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.

It's our chair now

Roswell, Jerry and Monty have claimed my chair as their own. I only hope I am allowed to sit on it occasionally.

They even land on it when I am at my desk.

Look at tiny Monty next to Jerry and Roswell. Jerry is trying to stand as tall as he can, you wouldn't think he was a pet type and Roswell an exhibition bird.

 

Brave budgies..

Yesterday Both Jerry and Lilek flew down the passageway.

Then Jerry flew into the bedroom and did several laps of the room.

Both Roswell and Jerry have been landing on my computer screen and just now as I was typing this Jerry landed on my shoulder!

Jerry (the explorer) has also been making "talking noises" although we can't make any words out yet!

What will his first word be? - probably "Naughty"

Who says if you have more than one budgie that they wont be tame or talk?

[categories budgies,brave,photography,fun,pets,birds,cute,mischief]

Three Sleepy Blues

Hector, Abbie and Blueboy felt like a nap this afternoon. They dozed off side by side on the Mirror ledge.

Makes you sleepy doesn't it.

Yawn.

Progress of a Blueboy

Blue boy has recently moved in with Roswell and Jerry. He didn't have much to pack but he did bring with him nightly millet rations. He, Jerry and Roswell enjoy sharing these in the evening as a team-bonding experience.

It was decided that Hector and Abbie were being a bit mean to Blueboy, pushing him off the perch and not letting him eat. He was very reluctant to leave but now he enjoys his new digs.

Roswell and Jerry however are a lot kinder, of course there is a little shuffling about to get the best position but in the end they all eat happily side-by-side.

Blueboy is sleeping a lot better too - actually I have no idea whether he'd sleeping but he's calmer and quieter at night. Much less stressed.

Yesterday I witnessed Blueboy sing twice, Very small songs and quite short but it's the first time he has sang since September.

Each morning Lilek tries to bash beaks with a reluctant Blueboy. It's good that other budgies are trying to socialise with him.

A new toy was bitten a bit the other day but Blueboy says it wasn't him. Sometimes I wonder if they realise that I want them to bite these things and play with them or they think that they are being naughty!

Pass the Loofah

The fiends had been pestering me for a bath today. Their wishes were answered.

I put out some luke warm, diluted camomile tea with basil leaves and coloured ping pong balls floating in them.

Jerry had so much fun splashing around that he got a little too water drenched and I had to lock him in with Roswell for 15 minutes to dry off as he kept plunging to the floor when he tried to fly.

This is a stern reminder of why bath times should always be supervised.

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.

The fiends would like to show off..

Some photos to show..

Hector has been singing to Abbie while she sleeps. It's very cute to watch.

Dumpling has been flying to my feet a lot, he especially loves my Christmas socks.

Monty and Snowy have just been posing. Although Monty flew off as soon as I had taken the photo.

The Blueboy Ultimatum

My little Blue fella Blueboy has been through the mill recently, ever since October he has been very poorly.

First of all I thought it might be Canker, so the flock got the treatment. Blueboy No better.

Then because of his being unable to eat on his own and constantly neck-stretching I thought maybe Air sac mites. Treated with Ivermectin. No Better.

So I took him to the PDSA and got some Baytril in case he had a respiratory infection. No Better.

I also bought iodine and added it to his water in case it was a goiter, he doesn't use the iodine block at all.

At one point he was not eating on his own and we had to syringe feed him crushed pellets, Guardian Angel and apple juice. Then he started to eat millet so I put some in his cage every night to make sure he ate (still am).

We took him to the Avian Vet and she said that he had Aspergilliosis so gave us fungizone meds to give him once a day for two weeks.  He had his last treatment yesterday. He hated being caught and syringe fed every evening but we got good at it and did it in less than 10 minutes.

He is still neck stretching and is very scared and nervous at nights and sleeps during the day. I have taken to leaving the cover on his cage at night slightly open and he's been better the past two nights. Less nervous and noisy.

I have been advised by the Birdcare Company (and have started him on Calcivet today) that it could be a calcium deficiency due to the following reasons:

Birdcare Company

"From what you have described it sounds like the bird is calcium deficient.  Calcium plays a huge role in the body.  

The first thing that you said, was that he wretches and stretches his neck a lot.  This can be a sign attributed to star gazing, which in turn is a sign of calcium deficiency.

The next thing that tipped the balance is that you said the bird is nervous, and excessive noise is being made.  Again this is a sign of calcium deficiency.

Another reason why I thought the problem is calcium deficiency is that your bird has a wheeze and a rattling breath.  There has been research done on some birds that have these sort of problems, and it has been found that it is due to calcium deficiency.  Birds do not make the mucous properly and also have a trouble coughing it out, this then gets infected and wheezing and rattling breath becomes apparent."

I asked What is Star Gazing?

I have noticed that he does this thing where he goes to the top of his cage and moves his head round one way and then the other, he has always done this.

Blueboy is one of our rehomed birds so we do not know of his history, we have had him for a year and two months.

Birdcare Company said

"From what you have asked, this sounds like star gazing.  It is a technical term for when birds look "over their shoulder".  It certainly sounds like a calcium deficiency that your bird has."

At the moment he's eating on his own and de-husking seed but could do with putting a little weight on.

I have high hopes for the Calcium restoring him to full health.

Special thanks to my friend for loaning me the money to take Blueboy to the vet. You know who you are and I will pay you back.  Slowy but steadily.

Also thank you to the Ebay seller that conned me out of £60 I paid for a netbook. I got a refund and it helped to buy more things for Blueboy. My Blueboy is worth more than a netbook.

------------------------------------------

Money spent on Blueboy so far:

Blueboys health: Priceless.

Item	Amount
Medicine and consult	£68.35
Aspergilliosis meds	£25.00
F10	£9.43
Humidifier	£9.99
Calcivet	£10.25
Probiotic	£7.75
Total	£130.77

We took him to the PDSA he escaped from the box, actually hatched his way out and sat on top of the box - don't worry he was also inside a Ferplast plastic pet carrier:

 Here he is from earlier today

A very blustery day

Yesterday was so windy and scary for the budgies that they all clustered together in and on the smallest of the three cages.

Safety in numbers I guess!

Who's up for a second course of party food?

Second course. Millet, Trill and Basil.

Monty decides he should get in first as he's the birthday Boy!

Look at the cake! Not much left and it's all messed up.

Gotta love 'em. If they're happy, I'm happy!

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?"]
[/caption]

[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]

 

T'was just before bedtime

..and the fiends were chilling out, waiting to be lifted to their cages.

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]

 

Din Dins for the Fiends

The fiends are currently dining on a lovely nutritious meal of Sweetcorn niblets, Broccoli and Carrot enriched with sprinklings of Harrison's bird pellets, Avian seaweed and a tiny sprinkle of Guardian Angel.

I expect to find tiny sweetcorn husks all over the lino in about oooh five minutes!

Gotta love 'em, but they certainly do keep me busy.

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.

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.

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.