u/KittyKayl

Y'all are going to get tired off me posting these tiny gremlins, but this little family is too adorable. Even if Mama Dove *does* have a mean wing slap if she's on nest duty when I check on the bebes.

Fog was coming back to the nest when I looked in on them earlier, and he stayed back and waited a little to let me get a quick pet in! I got one warning wing lift, but he settled when I started talking to him. Pretty sure Dove wouldn't have been so accommodating 😅 He moved towards the nest again after a minute, and I stopped petting so he could climb in and start lunch time lol.

The pidgelets are obviously going to grow up comfortable with humans, and I think Fog and I are developing a decent relationship. I have a feeling Dove is going to be one that would rather not acknowledge me unless she needs me for something, but that's fine. I have a budgie hen who feels that way. Two years with me has done nothing to change her mind that I'm a below stairs servant lmao

My accidental clutch are growing nicely, and they are so stinking cute. I checked on them when Fog and Dove were downstairs eating and got a few photos. Their eyes are opening! And they're not quite so wobbly, and getting bigger fast. Fog and Dove are doing a great job.

She's still a sneaky wench, though 😂❤️

I just noticed Dove being broody a couple days ago. Last night, I cleaned their cage, went to move Fog enough to switch pigeon eggs with fake eggs and was NOT expecting to see feathers underneath him. The expert estimates they're between 3 and 5 days old since the eyes aren't open yet. That'll narrow it down as to actual birthday. But I pulled them a little later, much to a very angy Dove's displeasure, and gave them a look over and we've got full crops, clean bums, and both parents have been keeping them well tucked up underneath them.

Sneaky little wench. We will be instituting weekly egg checks going forward, and now I need to upgrade their cage a lot sooner than I'd planned *sigh*

Before anyone asks, their mess of a nest was cleared of the plastic toys so the little ones don't get hurt, and I'll be changing her set up to something a little more appropriate for baby care.

He's growing more confident in navigating the big cage every day, and I'm glad I never really rearranged the upper level much once Clever was flying confidently. He's figured out how to get to at least one of the moon swings (I'm gonna need a fifth one...), has been witnessed crawling on the ceiling because he, like so many others, is part bat, and today I watched him learn he could hop between the swinging seagrass mats, which are another flock favorite.

Clever, my eldest hen, most vicious tiny raptor, and the only other Petco pet line budgie in the cage, who rarely acknowledges my existence, came over and bitched at ME this morning when Hopalong was trying to work out how to get down to the floor where the bowls are from where he was, like *I* was supposed to do something? I told her quit being a saucy bi-- I mean wench and help him out since this entire f***ing set up was designed for her to get around in the first place 😂😂

Messaged FrozenBr33ze that I was concerned he wasn't making it down there to the food since I haven't been around to watch the last few days and it looked like he was having trouble figuring out how to climb down. Hit send, looked at the cage, little bugger is all the way in the bowl chowing down 🤦‍♀️😂 Sent back "never mind..."

So far everyone is doing remarkably well with him, even my more dramatic Hooligans, like Clever very clearly talking to me about him, and Kaepora actually spending time with him. May be cranky time if he gets too close without consent, but time. Noctis has been seen talking to him very earnestly, as has Rauru (with them being Salt sons, that probably surprises no one who knows Salt), and Piper and Sariah were his biggest supporters when he first moved in. Piper taught him how to climb the walls horizontally to get to perches, rather than just vertically and get stuck, and they both stayed with him when he was too excited to be amongst the flock for the older birds because he had zero concept of personal space. I haven't seen Midna or Vic doing more than passing near him, but they're not being rude. Midna is a very introverted hen as it is (so is Sariah, actually, which is why her being the first to spend time with him instead of running from him surprised me. Piper, as the cage bottom, did not surprise me. He's just a sweet guy most of the time). It seems like the week he's been in there has built up some leg muscles already. With all the climbing after spending 6 weeks on, effectively, bed rest, it was obvious the leg that had been fractured was bothering him some the first few days.

So yeah. Little dude is doing well, gaining confidence, and settling into my flock of Hooligans. I can't wait for him to finish molting out the rest of the clipped flight feathers and start learning to fly. Or seeing how the dynamics shift, which is apparently what FrozenBr33ze is waiting to hear about 😂 We like the daytime soap opera that takes place in my living room.

(The little bit of red on Kaepora's head is from a blood feather busting. He's fine. It's been cleaned off since, much to his very aggrieved annoyance.)

Hopalong has passed quarantine and shows every sign his broken leg is healed, so he finally got to join the flock of Hooligans in the big cage and.... this....omg, he's so freaking smol.

This is Hopalong's story-- https://www.reddit.com/r/petbudgies/s/RYmZUrfH4Q -- but for those who more want the tl;dr, my Thursday at work 5 weeks ago started out with my GM informing me he needed to talk to me (and me going "The f*&# did I do THIS time?") and ended with me taking home one of our budgies that had managed to fracture his leg and 3 different medications.

We have one more week in the hospital tub for purposes of quarantine and ensuring that femur has healed most of the way so he's unlikely to accidentally catch a leg and rebreak it in the big cage. Or jump from the top level, which is infinitely more likely in my experience.

Given the probable age range FrozenBr33ze estimated, he's likely about 16 weeks old now, and has been working through his first molt. Little dude has 5 whole flight feathers molted out and grown back in (they come in clipped from the distributor as a matter of course)! He still can't fly, but he thinks he can. You can see how the Golden Face is spreading as he molts and changing colors, and I caught a photo that shows how it presents along the outlining of the black on the wings. He's going to be a pretty boy when all is said and done. I mean, he's a pretty boy now, obviously, but the green color that's spreading is really pretty.

First 7 photos are from yesterday (he got tired of me trying to take pictures and thought jumping on the phone was going to stop me....), a few from the last few weeks, and the last 3 are from the day I got him if anyone wants to see how the green is spreading. While it wasn't a deciding factor in bringing him home, of course, once I got a good look at him, asking if he was a Yellowface Type 2 or a Goldenface was one of the first things I asked FrozenBr33ze (who has been amazing about answering a slew of questions about a bird not from his aviary and checking in on him btw), and I was thrilled when he said yes. Both because Yay, I got it right! But also, been low key wanting one for a while 😂 He's turning onto a sweet boy. We'll see how things change once he gets to go live in the big cage with the rest of the Hooligans. I'll post another update. Every time I've added another bird, the dynamics in the flock shift. Sometimes only a little, sometimes a lot. We're eager to see what changes come with little Hopalong who, at 26 grams, has knocked Lady Clever off her perch as The Smollest (Raptor) in the flock.

At least we're communicating? 😂 We're not ready to be touched, but we're also not scattering when I'm doing things inside the cage. I offer to pet, they move back, I remove hand and keep doing what I was doing, and I get thoughtful looks. Each time, they move away less distance. It's progress.

I finally gave up and renamed the hen 😂 Her name was Mist, to go with Fog, but for whatever reason, I keep calling her Dove. I didn't want to name her Dove since, you know, Rock Dove. But I finally got tired of having to correct myself because it was coming out verbally AND in text. So fine. Whatever. Her name is clearly Dove. If I decide to let them raise a round of chicks, maybe one of the babies will be named Mist. Or a budgie is coming that's going to be named Mist. I dunno. But obviously her name was *not* Mist.

Fog and Dove, everyone.

That is all.

I have a very happy 8 budgie flock. I JUST brought home a pair of pigeons a few weeks ago. I'm good on birds (so long as nothing particularly interesting that's sired by a particular DF Anthracite hatches, but I digress...). And yet here we are. It's been a week now since my store manager said one of the most dreaded sentences a manager can say: "I need to talk to you."

Full disclosure--I work for one of the big box pet stores as a pet stylist. They offer health insurance and, after 14 years, a damned good amount of PTO 🤷‍♀️ It's the USA. Both of those things are important luxuries.

So the GM, who I get along with well, tells me he needs to talk to me. Me, being me, immediately ask him, "The f@*% I do THIS time?" (He's ex-Marine... swearing at him is a love language or something.) Evidently what I did was own birds, because he wanted me to have a look at a budgie back in Wellness which he thought might be injured after getting something caught up on his leg band that shouldn't have been in there and whoever did the birds that day was definitely Getting Talked To.

I go in, do a quick visual assessment, and determine that yeah, I definitely needed a closer look. I open the cage door and, as I'm grabbing a small towel, my favorite jarhead very helpfully says, "Be careful, he bites."

No shit, Sherlock; why do you think I grabbed the towel?

I get the little guy scooped up and turned over so I can see the leg. Could immediately tell that, at bare minimum, he needed the band removed. The swelling was enough, the band was cutting into his skin. Gave the budgie some head and face scritches and told my GM that he definitely needed to go to the vet. At minimum, he was just swollen and needed the band removed. At maximum, he'd injured it badly enough it would have to be amputated. Since GM was the only manager at the store at the time, he was like, great.... okay, we'll handle that once the asst manager gets in. I put budgie back and go back to the salon and my full schedule, but before I get moving on my dogs, I shoot a message to the expert, FrozenBr33ze, with a few questions since I was already pretty certain I was bringing home a new budgie that day.

Within 2 hours, my entire afternoon emptied, for various reasons. Realized I hadn't heard anything about the bird, so I wander out onto the floor to find the GM and ask about him. No, he hadn't had a chance. So I offered. We call our usual exotic vet and they're not taking birds anymore. Considering I'd been hearing about some serious turnaround over there, I wasn't shocked. Started Googling vets because my vet didn't answer the phone when we tried. Call #3 had no appts available that afternoon. Finally get an appointment at the 4th one we called. I grab a quick lunch then take the bird, cage and all, and head up front to get the card from my grumbling GM. Get to the vet, get checked in, they ask me his name...? Ma'am, he doesn't have one. He's a Petco bird.

Tech comes out a little while later: "The bird?" 😂😂

We get in the back, I run through what happened, pull out The Bird so she can do a visual, then she heads back to talk to the doctor. Little dude is perfectly content to chill in my hand, so I let him. Tech comes back to tell me the vet wants to do an X-ray. Yeah, he needs one, please do... Tech brings him back to me and is like, the band really should come off. Um... was that even a question??? Tech goes, sit tight, the vet will be in shortly.

Vet comes in and confirms that the little guy has a spiral fracture in the upper leg, above the band. Made a comment about the band not causing the problem and then tapered off long enough that my AuDHD a$$ filled in with "but it's definitely exacerbating it."

My use of exacerbating thrilled the vet lol. And she agreed. Asked if I had an issue with it coming off and, of course, the answer is no. At this point, I've been messaging with FrozenBr33ze pretty much the entire time I've been there when not talking to someone, so when the vet asked about aftercare, I told her I was taking him home, was already talking with the breeder my budgies came from, he had recommended X, Y, and Z, and maybe A, B, and possibly C? She was like, perfect, except the C-- she didn't feel a splint was necessary. They get an estimate with the x-ray, the sedation to remove the band, and the medications going home with him on it, I call to update my GM and confirm the cost was approved. It was-- it was only a little higher than he'd already guessed it would be, and lower than what I had figured it would be based on one of my boys needing an X-ray at my usual avian vet. I confirm we are go, and the tech comes back with a friend to waterboard--I mean, sedate, via nasal drops-- the poor guy. He was displeased. They left him with me until it took effect. It didn't take long. Didn't take long to remove the band and, when they brought him back, get a good look at the damage the swelling under the band had done, poor guy. We finished up, I put him back in the cage for the drive, aaaand he immediately faceplanted into the bedding... he got a towel to prop him up some for the drive.

So now I have an injured budgie. He was sent home with Baytril (antibiotic), Meloxicam (anti-inflammatory), and gabapentin (pain killer) for the next 7 days. Oddly enough, pretty much exactly what FrozenBr33ze had advised. Me and The Bird made a pit stop to Lowe's to get what was needed to set up a hospital enclosure, as advised (photo included if you haven't already scrolled through). As of this writing, this morning was his last dose of everything. This week has been a bit of a ride. It's been a while since I've had to dose a budgie via syringe, and these syringes did NOT make it easy with how tight the rubber is in the plunger. The doses of the Baytril and gabapentin were small enough, it wasn't an issue, but he's been wearing grape flavored Meloxicam all week 🤦‍♀️ I finally started splitting that dose into 2 an hour or so apart because there was no feeding it to him drop by drop. There was "no movement of the plunger" or "shoot everything into his mouth, his nostrils, and his eyeball". Somehow, I avoided giving him an eye infection or aspiration pneumonia. I know, I'm kind of shocked myself lmao.

While I don't like the fact the budgies come to us with wings already clipped (it was a nightmare for my eldest hen and only other Petco bird with how long it took for her to even start her first molt... took her over 18 months to learn to fly), it's made this ordeal a little easier. He was completely untamed last Thursday morning, and this week he's gotten very used to being handled. The first night, he was throwing himself at the side of his tub enough that I pulled him back out, whereupon he promptly fell asleep on my hand while I worked on my laptop. When I had to put him up for real, he fell back asleep as close to me as he could get. He has yet to bite me. Like, at all. The most he's done is use his beak on me to pull himself up. He's gone to work with me every day I worked, gotten to visit my partner's house several times, and has started discovering what music he likes during car rides. He likes my head, my shoulder, and behind my hair. He also likes trying to fling himself off me to go exploring, and if he wants out, he likes throwing himself around and climbing the ceiling of his tub like an ADHD kid hopped up on Red Bull and pixie sticks. I have scolded him several times to please at least ACT like he's injured, maybe? He doesn't listen. He'll be in the hospital tub for another 5 or 6 weeks, partially for quarantine purposes, partially to ensure his leg is fully healed before I start introducing him to the big cage. The injuries from the swelling around the band are, thankfully, almost completely healed, and his grip strength in the foot in the injured leg is almost equivalent to the good leg finally.

So. New budgie. Everyone meet Hopalong Cassidy. He goes by Hopalong for the most part, or HC in text. He's an 11 or 12 week old male, either Yellowface or Goldenface type 2 (waiting on his first molt to finish to see what the color does). The yellow is already bleeding into the blue in areas, turning them green. He's too dark to be a Skyblue-- maybe Cobalt? He's got something in there that's darkening him up some, at any rate. Not quite as dark as my single factor Anthracite. It'll be interesting to see how he develops, and how much bigger he gets. Right now he's even smaller than my tiny raptor of a hen from Petco-- she's 31 grams, and he's only 26 grams!

Fog and Mist

Fog and Mist

Fog(m) (any other fans of Tamora Pierce's Beka Cooper series?) and Mist(f) have been here about a week and a half and in the final cage for a couple days. They're already trying to make a nest, bless them, but at least they both seem comfortable in the small animal bed I got. The hook to hang it on the shelves has done an amazing job so far keeping it in the corner.

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They're on Versale-Laga no corn pigeon feed and the Versale-Laga All-In-One grit+ and seem to have adapted from the grit they were getting before with zero issue. We're eating everything but what I assume are one of the peas-- those tend to be what gets left behind more.

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Neither are particularly spooky birds--I choose the two who seemed the most curious rather than scared-- but Mist is a bit more timid than Fog. Still, they're both comfortable eating with me right there, loafing in their nest and not getting up when I walk into the room, and chilling on one leg. Right now, I'm calling that a win. I'm waiting to hear back from my local vet if they'll do a psittacosis test and check up on them for me before I start letting them out for play time since I have budgies that I know for certain aren't carriers, and while I'm not figuring on direct contact, it can become airborne. If my vet can't, we'll either make an appointment with the bird vet or try to figure out how to do the test myself and mail it off. Internal parasite caution is so much easier... one prophylactic dose of MoxiVet and done.

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Fog does like to talk. He'll sit in his nest and coo. I hear him talking to himself for a while after lights out, too. I woke up at 430 the other night, WELL before dawn, and he was cooing softly to himself. It's cute, and a lot quieter than the budgie background noise during the day 😂

Disclaimer: new to pigeons, working on learning the language.

(If you can hear him over the budgies) Are we just talking, or is this calling? I know it's short-- that's the best I was able to get today because he went quiet as soon as the camera turned on. I got this after talking to him for a few minutes. Fog will do this for a good while in the evening after it's dark out in the living room, like the adhd kid talking to themselves in bed after lights out lol. Except tonight, because of course not lol.

He seems comfortable in his new bed, and the hen, Mist, was standing less than 6 inches away. I've had them for a week, and they just moved into the permanent cage last night (and immediately dove into the food bowl... while Mist is a little more cautious, neither of them are particularly timid).

Hey y'all! I brought these two home on Wednesday. Male and female, not sure on age. I haven't messed with them yet to check the leg bands and see if they've got a date on them. They are currently in quarantine in the dog crate. They're aviary raised, so I went with the two who seemed the most curious about me rather than terrified.

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I'm new to pigeons but not new to birds. Currently have a flock of 8 budgies, all exhibition line save for my tiny little pet line raptor who rules the cage (at least, she thinks she does). I call them the Hooligans. Iykyk 😂 So far, the pidgies have been pretty chill, are eating, drinking, and pooping like they should.

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The budgies are helping them figure out what's scary and what's not. Last night was the first time I was moving around a lot doing things. The budgies were quiet, watching me, so every noise started making the pidgies spook. So I told the budgies they were freaking out the pidgies being too quiet and they needed to make some noise. My boy Rauru said aight, bet and started chattering up a storm to tell me all about what Kaepora had done that day to annoy him (he's been tattling on Kaepora since they were babies). I think he may have moved on to complain about some of the others, he went on long enough lol. Pidgies settled and started eating pretty quick once Rauru got to talking. The vacuum didn't even bother them.

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I started setting up their permanent cage and discovered I need more panels, so I ordered those today. Picked up a pan for a nest, some cat toys for them to fling around, a hammock, a blanket, and a few other things and tried not to have a heart attack about giving birds fabric (parrots, that's a bad idea, and that's all I've ever had).

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The place I got them, I also got some food and grit. The grit looks like it's got bits of quartz in it? I have read through the info pinned here and a few other sites, and it seems to be roundly recommended to not. I'm not sure if they use the same grit for the pigeons and the chickens, but either way, I ordered a bag of Versale-Laga pigeon feed w/o corn (mostly because they don't seem to be eating it) and a bag of Versale-Laga all in one grit. We'll see about getting them switched over once that arrives.

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They did not freak out when I switched out their paper towels and refilled feed, grit, and water last night. I sat there for a few minutes talking to them, and while neither were interested in coming closer (not surprising), both looked to be fairly relaxed, curious, and listening. I'll call it a win for day 2.

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Obligatory photo of my 16 year old cat, Tristan. He runs the house, so he had to supervise the building of the cage.

Caught Clever (Cinnamon Skyblue hen) napping ❤️

In case someone was looking for toy and/or swing ideas, seagrass mats hanging by one point make the BEST swing toys.

Featuring Sariah (Opaline Dark Green) and Midna (Normal Skyblue)