I got round to putting something together for the fiends.  I do hope they like them.  I am happy that they are bird safe :)

I want to see Abbie nibble them, then I will know that they have the budgies seal of approval!

[caption id="attachment_1814" align="alignleft" width="574" caption="Palm Leaf Shredders, separated into sections with intermittent wooden balls threaded onto a plaited piece of sisal."][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_1816" align="alignleft" width="595" caption="Dumpling next to a stainless steel bell"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_1817" align="alignleft" width="595" caption="Apple Chunkies, threaded onto Sisal with vegetable dyed cotton reels and wooden balls. Colored wreaths and baby teething rings made into a chain. "What are these doing here?" says Monty"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_1815" align="alignleft" width="565" caption="Palm-leaf shredders, threaded onto plaited Sisal with coloured beads."][/caption]

Going to make some toys for the fiends!

I recently ordered some Stainless Steel Bells from: http://onceuponawing.com/Default.aspx

I bought these to replace all the dangerous and rusty metal ones I had. I do not want my birds to get heavy metal poisoning. I know this sounds like to much Metalica or Alice Cooper but it's actually quite serious and can kill. It came all the way from Florida to my little part of East London in the UK. As we can't get Stain

I also ordered a lot of wonderful stuff from http://www.chinchillas2shop.co.uk/

I am going to make the fiends some great bird-safe toys to play with. :)

Hot? have a camomile bath..

The budgies have been enjoying camomile tea baths for the past few days. They love to take a sip of the water and then have a wade through it.

Roswell and Jerry like to get particularly soaked, little Roswell puts his face right in it to make sure his beard spots get soaked.

Just the thing to cool down on a 26 degree day.

I use a two litre jug, steep the tea bag in 200ml hot water for two minutes and then top up with lovely cold water. Remove bag of course!

Serve to fiends in see-through glass dishes. Relax and watch them splash about and have fun.

Budgies on my arm!

More and more budgies keep landing on me these days. It's really strange (but in a good way) even Roswell and Jerry randomly land on me these days.

This morning Lilek landed on me, then Monty and then Roswell all at once!

Look at Roswell's size compared with Monty and Lilek, he's giant. He does feel a lot heavier too. One day I'll have to try and weigh him.

Don't ask about the leather glove - Lilek loves it, he's a bit of a perve..

Spoilt budgies

Corn and basil again today. Well, they do love it :)

Jerry tried to bathe in the basil, with varying degree's of success too. He did this while the others tried to eat it though. I don't think they were too impressed. Bathing in ones food is not considered good table manners.

Abbie has taken to climbing to the top of the new ladder toy and singing, sometimes upside down. I have also seen her nibble at the wooden blocks!

On another point, we got a new Chest of drawer from a lovely Freecycler. We have used it to house Blueboy and Hector's cage. All of the budgies love to run around on it and explore it. They are getting less scardy!

Sorry about the quality of the photo, I used my mobile phone camera as my digital camera batteries had gone splat.

In my quest to teach the budgies to alphabet I decided that all vegetable matter given to them would begin with the letter C today.

So off to the Shop we rushed to purchase Chives and Corn.  This was served to the fiends along with Carrot and Courgette.

I think they were happy with the results. They are always happy to see corn - plus it's 28p per cob in Asda at the moment!

[caption id="attachment_1792" align="alignleft" width="595" caption="Yummy Corn and Spiky Chives"][/caption]

Related articles

• Lilek's progress (featheredfiends.wordpress.com)


• Brave budgies? - I think not. (featheredfiends.wordpress.com)


• Budgie meeting called (featheredfiends.wordpress.com)


• Marianne, Toy Destroyer (featheredfiends.wordpress.com)


• Naughty Fiends (featheredfiends.wordpress.com)

Brave budgies? - I think not.

The new toy - a wonderful ladder with lots of colourful things and nice wood to chew - has been here for a couple of weeks now and the budgies have barely been near it!

I have tried putting it in the following places:

inside a cage, stretched from side to side, hanging down from the main mirror on the wall, on top of a cage, across the front of a cage, hanging down the front of a cage.

It's been mostly ignored and feared.

The closest they have got so far to it is Lilek biting some of the blue plastic chains when I have dangled them in front of him.

They can be such scardy birds at times. If I was a budgie (which I am not, I think) I would love this toy!

The contrived tree rends a healthy workload.









 

 

Hector and Abbie

Hector and Abbie have got increasingly close over the last few weeks. The little blue terror can be quite rough sometimes but she gives as good as she gets and is not scared of any of the nine boys!

I even saw them preen eachother in a brief moment of tenderness yesterday, but of course they stopped and pretended it hadn't happened as soon as I got the camera out and then it ran out of power!

Budgie meeting called

Four of the budgies seemed to call a secret meeting today. I looked behind me and noticed them gathering on the sofa when they thought that I wasn't paying attention.

I do not know what it was about as they only spoke very quietly in budgie.

Perhaps it could be that the millet rations are low and they are planning on raiding the last crumbs later when I am in the kitchen with the door shut chopping spuds for tonights dinner.

We shall see..

Peace Reigns at last

After a week or so of "Jerry Chasing", Snowy has finally got it out of his system.

I think what helped is me getting fed up with the whole thing and locking Jerry and Snowy up together for an hour. What happened is Jerry got chased around the cage by an excited Snowy trying to play kissy-face with him. Everywhere Jerry went Snowy followed. Then after a while Jerry gave up and just stayed still. So Snowy sat still too and preened himself. All was calm, I lt them out and the chasing gradually faded.

Horrah!

Here they are having a meeting today at Hector and Blueboy's gaff. I think that they are telling Snowy and Jerry that they do not want a repeat of the last week. Their reasons were that it was tiring and annoying. Also, they didn't get many treats due to the fighting taking up too much of my time.

Abbie's Lucky Escape

I flew into a blind panic yesterday when I got home and could not find Abbie.

I always have a head count when I have been out or before I leave to make sure that the fiends are safe.

The other eight birds were quiet. I went over to each of them and said frantically "Where's Abbie?!" as I ransacked the front room, carefully lifting up items to see if she had crawled underneath.

Then I had a thought, the day before my husband and I were discussing how Abbie keeps exhibiting nesting behaviour and trying to get behind things.

There was a small gap behind Blueboy and Hectors cage that I had blocked up (or so I thought) the day before.

I put my ear to the bookshelves and could hear a light scrabbling sound. She had fallen behind the bookshelves. I lifted off Blueboy and Hectors cage, pulled away the stack of DVD's and pulled out the bookcase. She manically flew out. It was a foot drop to the floor but luckily she was fine.

The bookcase has been completely pushed to the wall now so there is no gap. We can't get to the DVD's but that is a small price to pay.

I am so glad she's okay.

She immediately flew up to the rings and started preening herself. Hector seemed glad to see her as he launched into feeding mode.

Montys Prize

Monty won Augusts Budgie photo contest with the theme Playful Budgies on the Budgie Tree forum.

Today his prizes arrived all the way from Canada - only took about 6 days too. That's faster than some UK packages have arrived!

He won a "Zanie's Ladder" and "Dino Toy" They're both cute toys with lots of colour and I am sure that when the fiends have stopped being scared of them - and are on better behaviour - they will enjoy them lots!

I am hoping that Abbie chews wood from the ladder rather than some of the other more unsuitable things she has been chewing!

I would really like to get some more of these toys. Marianne needs to win the lottery to keep her fiends in the manner to which they deserve.

Marianne, Toy Destroyer

Yesterday I performed a very hard task. Not tough physically, but mentally. I had to destroy and dismantle some of the fiends toys.

Recently it has come to light through a fellow Budgie Forum Member that the rust on my budgies metal toys is dangerous and can be fatal to the poor little mites. They lick and bite all of their toys, even if you don't always see them do it.

I pulled off all of the cheap metal bells and attachments. It means that their toys are currently mostly plastic and mirrors. But this is a small price to pay for good health.

Also found out that it's impossible to buy stainless steel "Bird-Safe" bells in this country and have had to resort to ordering them from America, expensive but worth it.

This post is dedicated to Mikko the budgie, thank you little guy.

Lilek's progress

Lilek came to us on 10th October 2010. His owner wanted him to be with a flock of budgies because he was lonely and she could not commit to another budgie time-wise.

When he first arrived he was very anti-social with other budgies. This behaviour would take the form of chittering at other budgies and lunging out at them (not biting) when they got close. Lilek would put his head down low, fan his tail and chitter until they moved. This meant another budgie could not even get close to him.

Sky was first to take an interest and started following Lilek round but he would either have angry noises made at him or just get ignored.

Lilek also had a very bad regurgitation habit. I mean compulsively, seriously bad. We wondered how a budgie could regurgitate so much food. He would spit it all out in a controlled manner onto his foot and then eat it back off again. Some of it would fall onto the cage floor, so I was continuously clearing it up and changing the papers.

I changed round the cage, removed perches but then he would just regurgitate onto the cage door and it would go all over out floor. Drove me insane!

Slowly slowly, he has integrated himself into the group. A few months ago, he let Sky preen him, it made me feel really happy that he would let another budgie that close to him.

Now he has actually stopped regurgitating, it's been about three weeks since he stained the perches and floor with seed and vegetables!

He also occasionally mingles with Monty and sits to listen to Jerry and Snowy sing. No chittering at other budgies - only at me when I put my hand in the cage to change food or move something at night!

look how beautiful and white his plumage is!

Roswell has a Camomile bath

Every day for the last few months I have put out a dish of water by the side of the Summer Palace. Blueboy usually likes to fly down to it and have a nip first thing in the morning. If I don't put it out he sits and waits in the space until I do.

Yesterday I put camomile tea in it. This was in the blind hope that it would calm the budgies down, they had camomile in their water drinkers too.

Roswell decided that Camomile was just the thing to take a bath in, he must have been waiting for this day!

It was enjoyed with such vigour. Pictures follow of a most soggy Roswell.

Incarcerated

The budgies have been so naughty that Monty and Snowy have been incarcerated in Budgingham Palace pending a full enquiry.

It started as the past three mornings have. Snowy chasing Jerry.

Monty tried to fight Jerry and Roswell simultaneously and ended up getting hurt. He and Snowy have been locked up for their own (and the others) protection.

Of course being me, they have lots of things in the cage to keep them entertained. Basil, Millet, Mirrors and toys.

Not exactly borstal.