8th March 2012

So on the 5th of March Daisy's quarantine was finished. Although she has been sick so won't be introducing her to Kirby and Charlie yet.

She went on a course of antibiotics and I'm really not sure if it has helped but she isn't getting worse that I can tell.

As for taming, its gone way downhill due to having to grab her out of the cage twice a day and put a syringe in her mouth with yucky tasting medicine in it, so now she doesn't like my hands anywhere near her cage.

She has more toys now, but doesn't go near them. Mostly she sits in the same place all day and I'm not sure if this is because she is sick and has no energy or she just doesn't know what the use of toys is. I think she may be a little sad that she is by herself, but I can't introduce her to Kirby and Charlie until I'm sure she is okay and she is more tame.

she's moulting and has grown a tail feather which I'm really pleased about, so her balance is getting better.

I put veggies in her cage for the first time today, so far she hasn't touched them also put vitamin supplement in her water now she is off her antibiotics in case she does have vitamin deficiencies because her feathers still look rough and messy. 

Kirby and Charlie are doing great eating veggies and being good little birdies :)

budgie update

Daisy

Daisy is on day 11 on Quarantine, I feel like she has been here longer than that.

She is showing no signs of illness and is preening and looking after herself well.

I can get her to eat millet from my hand and I'm working with her to step up onto a perch while she is in the cage which she does sometimes when she is feeling confident.

she is still quite afraid though, and I think she may be scared of the clicker :/

otherwise she is doing great settling in playing with her toys more now- especially her mirror toy with the bells on it. She only falls of the perch every now and then if she gets a fright, but doesn't seem to hurt herself and just climbs back up to her perch.

I'm hoping that her training will keep going good and things will start to improve with her getting used to my hands!

Kirby and Charlie

Target training (using clicker training) is going great for Kirby & Charlie, they are both very smart at touching the target and getting their treat and try to race each other to get to the target stick first.

I want to move on and start training them outside of the cage, possibly targeting them to a perch and then eventually getting them to target to me- fly to me :)

But this will probably take some time, since their attention span isn't very high :P and if they aren't in the mood to learn I just imagine them flying all over the room paying no attention to me! haha but I can try! lol

DAISY DAY 7

Yesterday Daisy got a new cage :)
Its not the best cage for a Budgie, but much bigger than the one she was in...
Its quite high, and I was a little worried she would hurt herself if she fell of a perch.. so I layed newspaper in the bottom for softer landing. But she has become really good at climbing and seems much happier :)
I think she knows now she is safe, she preens herself lots and talks to Kirby and Charlie, she also will eat Millet from my hand now whenever I offer it to her, and doesn't get afraid when I open the cage door.
She is also learning a little to play with her toys! 


Every day I'm looking to see if she has pin feathers hoping her tail feathers will grow back, but I'm preparing myself in case they don't and I'm sure now she will get more confident and live a happy life here even if she can't fly.




here is a pic of Daisy in her new cage :) 

its such a mansion compared to what she used to be in. and the top opens up to turn into a play gym above the cage, so when her quarantine is done and she is a little more tame I will try letting her out and see if she likes sitting up there :)

Since my last post earlier this morning, Daisy has improved :)

I took her to the living room with me while watching tv and she chirped a few times! 

then back to the bedroom, I've spent like my entire day in here apart from when I was cleaning the bird trays and when I was eating :P

Finally she got the courage to move from her perch and eat really quickly, then again she went down to her food this time for longer..

Then a little while after she started preening!! while I was sitting right here, and she managed to get the poo that was stuck to her bum off so now I have more confidence that she is able to do that herself I won't have to get her out and scare the poor baby.

She'll have most of tomorrow to get more used to her cage and then I'll be home from work and will try putting my hand in again.

She really hasn't used her wings at all, maybe she is just choosing not to, she goes to the edge of her perch and then climbs down the wire to get to her food!

anyway she's been eating away like she suddenly realised it was safe to eat!!

I took some pics of her and she just looked at me like "you're taking pictures again while I'm eating this time!?!?!" she will have to learn mummy likes to take lots of pictures of her budgies and spoil them too :)

Daisy

Today is the third day Daisy has been here...
she's not showing signs of being very comfortable, and doesn't move around the cage much.
When I had Charlie this is when I started the millet training, and Charlie started progressing immediately.


But Daisy is a very scared budgie, she has no confidence and hasn't even been exploring her cage much she just sits on the perch.


I had to get her out again today because she had poo on her bottom again.. that's a bad sign and I don't know why it would be happening.. Maybe stress and she isn't preening herself properly.


On a closer look she is also missing several flight feathers from one of her wings... This pretty much tells me its not French moult or cause by a moult because when budgies moult they lose the same amount of feathers on each wing.
So I'm now thinking she has either been frightened by a cat or dog, or handled really badly. Budgie's will lose feathers if being chased by a dog or cat under stress and to try and confused the cat/dog.


Anyway I will keep trying to make her feel safe and trust me, but its a little hard when I keep having to grab her and take her out of the cage to clean her up.


I will most likely be taking her to the vet if things don't improve within a week or so in case she has some other problem. But I'm thinking its just stress.
I think it would really calm her to be able to go near Kirby and Charlie but I just can't risk that at the moment.

Meet the newest addition to the flock

This little girl got brought back to the pet store by her owners because she "couldn't fly"...

She isn't missing any flight feathers but has no tail feathers causing her to have bad balance. I don't know if she has always been like this or if they will grow back but I think they must have had her in a small cage and not actually let her out to see if she could fly.

She doesn't have a name yet, and has just started quarantine. She's pretty calm and I'm letting her settle in and will start the taming/bonding process.

I want her to get really tame, as she won't be put in the same cage as Kirby and Charlie. They will all play together outside of the cage, but I wouldn't trust Kirby to be nice.

So I'm going to hopefully get her tame and she will come and play with me lots.. & hopefully get along with my two when they are out together.

so day one of quarantine begins!

training with charlie

Today I went to a pet store to buy a new water dish as the other one cracked somehow.. I also got a rope perch (because they were on sale for only $7!!).


I was going to let the birds out today, but there ended up being no time..
I did however manage to separate them in different sides of there cage so I could talk to charlie a little.
I'm taking things slowly, he stood on my finger and its longer now that he stands without biting. I also played some videos of other budgies talking and he actually paid a fair bit of attention but kirby was chirping and got quite distracting.
So I'm going to try repeating simple things right now, probably just like "hello" or "hello birdies" and "pretty bird" that kind of thing.
His really getting good and making different noises... and seems to love chirping and bobbing his head away :)


I've been doing a lot of research about training parrots and birds in general, and am really liking what I'm learning.
I felt with Charlie and Kirby when I first got them progress was slow, and then it suddenly went fast and they were jumping on my hands and kirby especially was SO confident... but then I was so excited about the progress the training kind of stopped... I was at a dead end "what should I do next?"


I felt I didn't know how to take the next step, they're both quickly becoming confident birds while they are in the cage, and even while out of the cage... but how do I make them LEARN, how do I make them pay attention. To really want to be out of the cage.. a lot of the time when they come out they just run around on the top of the cage together.
I would love to teach them to fly to me when called and get them flying, really exercising those wings...
Last time they were out they ran around on the carpet which is fine, but I would like them to fly more :)


So I think my plan is:
1. be consistent, make sure they have training sessions out of the cage at least once a week. (so they get used to coming out and viewing it as a good thing)
2. do target training every day with charlie and kirby both.
3. talk to them more, repeating the same phases... (to do this I'm going to try and say hello every time i come in the room and goodbye when I leave)
4. spend more time just with Charlie on my hand so there is no jealousy from Kirby. then after playing with Charlie make sure to play with Kirby so she understands she gets her turn too.


hopefully I make some progress and the birds will soon be flying every week and learning new things :)

skylah, Joey and Banana PICTURES

Here are the pictures my friend sent to me of skylah joey and banana in the aviary. They look like they are so happy :)
Skylah's eye is slowly growing back feathers so hopefully within a few months she will be all better.


here is skylah and joey hanging out together (they are still a cute couple)

Skylah, Joey and Banana all together :)

        Joey hanging out with his English budgie friend 

Joey being handsome

I'm so glad that they are feeling better & enjoying life in the aviary :)

skylah, Joey and Banana UPDATE

I realised I never updated about them. They spent about a month with me, they got treated every day with baby oil once the scaly face started to clear up a bit because the actual scaly face treatment was very harsh, the were also treated with ivomec twice (spot on treatment for mites).
They then went to live at my friends Mum. She has a huge aviary, and also two big bird cages. (all filled with budgies).
Skylah, joey and Banana got kept there still in quarantine for a few weeks. They got treated twice more with ivomec just to be safe, and the mites cleared up.

Joey's beak had really started to get better whilst staying with me, I gave him a toy used to help keep the beak trimmed and he was happy to chew on it. And soon enough the long part on his beak wore down.

I've heard from there new owner skylahs beak has also improved and she is starting to grow back feathers around her eye.
They have all been moved into the new aviary and are getting along great with the other birds. AND they are eating fruit and veg!
They have come such a long way after being 3 very sick budgies with severe mites and vitamin deficiencies to healthy and happy budgies :)

pics will be up latter!

Once again its been a long time since I update :( Sorry!


Anyway Kirby and Charlie are doing good as usual. Kirby has become more and more bossy but Charlie loves her anyway!
There was thought on moving them outside. Reasons being were:
a) They would have a big cage to fly
b) fresh air
c) I could add to the flock..


but the reasons I didn't want them to:
a) I was afraid it would be too hard to play with them
b) kirby would be sad because she loves human interaction
c) scared they wouldn't survive outside.


So it ended up being decided they weren't going outside! Because it was too expensive and I couldn't imagine not having them with me, I'd miss their noisy chatter!


I am still planning one day when I move out for their cage to be upgraded to a nice big flight cage, but this won't be until I live out of home & can keep it inside.


Right now they seem so happy in their long cage. I rearranged it the other day, added some old toys and swings they hadn't seen for a while.. Charlie seems to get attached to things that used to be Kirby's and are pink/girl colours :P
I rearranged it one morning and that night/VERY early morning they had several night frights! Sometimes they will have on night fright, usually a little after I've turned the light out.. but every time I turned the light on... waited for them to calm down, turned the light back off and 10 minutes latter it was happening again!
I was so glad I was home & could turn the light on so they didn't hurt themselves. 
they  haven't had one since though thankfully.


I'm also planning on spending some more time taming Charlie alone. Reason is, lately I haven't had enough time to spend with them, once they both became tame I stopped doing little taming lessons and now I just stick my hand in the cage to play.. But Kirby gets all the attention and when Charlie tries to join in he gets chased away.. (naught kirby).
But I think Charlie has more potential to become even more tame and confident... I also think he has potential to learn to talk. he listens intently when I speak to him :)