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Sociopastry posted:ALSO. Guys, guys. Fuji has been twittering super sweetly to Tokyo and regurgitating into her mouth like, every three seconds today. Are my birds dating now? Do I have lesbibirds?!? They could be! Or one/both of your birds might be male.  Young budgies have ambiguous ceres, and birds with recessive plumage colors can have even trickier cere colors. It took me over a year to be sure that my dutch pied sky blue budgie was male, and his cere only has a bit of blue-purple right around the nostrils even though he's now over 7 years old. His behavior was a bigger clue than his cere color, honestly.Can you link a picture of the two? I'd be happy to take a guess at their sexes.
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Aug 10, 2014 23:49
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Mamacita and Dio are making passionate love and Zeke, Zoe, and lovebird son Taka are all gathered around watching like it's a bizarre bird voyeuristic orgy. What the hell.
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Aug 11, 2014 00:59
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Official Bizness posted:Mamacita and Dio are making passionate love and Zeke, Zoe, and lovebird son Taka are all gathered around watching like it's a bizarre bird voyeuristic orgy. Same but at mcdonalds
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Aug 11, 2014 01:03
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Strongylocentrotus posted:They could be! Or one/both of your birds might be male.  Here's Fujiwara, the one that keeps twittering.  Here's Tokyo. She's pretty much always poofed up and chittering happily. She's got really huge mutton chops when she's poofy. 
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Aug 11, 2014 04:40
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Oh my gosh, they are wee babes.  I still see some light barring on their foreheads and their eyes are dark, so they can't be much more than 6 months old (here's a good comparison of an adult and a juvenile). I can't guess their sexes because they're still such newbies... both of their ceres have that "baby budgie lavender" look to me. You'll be able to guess their sexes with much more certainty once they become sexually mature after about a year; this page has one of the best visual guides I've seen. Here's what my boy looked like when he first started transitioning from "baby lavender" to "big boy blue":  He kept the pink around the edges and picked up pure blue only around his nares. Watch their behavior. Lots of chewing things, kicking food out of the dishes, and hen-pecking the other bird = probably female. Lots of humping, regurgitating onto things, and vocalizing extensively = probably male. Alfie humped things. A lot. That was my first clue.
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Aug 11, 2014 06:50
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Oh my goodness, Alfie is so handsome!
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Aug 11, 2014 17:44
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Strongylocentrotus posted:
The humping was a dead givaway with Novolo. Instead of getting on top of things and humping them, she lifted her tail and backed up against things (like my chin  dammit bird) and made happy sexytime noises.
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Aug 11, 2014 20:10
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YES, I now have two rear end in a top hat birds. Compass the failed racing pigeon arrived yesterday safe and sound. He's smart as hell too! Within an hour of arriving he had figured out how to get his cage open and was out and exploring the house by the time I got back from the bathroom. The funny thing is, Jacques saw how he did it. The minute the pigeon left his cage for the second time, Jacques flew over to it and broke Into the cage, proceeded to eat a bunch of pigeon food and get himself locked in. rear end in a top hat birds are the best. On another note, my ex's room mate had taken the bird to get its wings show-clipped. I'm kind of bummed about that, according to the bird's tags he was banded in 2010. He's been flying everywhere for at least 4 years and now can only manage short frenzied hop-glides. I haven't gotten a chance to look up what exactly a show-clip is yet, but he should be able to fly again with his next molt, correct? Oh man, the poor thing was so freaked out about being in a new place that it wouldn't stop cooing like a disappointed mother until I let it out so it could fall asleep cuddled next to us on the bed. By morning I Really needed to change those sheets. I should have put a towel down.
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Aug 11, 2014 22:37
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How big of a cage do you need to keep pigeons? There's a pigeon rescue agency here in San Francisco and I have a one-bedroom apartment so I might be able to fit a cage but not sure.
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Aug 11, 2014 22:40
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I'm back in SeaTac for a week again and already miss my birdies.
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Aug 12, 2014 00:15
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Since we've had a rash of budgie pictures, here are my two English buddies, Cosette and Henri.  It's molting season and neither wanted to achieve maximum fluff while a camera was thrust in their faces.  And Max freaks out if he's not the center of all the goddam attention. 
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Aug 12, 2014 02:48
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Official Bizness posted:Mamacita and Dio are making passionate love and Zeke, Zoe, and lovebird son Taka are all gathered around watching like it's a bizarre bird voyeuristic orgy. Please don't kinkshame, OB
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Aug 12, 2014 03:04
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Can a budgie become too attached to a cuttlebone? I got him a cuttle bone and since putting it in his cage be won't leave its side. He chirps to it, eats a gently caress ton of it, and like rests/scratches his head all over it. Should I be concerned?
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Aug 12, 2014 03:09
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LITERALLY A BIRD posted:Oh my goodness, Alfie is so handsome! He's such a little dweeb. I can think of no better word to describe him than that, he's a really quirky character. It's funny, he's still got dark eyes, too... his color morph (recessive/dutch pied sky blue) has dark eyes throughout the bird's entire lifespan, so I kept getting people at the vet's office complimenting my baby bird only for me to tell them that he is, in fact, a middle-aged fellow. He just has a perma-baby look. Pile of Kittens posted:The humping was a dead givaway with Novolo. Instead of getting on top of things and humping them, she lifted her tail and backed up against things (like my chin  Males seem to get on top of things and kind of bend their tail/rump over their object of affection, whereas females... yeah. They do the solicitation thing with their butts in the air. My friend's female pigeon will start doing that if you stroke her back, coupled with salacious cooing noises. artichoke posted:Since we've had a rash of budgie pictures, here are my two English buddies, Cosette and Henri. English budgies slay me. They have the ultimate parrot muttonchops. Cosette and Henri are gorgeous! Knifegrab posted:Can a budgie become too attached to a cuttlebone? I got him a cuttle bone and since putting it in his cage be won't leave its side. He chirps to it, eats a gently caress ton of it, and like rests/scratches his head all over it. Should I be concerned? If he starts defending it, regurgitating on it, or wanking on it (see above discussion), then you might want to remove it. Budgies can become attracted to the weirdest things.
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Aug 12, 2014 03:43
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bassguitarhero posted:How big of a cage do you need to keep pigeons? There's a pigeon rescue agency here in San Francisco and I have a one-bedroom apartment so I might be able to fit a cage but not sure. They're pretty surprisingly large. I wasn't expecting compass to be this big and I'm gonna need to pick him up a bigger cage at some point. Right now I justify it by not keeping him in the cage like... ever. HE FOLLOWS ME AROUND LIKE A PUPPY. I'M GOING TO DIE OF CUTENESS OVERLOAD.
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Aug 12, 2014 04:24
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Wizard of Smart posted:I'm back in SeaTac for a week again and already miss my birdies. I just crawled out of the jungle, so if you are in Seattle and want to hang out and meet either my cycling parrot or my ancient parrot pm Kenshin for my contact info (I don't have pm's).
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Aug 12, 2014 04:43
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Lenswork posted:I just crawled out of the jungle, so if you are in Seattle and want to hang out and meet either my cycling parrot or my ancient parrot pm Kenshin for my contact info (I don't have pm's). Sweet! Sounds like a plan!
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Aug 12, 2014 04:58
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Oh no a birdnapping  http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/700-parakeet-birdnapped-from-pet-store-in-richmond-1.2733850 
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Aug 12, 2014 06:10
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Thinking about getting a budgie/parakeet, and I have a couple of questions beforehand: 1) How do I keep the budgie from pooping on all my stuff when I take it out to play? Is house-breaking recommended? I hear that if you train them and they can't reach a place to use the bathroom, they will hold it in till they get sick or die. 2) I've heard that I should not get a second parakeet (at first at least) if I want the bird to bond with me. Is this true? 3) I smoke weed with a vaporizer sometimes. It rarely produces visible vapor and leaves no smell. Is it safe to use with a parakeet in my apartment? (I have no separation between rooms cept my bathroom). 4) Do parakeets generally have problems bonding with new birds? For example, if I got a conure later? Also, does anyone know where to adopt a hand-fed budgie in the paris area?
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Aug 12, 2014 13:18
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Condiv posted:Thinking about getting a budgie/parakeet, and I have a couple of questions beforehand: 1. You can train them, but be prepared for poo, it just comes with the territory. They may well only poo in certain spots so you can just put paper down there, and old shirts on chairs. 2. Two birds won't become untame just because there's another bird, as long as you still put in the effort and socialise/handle them, and another bird for when you aren't able to be there will be appreciated by them. I wouldn't get two untame ones at the same time, though. You might find a tame pair or be able to get two hand raised ones when searching though. 3. It's been way too long so others can answer this one but I didn't do it around the birds, as a "just in case/don't want to risk it" thing-but then it wasn't with a vaporizer so eh. 4. There's a risk of larger birds being able to injure the smaller budgie in a fight, especially since budgies are quite forward and assertive-there are lots of stories of them pushing around cockatiel buddies And certain species are better than others-I would not allow my conures near a budgie, but it can be a pretty individual thing since all parrots are different.Have you tried searching for budgie breeders, seeing if there are local organisations, checked whatever your equivalent of Craigslist/Gumtree/etc is?
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Aug 12, 2014 15:07
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Condiv posted:3) I smoke weed with a vaporizer sometimes. It rarely produces visible vapor and leaves no smell. Is it safe to use with a parakeet in my apartment? (I have no separation between rooms cept my bathroom). Just exhale away from your bird.
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Aug 12, 2014 15:41
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Kenshin posted:Yes, you're fine with a vaporizer. This. Charlie loves the stuff and tries to get to it and eat it if he's out. This made an interesting experience the first time. Now we put him away beforehand Karma Comedian fucked around with this message at 16:12 on Aug 12, 2014 |
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Aug 12, 2014 16:09
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Battle Pigeon posted:1. You can train them, but be prepared for poo, it just comes with the territory. They may well only poo in certain spots so you can just put paper down there, and old shirts on chairs. Unfortunately, my french is still crap so it takes me longer than normal to research that stuff. I may have found one, but I couldn't fully understand him so I'm going to call him back tomorrow with one of my coworkers.  Is there anything you'd recommend for getting the poo out of carpets or fabric? Does it stain really bad?
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Aug 12, 2014 16:11
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Condiv posted:
Poop Off. Probably the best thing ever.
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Aug 12, 2014 16:14
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For anyone interested, I tried sprouting the seeds in my Kaytee brand bird seed (white millet, canary grass seed, and oat groats) and none of them are sproutable, so that's the quality you get I suppose.
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Aug 12, 2014 17:11
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Knifegrab posted:For anyone interested, I tried sprouting the seeds in my Kaytee brand bird seed (white millet, canary grass seed, and oat groats) and none of them are sproutable, so that's the quality you get I suppose. You can't sprout most human-quality food seeds either. I'd imagine they're briefly baked or sterilized in some way.
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Aug 12, 2014 17:44
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I remember Fred cracked a sunflower seed and threw it at the window once, and it actually grew into a sunflower.
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Aug 12, 2014 19:13
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I'm trying to find a good seed mix that will work fine a dry mix but also can be sprouted and I've come across this: http://sproutpeople.org/lil-bird-sprout-mix/ I'm gonna try it and report back later.
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Aug 12, 2014 19:20
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Condiv posted:Thinking about getting a budgie/parakeet, and I have a couple of questions beforehand: Just fyi, I have a 14 year old African Grey who despite constant reminders and scolding is apparently incapable of understanding that pooping wherever she happens to be is not cool. She just about manages not to poop on me most of the time, but even then she sometimes forgets and lets fly. This is the same bird who is cunning enough to lurk just out of my line of sight and say "hewwo" and "hi" in the sweetest little voice to defuse suspicion, while sidling over behind the radio to eat the wallpaper. There is a mirror behind you Pookie, I see what you are doing.
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Aug 12, 2014 20:44
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Pookah posted:Just fyi, I have a 14 year old African Grey who despite constant reminders and scolding is apparently incapable of understanding that pooping wherever she happens to be is not cool. She just about manages not to poop on me most of the time, but even then she sometimes forgets and lets fly. Yeah I've heard its hit and miss whether the bird will actually do as you wish and not poop everywhere. Hopefully I can potty train mine. If not, I'll have the poop off. Another thing I've been wondering is how to get my parakeet(s) in and out of their cage for cleanings in the first few months? I don't want to freak the little things out by removing them forcefully. Also, is a 14.17in x 18.11in x 36.22in cage a good size for 1-2 parakeets? I was looking at this one on amazon. Condiv fucked around with this message at 21:29 on Aug 12, 2014 |
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Aug 12, 2014 21:20
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Birds don't really care about scolding. Positive reinforcement is the key. Start by just telling the bird "go potty" when you see it poop wherever (even it if it's not in the right place) and then praising them. Then after a few weeks of that, they should associate "go potty" with the action. You can start predicting when they're likely to poop by watching their body language and try pre-empting them with the command, which will take at least a few more weeks. Eventually it will click that you are encouraging them to do the action, not just announcing it. I went back and forth between these stages for several months because my bird is a stubborn bitch and when I caught her literally milliseconds before dropping a deuce (stretched wings, upheld tail, sticking butt out, poop ALMOST emerging), she'd freeze and just stare at me and then not poop for a few minutes. What the hell bird... I didn't even know that was physically possible for an animal without much of a sphincter. Anyway, after that, it's just a matter of putting the bird in the potty-appropriate location and telling it to go potty when you think it's about time for another poo (you learn your bird's interval) and praising like crazy when the bird does it, and ignoring it if the bird poops on you. It's important that you do this training in stages rather than going straight to "go potty when I tell you to and only in the right places" because the bird may or may not understand what you're trying to communicate, and even if they do they might just be a jerk and not care what you have to say about their making GBS threads habits. It's only through the successive application of steps with lots of positive reinforcement that you can cajole a stubborn bird that actually they might enjoy the rewards of being potty trained... like getting to sit on your shoulder, and getting "you went potty YAY!" treats for the simple act of making GBS threads.
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Aug 12, 2014 21:42
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Condiv posted:Another thing I've been wondering is how to get my parakeet(s) in and out of their cage for cleanings in the first few months? I don't want to freak the little things out by removing them forcefully. Stick training is the standard method. Have a wooden dowel for them to step up onto that you stick in the cage. Reward with food when action is performed. One of the easiest tricks to teach because birds naturally step up onto stuff in front of them. If it requires further incentive to actually step up, hold the treat so that they have to step up onto the dowel to get it.
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Aug 12, 2014 22:21
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Pile of Kittens posted:Birds don't really care about scolding. We joke about "cockatiel death devices" but it serves a very important evolutionary function. Most pet birds don't have predatory ancestors like dogs and cats do, which are more resilient to those types of threats.
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Aug 13, 2014 01:35
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Condiv posted:Is there anything you'd recommend for getting the poo out of carpets or fabric? Does it stain really bad? Good thing about budgie poop: it's just about the most inoffensive bird poo poo you'll ever encounter. A healthy budgie's droppings are a little round ball with dark fecal matter on the outside and white urates on the inside, like this and this (yes, I just Googled "budgie poop", bless the internet). The turds are usually solid enough that you can just flick them off your clothes or pick them up off the carpet with nothing left behind. They wipe off of solid material pretty easily, and I've heard good things about Poop Off and enzyme wipes for cleanup.
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Aug 13, 2014 03:25
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bassguitarhero posted:How big of a cage do you need to keep pigeons? There's a pigeon rescue agency here in San Francisco and I have a one-bedroom apartment so I might be able to fit a cage but not sure. You mean MickaCoo? They're really awesome and if you ask or apply to adopt on their website they'll basically help you get everything you need for a pigeon set-up. I've heard that a lot of people recommend using a cage about the size of a dog kennel (or an actual dog kennel), which is about as small as you want to go. They need room to fly because they don't hop or climb like parrots. You generally want the cage to be wider than it is tall. I actually volunteer with MickaCoo a bit and I desperately want to adopt a pigeon/dove from them, my landlord being really restrictive about animals is the only thing stopping me. I'm planning to talk to him about it though, so hopefully I'll have one or two soon!
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Aug 13, 2014 07:01
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The email from this seed sprouting place is a little  Sprout People posted:Thanks for ordering from Sproutpeople.
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Aug 13, 2014 17:48
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Knifegrab posted:The email from this seed sprouting place is a little Honestly I like that bird seed people are a bit crazy. Let's me know that they are indeed bird people.
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Aug 13, 2014 18:01
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It's like how my bird sitter is a little off. You know you can trust him with birds because he cares more about them than people.
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Aug 13, 2014 22:20
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Those are some good points.
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Aug 13, 2014 22:47
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Knifegrab posted:I'm trying to find a good seed mix that will work fine a dry mix but also can be sprouted and I've come across this: I buy the mid bird mix from Sproutpeople and I can confirm that it is well-loved. Before I got my GCC I could not get my budgie to eat anything but seed until I got this stuff to sprout and he actually preferred the sprouts to the seed mix. I feed it from after the first soak when it's just barely sprouted up until it's growing green leaves and he eats it happily through the whole process. And yeah, the stuff they write in their pamphlets is totally crazy but I've been consistently impressed by the quality of the mix; it smells nice and it's really slow to go moldy.
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Aug 13, 2014 23:47
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