Millet day

The budgies are having some millet to cheer them up on a gloomy day. Also in a bid to stop the girls chewing the curtains. Obviously the latter did not work.

George looking out of the window and eating breakfast (Bertie on the right)

Max playing with the number 6 block on the sofa

Iris and Chipper

Lyra and Penny eyeing me suspiciously

Lyra move away from me, indicating she doesn’t want me to come any closer with the camera, so after this photo I back away.

Iris and friends

Iris has been spending time in front of this card. At one point she tried to land on it.

I think she wanted a share in the millet that those budgies were obviously enjoying!

Thank you Rose for the card 🙂

Custard vet visit in December

Custard went off to the vet in December because he was making a very wet coughing noise one night. I managed to get him an urgent appointment the next day.

The diagnosis was a respiratory infection.

He had two weeks of antibiotics, twice a day and lots of extra red millet to keep him entertained.

Hopefully, fingers crossed he seems much better. He’s currently singing away.

Billybob, worries and millet

One day last week we were very worried about Billybob as he only seemed to be able to perch properly on one foot.
He was bunching the other foot up into a fist and kneeling on the knuckle.

Before Billybob came to us he was in a cage (with JoJo) that had java branches that were too big for his feet to be able to grip properly.

At first I was worried that he might have a tumour that was pressing on a nerve and making his foot unusable.
We examined him and found that his toe-nails were a little bit long, causing some of them to hook onto eachother when he bunched his foot. Some of the toenails, even the short ones are slightly too curved. I did my best with my tiny pair of nail-clippers, carefully taking a milimetere or two off of each one. It’s very tough to cut some of my budgies toenails as I can’t see the quick properly.

Then I used some aloe vera gel to massage his legs and feet. Never did I think that budgie physio-therapist would be added to my repertoire.

Of course, Billybob hated the whole experience and even managed to reach out and bite me at one point.

He seems to be able to perch okay now thankfully, but I’ll keep up the leg/foot massage for him and also keep an eye on his nails.

Even though Billybob is over 10 years old (been with us about 4 years), he still surprises me sometimes. The other day I put some millet out for everyone on the playgroud. I have to tie it on with some paper string or Lucy will chuck it all on to the floor. Billybob doesn’t usually land on the playground and it’s a bit of a
free-for-all with millet on it and he gets pushed off.

I said to Billybob, don’t worry, I’ll put some in your cage for you and you can share with Hector. A few minutes later I glanced over to the playground and saw Billybob standing by the side of it, eating the fallen millet, apparently he couldn’t wait!

Pete sitting on my hand eating millet

A couple of days ago, I was feeding Custard some millet on the arm of the sofa. I held out my arm and called Pete over, thinking that I may as well try and he’d shown interest in sitting next to Custard and sharing millet with him.

I was amazed to find that Pete flew straight to me and landed on my hand, so of course he was rewarded with some millet.

There is nothing like the feeling of a budgie sitting on your hand, wrapping their little toes around your finger, totally trusting you.

Just to add that he didn’t eat this whole piece, 6 budgies (Pete, Custard, George, Sky, Hector and Blithe) shared it, taking it in turns to come over and have some at different points during the day.

Millet, corn and fun

The budgies have been eating millet, sweetcorn and having lots of fun.

I washed a huge load of millet for them, which is now dried and stored in boxes.

Here are the latest batch of photos of the fiends.

JoJo and her expensive tastes

Sometimes my little JoJo sits on the floor with me. I try to get her attention with a few toys.

Unfortunately she doesn’t really play so she goes straight for the Red Millet.

If I gave her the choice between a large spray of white/yellow millet and a tiny sprig of Red.

She always goes for the Red.

Quality not quantity..

Millet Bribery

We recently replaced part of the budgies swing with a sturdier one (thanks natural bird product company).
But as usual had to bribe the budgies with millet to go anywhere near it.

Eventually they have given in and they are now using the new Swing-Toy.

Clever Buds.. 🙂

JoJo V Millet

I know who my money is on to win.

My cheeky little JoJo

Little JoJo still can’t fly. But she still seems to be happy. We adapted her cage, with a rope perch along the front and lots of other perches, plus a platform so that she can get around easily.

She also has a towel underneath the newspaper at the bottom in case she falls. There are ladders so that she can climb back up to a perch easily from the bottom.

In the morning she squawks at me to open the door for her to come out, she climbs up to the rope perch on the front of the cage and sits there.

It’s relatively safe for her to come out and sit on the perch as we have a large folded up cover with newspapers on it, positioned on the floor to catch her if she falls. We do not leave her unsupervised.

BillyBob leaps on to my hand and flies straight out, sometimes giving a little squawk as he does so, “freedom!!!!!” he exclaims.

We get JoJo out of the cage frequently and she sits on my shoulder, chewing on my t-shirt, biting my ear or sometimes eating millet.

Photos of me with the little minx. I think she’s warming to me…

 

JoJo yesterday on my shoulder

 

 

JoJo this morning when I opened her cage