remember the aliens?

those who were around in march, when may aliens landed may recall these pics:-



who turned into these:-



well now, they are fully grown adults budgies, and have been split into my small male and female flocks. so i thought i'd do an update, along with their cage mates.

so first up the boys cage

mr cocky himeslf: holiday - hatched 12/03/07 whilst i wa sona days leave, holiday was ill at 5 weeks, and so i had to keep him under a lamp, hwoever he pulel dtrhough, and has ever since been teh tamest of the bunch. it isnt unusual fro me to have holiday, lucky, and cupid all on teh hand at once....which is against the norm for a flock.



then joey (1 year old) and chilli (18 months, and dad to the youngsters-you can see who tehy all get teh yellow faces from)



holiday again, with lucky (born 15/03/07, and accidentally fell out of teh nest when being checked that he had been fed). holiday and lucky are inseperable. you can see teh differences though in a normals cere (holidays) and a pieds, on males normals have a blue cere,w hislt pieds can be eitehr blue or they can retain their pinky, purple baby cere), also pieds keep their jet black eyes, whilst normals will grow an iris aroun 4-6 months.



teh two together again


cupid, the eldest chick, also pied. hatched 10/03/07 on my friends wedding day


and joey and cupid playing



then into the girls cage..... (you have toe xcsue the greeny/blue faces here...i bought tehma calcium perch, but tehy seme to think its for face painting!)

my eldest girl jimmy - whom i got back in 1998 - yes i knwo jimmy is a boys name, but all chicks start of with a pinkey/purle cere, so you cant tell until around first moult what sex tehy are,a nd by tehn i'd alreday named "him" lol.



foggy, now 5 1/2 years alos got a boys name, before undergoing a sex change. but when she had her clucth (she's mum to cupid, lucky, holiday,a nd samino) i couldn't really call her a "him" anymore!



sunny, who's 18 months, and my lutino girl woth lovely sriking red eyes, i took on as she has a skin disorder, quite often teh efathers on her wings will thin. (you can see teh make up stick in this pic too ;-))



and samino, she is my youngest hen (female budgie) daughter of foggy and cupid,a nd hatched 13/03/07, the day i bonded sama nd domino (hence the name) - good job she was a girl really ;-)


course, i couldnt take birdie pics without getting a coupel of my cockatiel beni, so here he is, named very cornally after me (becks) and the other half (nick)

very pretty budgies - Jimmy is a good name for a budgie whatever the sex :lol: I had a Jimi once I also had Elvis, 2 vets said male, 2 said female - so who knows? :lol:

Awww they are great! I especially love Holiday, Lucky and Foggy, their colours are soooo neon!

So how did you come about the handful of babies or should I say aliens?! :shock:

CottonMather said:

very pretty budgies - Jimmy is a good name for a budgie whatever the sex :lol: I had a Jimi once I also had Elvis, 2 vets said male, 2 said female - so who knows? :lol:

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lol, thats the problem with budgies...and just to make things worse, even as adults you get the odd one who doesnt go by the cere rule!!!!! personality is often a more relaible way of sexing, but even then youw ill have exceptions. boys love to play and cahtter all day, whilst females are more destructive an dwill chew at their perches, destroy sand paper to build nests etc.

i refused to sex the youngsters until they had first moult, thankfully budgies dont tend to breed until around 12 months, and first moult is at four months. also you can tell from the cere when a female is ready to breed as it goes deep brown...as soon as saminos started to go that orangy colour, she was straight out and into the other cage.

Thea & Bobbin said:

Awww they are great! I especially love Holiday, Lucky and Foggy, their colours are soooo neon!

So how did you come about the handful of babies or should I say aliens?! :shock:

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well in theory budgies only like to breed when they are in perfect conditions, and have a nesting box to hand. so i had a small mixed flock. foggy had never shown an interest before in any of teh boys, then one day i was putting up a shelving unit and right infront of my eyes chilli and foggy decided tos how a display of their effections!i'd bought them a new cage recently, and the change must of made foggy go maternal.

anyway i gota nest box, as i suspected then that it wasnt teh first tiem,a nd boy was i right, asd it takes a number of weeks for an egg to be laid....next mroning there was one in teh box!

thankfully 3-5 years are good ages fro budgie sto breed, and foggy has always been in good health.plus i've had budgies 23 years,a nd my grandad was a breeder. i'd always thought i one day may, but hadnt actually planne don doing so at this point, but it did mean i had a fair bit of knowledge.

needless to say they are nwo in single sex cages tho, nick an di decide dto keep all four babies (there were 7 eggs in total, 5 of which hatched, and one sadly did not make it).

it was a lot of hard work, with budgies you have to handle them from day one,a nd check their gullets are full of food, atleast three times a day,a nd if not feed with a toothpick, they take about 4 weeks til they start to wander and trya nd eat themselves.

it was well worth it though.