, and occasional avi-vite (vitamin/mineral supplement) in their water

Hi, sorry you lost your Charlie.

It's very hard to say what it could have been. Sometimes they just "drop off the perch" so to speak. Even though he was only young there may have been some problem you couldn't see. Just keep an eye on your other birds in case it was anything sinister that caused it, that may affect your others. Keep a good look out for any signs of illness as they can mask it really well. Hopefully it was just a sad little death that just happened.

Thanks Robyn. And yes, I'm hoping it was maybe something that had just been there (congenital defect) or something that simply wasn't obvious. Just one of those things that couldn't be avoided hopefully.

Sorry for your loss.

 

I have heard from somewhere that mineral water is not necessarily good for the budgies. Also what average temperature is it where you live, as it may not be necessary to cover up the birds.

It's really hard to know what happened as a child we had a female budgie who killed off other budgies. She never showed any aggression when in the presence of humans so it was hard to detect.

There were no obvious signs like blood or anything on the birds she killed. It didn't even look like they had suffered physical trauma but the vet apparently told my dad otherwise. There must have been some internal trauma we could not see.

 

I'm really sorry you lost Charlie. It sounds like they are eating well so I doubt it is their diet.

 

I guess the only thing you can do is try to watch for signs of illness that are subtle like birds staying puffed up too much and also signs of aggression.

 

Some more experienced members would suggest you look at husbandry. I guess that means like the water source ect. I'm kind of a newbie at this.

 

My avian vet says vitamins in the water cause bacterial growth, just a side note. I use drops from time to time in their food. I like the booster my vet sells and I have other vitamins I bought online. However my vet said the concentrations of vitamins is high and told me not to use them more than once a month. Too much can calcify certain organs.

 

This is the booster my vet sells.

 

I live in Qld, so it doesn't get overly cold at night, but I just put the blind down so it's easier for them to sleep. The blind actually only goes half way down the cage, so the bottom half of the cage is still open.

 

I only give the vitamin in water once a week. I put it in the water for a day, then throw it out the next day and give them fresh plain water again. The water is from our rainwater tank.

http://www.prettybird.com/researcharticles/waterqualityarticle.htm

 

This is a good article to read about water quality. Water is such an important thing for any form of life.

 

Many systems as you can see from the article are contaminated. I had a problem with my water and I found it before my birds got sick. Bacteria make biofilms, that's the slimy stuff that is inside water pipes or even water machines. This slimy biofilm loves to grow on rubber.

 

I would boil the water if it's rain water. Even if it has absolutely nothing to do with what happened to your bird, at least if it happens again you can rule out the water source.

 

Budgies can be silent carriers of disease, some zoonosis like chlamidia psyttasi. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoonosis

Then for some reason they can start to shed it. There are also parasites, virus and bacteria that can harm your bird. Some times the diet gives the bird weird fatty deposits that I have heard a bit about and also then there is cancer. One of our birds had cancer when I was a child. He was pretty old and had an eye removed by the vet and then later the cancer spread and he died.

 

Some people who have been raising budgies for a very long time have a good intuition of what is going on just by the symptoms. I am relatively new at this.

Do you live in an area with abundant spiders/snakes? I had a friend when we lived in QLD who had budgies and he kept finding one more dead every morning for about a week. He was at a total loss as to what it was until he noticed the baby brown snake curled up in the corner. It had obviously been biting them but not eating them because it was too small. It was a bit of a shock to him!

 

The cover is a good idea as well because sometime stray/feral cats/dogs/foxes will jump at the aviary to try to eat the birds who sleep on or near the front of the wire. We have lost one to shock like that before from the neighbourhood cat before

 

I hope all the others are okay, such a sad thing when you loose one!

Sorry for your loss

 

Some times what can happen at night is they can get a fright and fly into something e.g. perch or wall and it can kill them.

 

Just keep an eye on the newer birds if you didn't quarantine them before adding them to the aviary.

I was going to make a comment similar to Nadene's - something as simple as something scuttling across the bottom of the aviary, a sudden noise etc sometimes makes them startle and flap around like mad things. I lost one this way once - he had a night fright when the neighbours drove into their driveway and their headlights flashed across the room and through a little gap in his cover, and in his panic he flew into the corner of his cage and broke his neck I hope that this is the case for your little man, and not illness.

I adopted two adult parakeets and two babies I woke one morning one babies was dead? two weeks later I found one male one female in breeding box dead and one dead in regular cage I don’t know what’s going on my first time with birds