Hi everyone,

 

I've been reading this forum on and off for a little while now. Usually I end up here when I type a question into the search engine and the answer is somewhere on these pages. Today I have a question that I can't search for, or rather I tried, but still couldn't find anything that helped, so I have made an account so I can ask.

 

But before I do, I thought it would be polite to introduce myself first.

 

I have been keeping budgies for 11 years now.

My first was a little green male named Bosco that I bought young from a petstore. He was very people oriented and within two months he was already talking with a vocabulary of about half a dozen words. Sadly he died suddenly before I'd had him a full six months so I never got to see how far he could take that vocabulary.

I purchased a second budgies from the same store, this time a female named Murphy and she was the exact opposite. She was not fond of people, and was very lonely. She sat in the corner of her cage and didn't move or make a sound for nearly six weeks despite my efforts to tame and entice her to play with her toys. She just curled up in a miserably ball next to the nearest reflective surface and never made a peep.

 

I decided it was sad to see such a social animal by herself and so clearly miserable, and my attempts to have her bond to people were not working, so I made the decision to get her some more birds instead. Whatever I could to make her happy. So I adopted Jasper and Missy, a male and female pair that had been dumped at the pet store when their previous owners didn't want them. They were dropped on the counter and just left. Jasper and Missy became the first of many rescues. Murphy perked up immediately on their introduction and became a feisty active little girl. I knew at that point I was stuck. I would never again own a singleton budgie, and I would probably be rescuing them for the rest of my life.

 

After Jasper and Missy came Bucky (going on 14 this year) and Comet. They were given up because their owner's child developed severe allergies. I still keep in touch with them. Then came Roxy and Ben, neglected children's pets housed in a cage that was only 7"x11" big. Ben was plucked bald by Roxy and Roxy was very aggressive with all the other birds, so she got to live with them, but had to be separated physically in her own cage. Peter was a stray found eating at someone's bird feeder. Nick was left on someone's doorstep right before Christmas (middle of winter here) so I took him in out of the snow. Lily and Ada were unwanted kindergarten classroom pets who had learned to bite. Pele was too loud for the new baby in his house, and my most recent addition, Melody, was another stray caught at someone's bird feeder just before last year's frost hit, she waited in an animal shelter for several months before I picked her up on Boxing Day last year.

 

I have had as many as 8 at once, space permitting, and am currently down to 3. Bucky (Male, 13 years), Pele (male, 6 years), and Melody (female, unknown)

 

I am looking at adding another male, as Lily died this past summer at age 9. But I am waiting to find a single male because I don't like splitting up bonded pairs when I rescues. It's either everyone or no one for me.

 

Since I rescue all my budgies, I don't breed, but I have always been interested in the genetics of it as well as the show budgies aspect even though show budgies are pretty unheard of here.

 

Anyway, that's my budgie life story in a nut shell. Thank you for allowing me to join your forum.

 

From left to right: Ada. Roxy (allowed out for supervised socialization, she could be very nasty), Bucky, Ben, Lilly.

 

The current group: Bucky (green), Pele (blue), Melody (lutino)

Welcome to forum, somebody on here should answer any query's you have.

 

Great work saving all those little rejected birds. A very pretty assortment you have, I don't think Melody is Lutino, they are pure yellow red eyes. She looks more like a

pied of some sort but that's about as far as my mutation knowledge goes.

Nope, she's a lutino. I was very careful in my 'diagnosis' haha. That`s not a great photo but she has no other colour on her and her eyes are unmistakably red. She also wasn`t in breeding condition when I got her so I had to observe her behaviour to guess at her sex because there isn`t anything by way of pigment in her cere (or her feet which is neat when next to the other birds)

 

Here is one of my many references. I thought she was ino but spent several days researching and making sure.

http://cutelittlebirdiesaviary.weebly.com/lutino-budgies.html

Hello and welcome to the forum You have some very pretty birdies. It is wonderful of you to rescue all those little birds and give them better lives

Nope, she's a lutino. I was very careful in my 'diagnosis' haha. That`s not a great photo but she has no other colour on her and her eyes are unmistakably red. She also wasn`t in breeding condition when I got her so I had to observe her behaviour to guess at her sex because there isn`t anything by way of pigment in her cere (or her feet which is neat when next to the other birds)

 

Here is one of my many references. I thought she was ino but spent several days researching and making sure.

http://cutelittlebir...no-budgies.html

Sorry on my monitor it looked like she had patches of grey/green. Now I think it's a shadow across her.

Oh now I see what you mean Robyn. Yes, I'm sorry, that is a shadow. I was shooting through the bars so it's actually a very out of focus bar in the shot. I can see why that would make it look like she's pied

I will take some better photos of her some day.

 

Thanks everyone for the welcomes. It's nice to talk budgies. As you may be able to tell by my long list of rescues, they are a very under appreciated pet where I live.

Lovely birds and I love the setup for them to socialize. I really want to do something like that.

It was very easy to make. And it wasn't just for socialization. When I lived in that house I had an entire room off the living room with vinyl flooring. They had the entire room to themselves so the only one who was caged on a regular basis was Roxy. Everyone else was loose all day and at night they would cuddle up inside a tiny 16x16 cage and I'd shut the door and they'd roost there all night long, and then I'd open the door in the morning and they'd all have run of the room again. What you see in that photo is just a tiny section of their jungle gyms.

 

It's made with plywood base covered in left over vinyl flooring which is very easy to clean. Then I screwed a dowel in, drilled holes in the dowel, and screwed the perches in. If a perch got worn or dirty, I unscrewed it and replaced it with a new one. I put hooks on the ends of the perches to hang toys from, and the dishes for food and water had their hangers screwed into the dowel as well. That's what that black ring near the back is, the food dish sat in there. I had to leave the gyms behind in the dumpster when I moved, but will make them again in the future when I have another house with a dedicated bird room.

Hello, welcome to the forum

Your budgies look very happy.

What lucky budgies to find you - they're beautiful