Budgie bedtime is a military style operation

Budgie Bedtime can be a very fraught process at times. I have to follow the routine to the letter otherwise chaos can ensue.

After cages has been cleaned, food and water are changed we can get down to the serious business of the day.

Monty, Snowy and Sky all have to be on perches that are near the front of the cage. Lilek must be on his shelf at the far right end. If this is not followed, Snowy will knock Monty off the perch and Lilek will leap to his shelf in the dark - squiggling and chittering at any budgie in his path.

Photo One shows incorrect bedtime positions, photo two shows correct ones.

Blueboy, Jerry and Roswell get some millet to share before bed, this makes Blueboy feel like a more welcome member of the group as they all cooperate and eat together.

Photo three shows the boys eating.

Photo four is Dumpling (Lilek) on his bedtime shelf, ready to settle down for the night.

Abbie and Hector like to mess around a bit, making weird strangled noises at eachother and trying to preen eachothers feet.

Photos five and six are the two of them messing about!

The lamp is on, budgies are partially covered. I go to wash up their bowls and toys. This takes about 10 minutes as they are left to dry overnight.

When I come back I put the budgies to bed, gently whispering the "Bedtime for budgies rhyme" and pulling down the cage covers for the night.

If I am very lucky they will not stir until my alarm goes off at 7.30am.

Bed times for budgies, Budgie Bedtimes.

Hector and Abbie on a mission of mischief

Here they are again, the naughty Duo. Trying to find trouble before it finds them.

As I write this Abbie is trying to pull a seed pot off of the Summer Palace by hanging on the outside and banging it with her beak so that it makes a loud knocking noise.

 

Never a dull moment..

 

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=EAC780kTCqE]

Monty and Jerry - Battle of the bruisers

It's happening again. Sigh.

Monty and Jerry have been at eachother over Snowy for about 4 days now. We keep having to separate them into cages and giving them time out.

Snowy decides that green is the best colour ever and constantly chases Jerry and tries to play kissy-face with him. This makes Monty mad and he pounces on Jerry. Jerry flies off and starts flapping his wings at Monty, making a growling, gurgly noise. Then they end up in a ball of feathers and claws.

Poor Monty has a cut on his cere that Jerry inflicted and my husband and I have had to physically separate them several times, getting bitten in the process. We had a look at Monty's cere and it seems okay, I cleaned it with a cotton bud. It'll heal, it's not the first time he's been slightly wounded in this area.

They both gets like this every few months, I guess it's their hormones..

Whatever it is I wish they would stop!

You can see Monty's cere in this photo, also here he is incarcerated with Snowykins.

Naughty budgie photos from the day

Abbie has been driving me bonkers today. She will not stop nibbling on stuff. We thought we had stopped her from nibbling on the top of the curtain by putting some cartons on the pole and blu-taking them to the wall.

This worked for about five minutes so we put bags up there (really tough ones!) she nibbled them.

We put lino on top and even that got nibbled on.

What's next?

What have the budgies been up to?

[caption id="attachment_1854" align="alignleft" width="595" caption="Do you think those budgies in there would like to come out to play?"]
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[caption id="attachment_1855" align="alignleft" width="595" caption="Roswell: Why would you take a photo of me from this angle, you loony?"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_1856" align="alignleft" width="595" caption="Hector, Do you think I could lay eggs in that compartment below?"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_1857" align="alignleft" width="510" caption="I was dozing and you woke me just to take a photo?"][/caption]

 

Fly my pretty!

Got a great photo of little Lilek flying towards me yesterday.

It makes him look a little more chunky than he is cos his wings are behind him and it makes them look short.

Look at the eager expression on his little chops :)

[caption id="attachment_1848" align="alignleft" width="595" caption="Dumpling...coming through...make room!"][/caption]

 

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.

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.

Naughty Fiends

We have had a nightmare day today with the budgies. They have not been their usual calm(ish) selves. The day has mostly consisted of Jerry being chased by Snowy. This upsets both Roswell and Monty. Snowy is King Montys bird and he gets very jealous if Snowy shows too much interest in Jerry.

It's strange because Monty doesn't mind Snowy spending time with any of the other birds, only Jerry.

Anyhow, the "Jerry chasing" outbreak has caused Monty to become angry and square up to Jerry, even leaping on him. Monty is scared of no bird, even though he's the smallest one here!

Jerry and Roswell, Monty and Snowy have been put in separate Hagen cages until they calm down. We are on the second round of this now, as the first time I let them out it started all over again!

"Jerry chasing" used to happen often but this is the first time in more than six months we have had an incident.

Fingers crossed that it's not going to be a week long affair like it has in the past.

New Toy

The fiends have been getting to grips with their new toy. It's a swinging perch with eight places on it for them to land. They seem to like using it to preen eachother on, especially Monty and Snowy in the evenings.

I'll look up at about 8.30pm to see Snowy on the lower part and Monty above preening his head. It's very cute to watch.

Here are some photos of them enjoying the new toy having a swing-a-ling.

Also see Dumpling below, still obsessed with my feet. Just when I thought he had grown out of it!

Some of the Green Stuff

I can't seem to wean the budgies off of Basil, I keep trying new herbs but they either hate them or just feel apathetic towards them.

Even the old favourite Coriander seems to be more miss than hit these days.

Maybe Basil has some magical property for budgies that I am yet to fathom out.

Anyway they still love it and always rush over when I put it out - in fact Monty and Lilek are usually on it nibbling before I can put it down for them.

They hate mint, it's a shame because I'd quite like the house to smell of mint for a change, Dill makes it smell buttery and Basil makes me want a salad but maybe the mint will bring the desire for Polos.

Photos as always!

Treats for the Terrors

How about this for a bargain - in our local pet shop we can get seven big sprays of millet for a quid. So this weekend we made a special trip via the Island Hoppa (Which is a free bus service) to the market and also ended up buying some 700g bags of budgie seed and budgie tonic seed, two ping pong balls - one orange and one yellow plus a couple of fruit treat sticks.

These treats will last them a while as I only give them a millet day once a week and the rest of time time it is used as a reward for good behaviour. They are not that well behaved!

These budgies are so spoilt..

Of course we had to reward ourselves with a Chelsea bun each too. Well why not!

Turn that radio down, I am trying to get some kip!

Last night at about 2am We heard pinging coming from the front room. I got up and rushed to find out what was going on. Blueboy decided to wake us to let us know that we had left the radio on too loud for his liking. I always leave LBC97.3 on quite low for the budgies so that they have a low constant noise and don't get scared if something loud happens outside.
It was obviously a tad too high for little Blueboy and had disturbed his slumber.
I came in, lifted the cover of his cage to see Hector and himself peering down at me.
The conversation went something like this:

Me: "Are you okay. Is the radio too loud?"
A little run up the perch and "Ping Ping Ping" came the reply.
Me: "I'm sorry, I'll go and turn it down for you" (went to turn it down)
Me: "Is that better?"
Blueboy "Ping Ping Ping"
Me: "Good, go to sleep now, bedtime for budgies"
Blueboy: "Ping Ping Ping"

Then I didn't hear anymore pings til 7.30am after my alarm went off.

Monty Likes to throw balls

Monty has been enjoying throwing a purple bell-ball off of the top of the cage onto the floor.  He will then look over the edge to see where it landed :)



Do your budgies throw things?

Musical Day

Earlier on when "Do you love me" (my sister reliably informs me that this song features in Dirty Dancing [or Dirty Dancer as my dad used
to call it] and took this opportunity to try and force me to watch it with Monty - pah) came on the radio Monty suddenly flew over to me enthusiastically and started dancing up and down my arm.

Then Jerry did his rendition of "It's raining men" with Roswell on backing vocals - whilst asleep!

Right now Blueboy is "Pinging" the bars along to "Mama Mia" by Abba.

My budgies have weird musical tastes.

OUCH - Dumpling just bit my leg, he's singing to my ankle and biting to try to get my attention. He always tries to get my full attention when I am typing, especially blog posts for some reason. Does he know I am writing my budgie blog and think I have not mentioned him enough?

Anyway the fiends had lots of millet today and made their usual mess, most of which I have swept up ready for them to make some more.

Oh dear, Jerry and Roswell are trying to have "guy-time" (not THAT sort!) and Custard doesn't like it so she's flapping at Jerry to make him go away. She's got her way as usual and has followed Roswell to the seed-pots for some dinner.

Some vids from earlier:

They came...

Well what else would nine feathery fiends get up to on a Sunny Monday afternoon?

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Spied on by a bird, Dumpling takes a dip, Hitchcock eat your heart out!

Yesterday I was standing at the sink washing up and I heard a squawk followed by lots of high pitched calls. I turned to look behind me and I saw little Dumpling (aka Lilek) staring round the corner at me, he was sitting on the edge of the mirror ledge watching me. Of course I had to run and get the camera as he looked quite cute and curious - the cheeky little monkey. In the end I had to close the kitchen door to finish the washing up in case he came into the kitchen and tried to "help". He also had a little shower under the tap later on too, turns out he loves the sound of running water :) See my birds, they are many and I am few, they like to stare down and me and wonder what I taste like with stew. Well not really but look at this picture of eight of them looking down at me, reminiscent of Hitchcocks "The Birds" We still have major broadband issues (Thanks Orange) so I can only upload small photos I'm afraid til we're fully back online on 7th March. Enjoy the photos - hope you and yours are well.

Brave budgies eating Scary food, Nine birds eating together!

Eventually some very brave budgie boys decided to try and LOVE the scary food.

They all ate lots and lots, should help with their current spiky moulty heads a lot.

I also caught a picture of them all eating seed together. Yes you are right it didn't last and there were squabbles - colourful though right? :)

Dumpling (Lilek) on my knee

Lilek likes to help me work at my computer. he bites my fingers as I type.

 

This was emailed from my phone hence the poorer than usual quality, just thought it was a cute moment!

Seven birds eating breakfast

It's not easy to get breakfast organised when you have seven hungry beaks to feed. Especially when they don't all stay in the same place at the same time, sometimes it's possible to get a good photo though.

Yum yum say the birds.