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.

 

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!

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

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]

 

Happy Birthday Blueboy and Sky!

On 5th October as well as being my 9 year wedding anniversary it was Sky and Blueboys too!

A whole year with us, which makes Sky 5 and Blueboy 3 years old.

They came to us together In October 2010 and have joined a happy flock.

Sky is great friends with Lilek, they whizz about the front room together causing mayhem and mischief. Blueboy is inseparable from Hector. Blueboy can be a nervous little budgie and Hector protects him, makes him feel safe.

Here are the birthday boys.

New Budgerigars Forum

A couple of days ago I tried to log into my favourite Budgerigars Forum only to find that it had been closed. I had made quite a few friends and looked forward to logging on several times a day to hear the latest news.

After a whole day with no budgie fix, I decided to set up a new forum and start the process of bringing the members back together.  I hope that we can grow and share ideas.

Maybe even bring in a few new people to share our enthusiasm of Budgies!

Join us at the new forum: http://budgerigarsforum.proboards.com/index.cgi

Monty and the gang will be waiting..



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Update on the mob

It's been more than a week since I updated the blog on the fiends so I thought I had better give an update! News in alphabetical order.. Blue-boy The Blue-wonder is settling in very well, he loves to sing and get on especially well with Jerry and Roswell, they all fly and wander about together like a trouble-some gang of teenage tearaways. Roswell is the muscle, Jerry the mouth and Blue-boy the pretty one that keeps his mouth shut. Jerry His cheekiness still knows no bounds, although occasionally he'll hang out with Monty and they'll sing and biff eachothers beaks both trying to gain the upper hand (wing?) on the other. Monty never backs down! Lilek Still slightly anti-social with the other birds but he's showing great signs of improving. In the past few days he has even been singing really quietly to the other birds. He took to the vegetables - especially basil really quickly!We saw him sit in his play rings a few time and this boy really loves keys, he flaps at them, chirrups softly and tries to feed them. We're trying to get him to play more and he enjoys an occassional head scratch from a wooden lolly-stick. He turns his head, it's very cute :) Monty What to say about the King himself. Just today he landed on the arm of the sofa next to me and started singing to me - he's never done that before, it was so sweet. Jerry came over and landed next to him to see if there were any treats on offer! It's very strange but Monty seems to know when I am concentrating on something and this is the time he's most likely to pay me attention and try and get me to notice him! Roswell His friendship with Jerry continues to blossom, Jerry can often be seen preening Roswells big fluffy head. Once I saw Monty try and preen Roswell slyly but Roswell backed away thinking that Monty was trying to beak him! Roswell sometimes hopps about and sings, it's really something to see because he's quite big but the dude can still hop wih the best of them! Sky Sky can be quite In-yer-face with the other budgies and frequesntly takes part in Snowy-chasing, in fact he quite likes to chase any budgies around until they get tired! He's the one that has most tried to strike up a friendship with Lilek, he's very persistent and I am sure it will pay off eventually. Lilek is definitely tolerating his antics more these days. Snowy He is really enjoying the play-rings that Lilek brought with him! He's taken to climbing down to the bottom ring and dinging the bell continuously with his little pink feet! I'll try and get some pictures on later too :)

Give us stuff.. or else

Or else what you may ask - well I didn't want to find out so I gave 'em stuff.

Monty wouldn't let me near his food in case I stole some, he said I eat more than the budgies and it wouldn't be fair on them if I shared. He has a point.

Sky did his Taxi Driver impression, it was very good.

The rest just scoffed food and sang all day long - it's what they do best.

Another thing they do very well is bite stuff - Snowy bites the sandpaper I put in their play-station, he has made it his goal to tear off as many small pieces daily that he can - I am worried what he is doing with them, perhaps building a raft or making a loofah so Monty can scratch him in the bath.

Blue-Boy also loves biting stuff, I keep having to shoo him away from the budgie screen as he's chipping away at the wood - maybe he's whittling it to make it pole-like, we'll have to see.

Roswell is budgie of the rings

Roswell has been practising his acrobatics yet again, he loves the new rings that Lilek brought with him and uses them to perform stunning acrobatic tricks worthy of David Coppernuts himself.

He certainly is an agile little budgie as you can see by these photos. When he got to the bottom he rang the bell and flew off. We think that his sole purpose of climbing onto the rings was to get to the bell on the end :)

The magnificent seven - Welcome Lilek

Okay so this is definitely the last one...

Lilek was brought to us because his partner flew out of the window and the lady that looked after him did not want to get any more budgies as she felt she didn't have enough time to give them.

Lilek is a very lonely and stressed budgie at the moment so we decided today to introduce him to the flock as he kept regurgitating onto his foot and then eating it.

He's definitely not ill, he has bright eyes, doesn't sit fluffed up, is lively and his plumage looks perfect.

Anyway he has already landed on the floor, my keyboard and monitor, the window sill, on my hand, my husbands head and hand, this boy is not shy!

Pictures from the day!

[gallery columns="2"]

Classic FM for the budgies

There is still Snowy chasing going on today so we have deployed some Classical music to calm the birds down, they're all in their separate pairs tweeting away and preening to the soothing sounds of Classic FM.

Drives me bonkers when they start chasing each other around and wing flapping at their fellow birdies - it seems to happen at least once a month for up to a week.

Still they're calm....for now!

[gallery]

Chase me!

There has been waaaay too much Snowy chasing today!

Occasionally Roswell decides that Snowy is just too gorgeous to ignore for a second longer and chases him around the room, this upsets both Monty and Jerry and they start fighting out of frustration. So we have to separate some of them into different cages for a while to calm down.

Oh the drama!

On the calm and sane side, Blue Boy and Sky have been making great progress, we gave them some different things to look at and moved them into the Summer palace so that they can get used to a new layout and have a little bit more room to stretch their wings and strengthen them so that they'll be able to fly better.

Even spotted Blue boy eating some Basil and Coriander on the sly.. :)

New arrivals! Blue Boy and Sky

I have been looking for a couple of budgies to rehome and live with my current flock of four little firey fiends.

Well a kind lady and her sister have asked me to take in a couple of cute little boys called Blue Boy (a cobalt blue I think) and Sky (a very pretty fancy spangle of some sort!)

They brought them over earlier this afternoon and they have been settling in and calling to my boys really loudly who have of course been reciprocating!

Here are a couple of pics of the pretty little boys!

looking forward to integrating them in time :D

Best Wedding anniversary present ever and certainly cheers me up slightly over yesterdays horrid day.

Welcome Blue Boy and Sky, I hope you are happy with us!

My guys aren't spoilt...or weird.... are they?

Monty keeps jumping into the grit pot - he's the only one of the birds that fits all the way in to the tiny ceramic ramekin that the grit is put into and he's been making the most of that lately by sitting in it. Perhaps it's comfortable or more likely he is crazy! :)

Does anyone else spend ages chopping their birds vegetables into tiny little pieces (just the right size)so that they can pick them up with their beaks and throw them all over the place creating a lot of mess, or as the budgies would lead you to believe - "art".

Jerry is definitely a modern day Picasso, there is no vegetables no matter what size immune to being picked up and lobbed as far as he can whilst running to the top corner of the cage and peering over the edge to see where it has landed.

The sun has just come out, it's been raining felines and canines all day!

The day is looking up - what next? - watch this space ;)

balls!

Balls, the budgies just love 'em.

Snowy sings to his, Monty stands on them to make himself feel higher and safer and today Jerry and Roswell have been throwing them around.

We have some lattice bell balls in the soap dish that is stuck to the window (with suction, not glue) and Roswell and Jerry have been standing up there today chucking them onto the floor. I tried to get a photo of Jerry actually throwing a ball with his beak but my shutter-speed isn't all that fast so I just got one of him with the ball in his beak.

:)

Come and join the pool party

The boys have enjoyed a bit of a pool party this morning, with a Dill Cocktail each they made their way to the top of the Summer palace (seems ironic calling it that considering the weather at the moment - 16 degrees and cloudy according to my PC)

As you can see they had a lot of fun splashing about - especially Snowy, who did his little duck impression and waddled in and out of the water several times.