Blood

[parrotpotential]

This morning, Steve found that one of the baby budgies had been slaughtered. Look like the hen had done it as she had the most blood on her. This is the first time we've had a budgie do this.

[birds77]

I'm sorry to hear about the baby budgie, it's so sad when that happens, i've had it happen here myself and i've found that the hen will keep doing it and i had to get rid of her, gave her to someone that was breeding in cabinets and in them she was fine.
hopefully you will be lucky and it will be the only time it will happen.
good luck with the rest of the babies


Anna

[AussieBirds]

Kim unfortunatly it happens quite a bit with budgies they can be vicious little buggers, the hen can slaughter a whole clutch over night. What Anna ( Birds77) has said is unfortunatly correct, the hen will usually keep doing it so it is best to get rid of her. There are a lot of theories about why this happens some say it is the urge to breed again so she gets rid of the babies, some say it is to do with the diet of the bird and others say that the mother knows that there is something wrong with the babies and kills them. You always have to take in to consideration that if you are breeding in an aviery situation that you may have a rouge hen in the aviary and it is her and not the mother that is doing it I don't know but in my years of breeding them i have had it happen many times and i will never get used to the pain of finding dead babies that have been slaughtered by the hen.

[shadow=red,left,300]John[/shadow]

[parrotpotential]

Hi Anna and John
They were breeding in a budgie unit and has had a couple of clutches before with no problems. Only one out of the 5 were killed. We've brought them inside where we can keep a closer eye on them. We'll just have to see how they go I guess.

[hillcresttiels]

Hi Kim sad to read what happened i was wondering if outside influence had something to do with it such as mice i know you said the hen had evidence on her but that could be thru feeding the the others or contanminated whilst incubating hope all goes well. On a brighter note how is your new Tiel settling in 8-)Frank

[parrotpotential]

Hi Frank
We thought of mice but Steve seems to think the wire on the budgie units would be too small but I wouldn't rule it out. I do believe that the hen did. Steve found the baby outside of the nestbox when the day before it was still in it. There was no blood in the nestbox but there was some in the budgie unit itself. The cockbird also had some blood on it but not nearly as much as the hen. Basically the baby had its beak ripped off. Steve feels maybe it wasn't intentional and that the hen may of gotten carried away when feeding it? Who knows.

Anyhow, the new tiel, thankyou very much Frank, has been put into a cage with its intended, our whiteface cinnamon reverse pied so that they can have some bonding time (honeymoon suite, lol)

[hillcresttiels]

Hope you sought it out your right about the mice i've seen them squeeze thru the 12mm wire aviary mesh and they don,t come any smaller than that good luck and cheers :)Frank

[birds77]

Hi,
I haven't long got back home after going to pick up some up 5 orphaned baby budgies, there were 6 but one got attacked and didn't survive, one of the remaining ones has been attacked rather badly as well, but is still alive so i'll be trying to pull this lbaby through, the others are fine, but the person actually saw the hen go in and attack the babies but by the time she got there the one was already dead, i do hate to find or see babies that this has happened to.

So Kim and Steve i hope it doesn't happen again.

Anna

[AussieBirds]

That's budgies for you, viscious little buggers.

[shadow=red,left,300]John[/shadow]

[parrotpotential]

Oh Anna, I'm so sorry to hear this. Darn budgies!

[birds77]

Well i just hope i can help this little budgie, i just fed all the baby birds and another one of the baby budgies had been attacked on a fleshy part of the wing and is badly bruised underneath, the worst one it's head is really very swollen, i would normally bathe the wound and then i use a touch of betadine on it but i think poor bugger will be in too much pain if i do that just yet, so hopefully i can do it tomorrow, and pray it makes it, but i'll give it some probotics for the stress of it all and i've got a product called Triple C which is an antibiotic, so i'll try everything i can to pull it through.


Anna

[eckie]

hi
its bad to hear about your budgie
hope it doesnt happen again
as no body likes finding dead birds
well good luck with the rest of them

[fischer]

Hi Everyone, Iv'e been following these posts with interest, As John says, this happens with Budgies sometimes, and I agree with everything else said except one thing, I do not believe you should let these birds breed again,as genes being genes, this trait can be passed on to the next generation,nor do I think you should pass the problem onto someone else. If I have a bird like this I retire it from breeding into my odds and sodds aviary.
That said, (I do hope it didn't sound too santicmonious I have a couple of questions?
Kim, did this hen only kill the one chick? and is she feeding the others with out any more problems? If so, there was more than likely something wrong with it ,most hens just won't feed these young, but some kill them and go on to rear further clutches without problems.
Anna, Budgies are the toughest little critters, your hurt one will more than likely pull through an will make a great pet because of all the attention it will get

[parrotpotential]

Nope, you're not sanctimonious at all, lol.
Yes, the hen only killed one baby and this is the first time she's done it so we will breed them again unless it happens again.