My Budgie And Cockatiel

[Sheryl]

Okay so Im new to the site and this is my first post so.. Here are my birds ^^


My almost three years old sexy lover male grey cockatiel, Babe x) He's an awesome sweetheart, very cuddly and loves playing and destroying my headphones LOL He's very possessive and would rather be with me all the time then with other birds. He regurgitates to me which makes my family laugh so bad, they say Im his woman. xD


I also have a budgie which is sleeping right now in the cage next to my bed. I don't have a picture of her/him and I dont intend on waking the poor thing up... sooo here's a video instead.

My baby budgie, Destiny (Dee for short) loves other birds and is never motivated to train or anything when Babe's not around. She's always cuddling up against him and he doesn't seem to mind it. She is not tamed yet, still working on it (Which is why her cage is next to my bed) And lately I've been suspecting her of being a man. Literally.

I bought both birds at a local petshop and they have never been hand raised. However I spend all day long with them so they got used to me really fast x) Also, I used to own those sweet lesbian budgies but they died of old age lately (I was the second owner, the first had to sell them since she could not take care of them anymore; health problems.) I really miss them but Im going to get a new budgie this week ^^


RIP Valentine and Jazz

[avinet]

Hi Sheryl, and welcome to our Forum - it's always good to meet up with non-Australians on here and learn about their bird keeping experiences.

Cockatiels and budgies are great little birds, I still have 6 house pet cockatiels, the oldest is 20 and the youngest a baby at 15 years old. Also quite a few older cockatiels in the outside aviary that are too old for further breeding so are living a happy life in retirement. We no longer have house budgies, but still have a few elderly aviary birds, again well past breeding age.

Just a note about something I noticed in the cage photos - you appear to have plastic perches in the cages - they are bad news for birds I'm afraid. I used to own a bird pet shop for 20 years and we saw many many cases of birds with feet problems caused by long term use of such plastic perches. Problems such as sores on the bottoms of their feet, overgrown nails, and eventually arthritic type symptoms developing. Perches are best made from natural branches - a bit thicker than the plastic ones in the cages. Natural branches with their irregular and varying shapes give the feet better exercise, and mean that pressure sores don't develop due to the same part of the foot in constant contact with the perch.

Here in Australia we generally use Eucalyptus branches but in Canada that won't be an option however branches from fruit trees such as apple are also good but not from the evergreen firs etc. Generally deciduous tree branches are OK, I'm just not sure what you might have available in your part of Canada.

Look forward to hearing more about your birds,

cheers,

Mike

[Sheryl]

No worries. Those are old pictures and they are not in that cage anymore. I have a really big cage upstairs, I'll take the exact measurements later but it's really big for two birds xD it's separated in two so that they wont fight while I'm not watching since I know budgies can be really mean > >

I changed the plastic perches for rope perches and wood perches, I also used this shreddable thing to cover the wood perches and they love to bite on that. The cage in the pictures is the cage I have downstairs now. I call it the 'taming cage' since it's the cage I used whenever I want to teach one of them a trick or tame a new bird. It's right next to my bed and since they see me sleeping they don't think of me as a predator. I also leave the door opens all the time in my room to let them know their house is not the cage only but the whole room. A few days ago I cleaned like there was no tomorrow to make sure EVERYTHING was suitable for birds and nothing could hurt them in here x) Kind of a big job but I decided to do it anyway.

Since I want to be an avian vet (like really bad) lately I've been thinking of getting breeding experience like, before I get to university and all (Im still in highschool) So I'm getting Destiny a mate and I will separate them during afternoons for like a hour, while Im taming since taming two budgies at once is really hard since they're more interested in each other then the human trying to teach them. When Destiny is tamed though, I might get them a nest box. (During the summer so I can take care of them at ALL times) I know how to do a handmade formula and I have pretty much all the info I need. Breeding my cockatiel would be more fun since he's with me about 12-14 hours a day and we love each other but he grew possessive and he doesn't like other birds near me so I gave up that idea xD

Gee, Im talking too much again, sorry XD

[Sheryl]

This is the cage in the picture that I only use as a night cage now



And this is the new BIG cage thats like so big... You can see the cockatiel on top xD Compare it to him LOL

[avinet]

That's a great cage for a budgie and cockatiel - certainly plenty of room! Glad to hear the plastic perches were only a temporary feature.

Good luck with the avian vet ambition - it would be a very rewarding career for anyone that loves birds. Where about in Canada are you located? - I've always wanted to visit Canada but so far have never made it north of the USA. One day

cheers

Mike

[Sheryl]

I'm in New Brunswick. (That's really close to USA) So small of a place that we don't have any vet that takes in birds. This is horrible. I only realized a few days ago when I wanted information about something, called the vet, she told me she didn't take care of birds. She gave me another lady's phone number, I called, she said she could not answer so I had to find another one and she told me to give it up, that there was no vet for birds around here. When I am moving to university though I am bringing the birds along and I'm going to the other side of the province where there IS an avian vet. I checked beforehand.

Also it's not that the cage was temporary, a woman gave it to me and I decided to let my birds explore the cage on that day so I let them in but I had kept that woman's things. She gave me the two first budgies I had AND the cage and toys for free. She couldn't walk around anymore and since she had a lot of animals she had to give people some of them. She only kept her cockatiel and two of her dogs. She told me if she ever became more sick, she would also give me her cockatiel. She was my old elementary school teacher so I'm pretty sad for her. It was very nice of her to give me all of that for free. I did try to give her some money for all that but she refused it. Oh well.

[Emma]

Hi welcome to the forum. Your birdies all seem really sweet, your cockatiel seems like a character.
An avian vet? Thats really cool, I'm also tossing up either a vet or avian vet as a career.

Love the big cage for your cockatiel and budgies. Loads of room in there!

[avinet]

Hi Sheryl,

The Bay of Fundy has always been one of the places I have wanted to see - must be amazing to see those tides come in, and the scenery around the Bay looks great as well, and there is some great geology as icing on the cake!

For those who don't know - the Bay of Fundy, between New Brusnwick and Nova Scotia in Eastern Canada has the highest tides in the world - up to 16.5 metres (55 feet) between low and high tide. That is a 5 or 6 story building in height!

cheers,

Mike

[Sheryl]

Thank you Ebony

Btw. I already went to the Bay of Fundy a while ago It's really special.

[twr]

Welcome Sheryl, its nice to meet you and your fids. I like their nice big cages. Looks like some little birdies are spoiled