Video of hand fed budgies doing flight recalls :)

[Feathers First Aviary]

OK how did you get the birds to fly on your arm? I heard a clicking noise from you. My American keet wants no part of me, even after 9 months here. I am sure that is because he is a pet smart bird. Do you have any helpers to clean all those cages?

All of our budgies are hand fed from the time they are 10-14 days old so they have absolutely no fear of people like most parent raised keets do. When they take their first flight it is almost always in an attempt to get to me. Once they learn to fly I just wiggle my finger and say "come here" and they will land on my finger. They are actually normally a bit more responsive when I say "come here" but I took this video after they had all been out of their cages almost all day and were starting to get a bit sleepy, as well as preoccupied by the other birds. It's unbelievable the difference between hand fed and parent raised budgies, it's like they aren't even the same kind of birds! It's a shame more people don't hand feed them. As for the cages, I do most of the cleaning but my husband helps me sometimes as well. I've worked out a pretty good system and having the type of cages I do makes cleaning a breeze My biggest issue lately has been moths. I got some hemp seed offline and it must have had moth eggs in it because next thing I know my house is over run with the little buggers. They don't really do any damage as long as all the food is kept in sealed containers, although I did loose a lot of treats that I had in a cabinet in their original packaging when we initially got the moths. We've been slowly wiping them out but they are quite hard to contend with. But they have a nasty habit of landing in the birds water bowls so now instead of changing water twice a day I'm finding myself having to do it four and five times a day, sometimes more :/

[spiritbird]

Thanks Sara. As for the moths, anytime I get a seed product for my birds it immediately goes into the freezer for at least 24 hrs. to kill any critters or to be critters. It works! How is my baby egg and Mom doing?

[Feathers First Aviary]

Thanks Sara. As for the moths, anytime I get a seed product for my birds it immediately goes into the freezer for at least 24 hrs. to kill any critters or to be critters. It works! How is my baby egg and Mom doing?

Any small bags of treats that I get go in the freezer but I buy about 75lbs of food every two weeks and I don't have a chest freezer so freezing it all really isn't possible. I've never actually had moths or eggs come with my food, it was just that one bag of hemp seed I got that started it all. As long as I keep the food sealed I don't seem to have a problem and through the use of fly ribbons and an excessive amount of vacuuming and steam mopping they are almost all gone. I'm hoping with winter on it's way that will be the last straw that finally rids us of the little demons!

I just checked nestboxes and this pair [IMG][/IMG] are on these eggs [/IMG], all but one have veins and look really good. The only Thing that I must keep in mind is that this is this pairs third clutch. The first clutch they hatched out one baby but unfortunately she didn't stay in the box with it and it only lived a few hours. Their second clutch she sat on for a week before throwing all the eggs out of the box. Sometimes it does take them a few practice clutches before they figure it all out. So far, these eggs look really good, she is ALWAYS in there with them and I have been giving them as much privacy as possible, this was the first time I checked their box in over a week. So hopefully all goes well!
This pair [IMG][/IMG] are on these eggs [IMG][/IMG] and only one looks fertile but it is zelda's very first clutch so that doesn't surprise me at all. and finally, I have a very large male english, the biggest I have ever seen, the pics don't do him justice and he is very camera shy but he is seriously as big as my black capped conures! I have him paired with a pretty large american girl, I had him with another english but he is just sooo big I almost want the babies to be a bit smaller for their own health reasons. I haven't managed to snap a pic of his mate as she has been in the box constantly and I didn't want to scare her out just to snap pics of her which will startle her more but here is a pic of him [IMG][/IMG] and their eggs [IMG][/IMG], all but two of which are fertile. It is also their first clutch. Also, they did have aspen in their box but she would not leave it be, she constantly threw it out and insisted on laying her eggs on the bottom of the box! As you can tell by the other nests, I do give them aspen to lay on.

[spiritbird]

Toodles is so very cute. I really love her looks. Aspen? Is that a kind of grain for nesting material? Thanks so much for the updates and photos.

[Feathers First Aviary]

Aspen is a type if tree, it is wood shavings like pine bedding, what most people use in small animal cages

[spiritbird]

Oh those trees. My daughter lives in Aspen and I see "Quaking Aspen" trees there all the time.

[Honesty]

Those are beautiful pics.

[spiritbird]

The blue pair are lovely also. Not to leave out the green and yellow pair. To be very honest they are all so dang cute. How does one choose?

[Feathers First Aviary]

I love how families will come here dead set on a certain color and then a bird of a different color picks them the blue pair are either double factor violets or cobalts, I won't be sure until I see there babies. Budgie colors are so much fun I just wish more people would keep track of their birds lineage, it sure would save me some headaches!

[spiritbird]

Once I saw a photo of what they call a mottled EB. OMG, the feathers were amazing. I bet this kind of pattern is rare.