Last night when cleaning the budgie cages, I decided to see if I could get a good close up of Billybob.
When every I look at his little eyes I wonder what he’s thinking, which is probably “get that camera out of my face!”
He’s moulting but he always looks handsome.
One morning a few days ago, I noticed that Lucy’s droppings were a bit off in colour and consistency. I wondered if it was due to moulting or George feeding her a lot.
Then in the evening I saw that her cere had a discharge above it that could have possibly been blood. It was very upsetting as it looked horrific. I hate to think of any of my birds (or any animal) suffering.
The next morning the discolouration was worse and she looked very sorry for herself. At first I wondered if she had sinusitis as she seemed to be sneezing blood.
I booked a vet appointment, hoping it was something that could be sorted out as I was extremely worried about her. I had to wait a day to see the vet that I trusted the most. I don’t have access to a proper avian vet (we need more of those!) but this guy has a lot of bird knowledge, handles the birds well, listens to me and examines the birds gently.
On the morning of the appointment her droppings were back to normal thankfully.
The vet weighed her, listened to her breathing and checked her wings. He took a close look at her cere with his magnifying hat thing that he has, checked inside her beak for injuries, also used a cotton bud to lightly press on the cere to make sure it was not infected.
He said that she may have flown into something but the damage was external and she doesn’t need antibiotics. Apparently she’s in very good health. He said if there are any changes with her cere over the next week that look like infection to email him photos and he’ll leave me some antibiotics at reception.
When the vet put her back in the box she squawked her head off at him!
So, the damage was just the £31.50 consult charge. Lucy had been on 4 buses and 2 underground trains. She’s a very well-traveled budgie.
As soon as she got home her and George were calling to each-other, I think he was very worried that he wasn’t going to see her again.
She went straight to him when I let her out.
She seems fine now, back to normal behaviour of pushing boys off their perches, flying around squawking and destroying things.
I have added photos of Lucy’s discoloured droppings and a picture of what she looked like before we took her to the vet. Also a photo of her with some of her friends the next day, looking better.
A couple of days ago, I walked into the living room and almost all of the budgies had their heads back for a snooze.
It’s strange to see them so quiet, even a little disconcerting.
I do love their flock mentality. As soon as one wakes up, stretched their wings and flies off, they all do it.
The Sky is dark and Orange at the moment – it’s 3.50pm in the afternoon and the sun doesn’t set until 6.10pm today.
Apparently it’s due to some sand from the Sahara and smoke from a fire in Portugal.
I wonder what the budgies make of it.
Some of the budgies are going through a moult at the moment, so I thought that they could do with some egg which is high in protein and will help them to form new feathers.
The egg is hard-boiled and then grated for them. I leave it out for no more than a couple of hours.
Pete and Polly had not tried egg before as on previous occasions they didn’t go near it. It had obviously been labelled as scary.
Unfortunately Polly still didn’t go near, she seems a little bit less adventurous than Pete.
Pete had his first taste and he seems to love it, he went back for several more beakfuls. (Pete is the little green bird dipping his beak in, the other green bird is George and the white bird is Blithe)
Perhaps next time Polly will be less cautious and discover something delicious.
Polly has gone into a nibble everything frenzy lately.
She’s biting the wooden frames that we made for the windows so that we can open them on a warm day. She even bites at Pete’s favourite mirror in their cage.
I noticed that she pulled up some newspaper on top of one of the cages and was tugging at it so hard that she almost pulled the glass seed pot off.
So yesterday I put three cuttlebones in her cage for her to bite at. A week ago I ordered a 500g box, mostly for her as she can demolish one in 10 minutes.
At first she did not know what to do, but once she got to work she was distracted from biting everything else!
Quite a few years ago my family bought me a little budgie statue, I think it was from Walton-on-the-naze.
I recently realised that it looks a bit like Polly.
What do you think?
Pete and Polly have been getting rather amorous lately. But they have not got the hang of the act of “budgie love”.
Pete stands on Polly’s back and they look like a double-decker budgie.
But Pete still does a “victory flight” around the room afterwards like he’s done something amazing. So I guess they achieved something after all 🙂
On 5th October 2010 Sky came to live with us. He was 4 years old and had never been out of his cage before. He arrived with Blueboy, who sadly passed away a few years later.
When Sky first left his cage, he was so enthusiastic that he hit the wall with a thud. Thankfully he was unharmed, we all breathed a sigh of relief.
Sky has made many friends and is a very popular budgie.
He’ll be celebrating his birthday with his 9 friends with whom he’ll be sharing sweetcorn and red millet.
Here are some photos of Sky and friends from the last week. As you can see he does not look his age.
Sky’s message is “act young, stay young”.
Sky on my hand
Sky flying with George
Eating millet with Hector
Sitting with Billybob
George has become very obsessed with Sky lately, he seems to see him as some sort of budgie God.
Sky has become more and more sick of being chased around by George and has started seeking refuge by coming over to me. Sky knows that George will not land on me, George only plucks up the courage to do that if I have millet. Millet makes things worth the danger.
Here are a few photos of Sky on my hand. George was flying back and forth over me, but Sky got a rest as he sat with me for ten minutes.
