Introducing Wink’s new parakeet friend! Name suggestions?

Since the conversation went to ducks... I used to have muscovies. Muscovies have 10x as much personality as chickens, produce larger eggs with a higher yolk to white ratio, and don’t make much noise. The drakes make a hissing noise and the hens make little trills. We raised all of ours from 3 day old ducklings, and our big drake, Monte, was a darling. He would steal my flip flop when he wanted food someday, I will have a flock of Muscovy ducks again.

Sgooosh said:

I assume backyard is not free range LOL

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Depends on the backyard! Ours had access to 3 acres, but only ever went on like 1/2 an acre

Wow these are great name ideas! Thanks y’all! So far I am loving the names Zuli, Penny, and Tinkerbelle (I would call her Belle for short)

biofish said:

Your new friend is very lovely! Will she change colors as she ages or is that what she will look like? (Hehe don’t know anything about birds)

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Hmmmmm I wouldn’t expect her to change colors

Sgooosh said:

I assume backyard is not free range LOL
Can i feed birds my little aquarium snails?
Bladder ramshorn mts

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A good sized backyard is free range. Lock them up at night so they don't get taken by predators, and let them out during the day to wander around eating bugs and grass and whatever else they want. Have a varied diet including grains, greens and chicken food.

Do not feed birds with aquatic snails. A lot of intestinal worms use snails and birds as hosts so no aquatic snails for the birds.

OliveFish05 said:

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. He has a small injury on the underside of one of his wings (long story short, a family member accidentally let the cat in his room) that we are treating. He is active and alert and eating, drinking, and pooping and the wound is healing well. His wing droops slightly and he holds it out, I would assume because it hurts to tuck it in. Is the arched upper back the kind of thing that comes up at any time the bird is unhealthy, or is it the type of thing they grow up into, like a stunted goldfish, indicating poor care previously?

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The curve in the upper back is most likely from inbreeding. However, the tail tucked slightly under his bum is an indication of a sick bird or a bird that is not feeling well.

If he is eating well and doing normal poop (not green or watery), then it might be his wing that hurts.

If the wing has not improved within 1-2 weeks, he might need to see a bird vet. It doesn't have to be 100%, but if there is no improvement after a week, get him to a vet. make sure it's a bird vet and not some idiot dog and cat vet.

Colin_T said:

The curve in the upper back is most likely from inbreeding. However, the tail tucked slightly under his bum is an indication of a sick bird or a bird that is not feeling well.

If he is eating well and doing normal poop (not green or watery), then it might be his wing that hurts.

If the wing has not improved within 1-2 weeks, he might need to see a bird vet. It doesn't have to be 100%, but if there is no improvement after a week, get him to a vet. make sure it's a bird vet and not some idiot dog and cat vet.

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He’s eating, drinking, and pooping very well. I also transitioned him off his old seed diet onto a high quality pellet. The injury itself is already improving, and we trimmed his wings to take that extra weight off. How would I tell if it is broken?

X-ray is the safest way to see if the wing is broken.
The other way is to feel the bones in the wing but if it is broken, it will hurt the bird and you can make it worse by handling it.

Pellet foods aren't any better than a varied seed mix with cuttlebone, green feed and clean water. Some people use them on their own, others use them as a supplement to a seed diet. I always fed my birds seed because that is what they ate in the wild.

You want to check man made foods to make sure they don't have preservatives or colours/ flavors added. And see if there is anything else in it that might be a concern to their health.

Colin_T said:

Pellet foods aren't any better than a varied seed mix with cuttlebone, green feed and clean water. Some people use them on their own, others use them as a supplement to a seed diet. I always fed my birds seed because that is what they ate in the wild.

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I’d heard that seeds are fatty and can cause issues. And Wink won’t touch veggies, I’m working on it. He seemed afraid of the collard greens I offered him this morning

Colin_T said:

X-ray is the safest way to see if the wing is broken.
The other way is to feel the bones in the wing but if it is broken, it will hurt the bird and you can make it worse by handling it.

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ok. He is able to move it and flap it, he stretches it and grooms it. The only thing “off“ is that he holds it away from himself a little bit

Sgooosh said:

p u n i n t e n d e d ?

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huh, I kinda Spaced out while reading your post.

OliveFish05 said:

I’d heard that seeds are fatty and can cause issues. And Wink won’t touch veggies, I’m working on it. He seemed afraid of the collard greens I offered him this morning

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Light coloured seed (cream or white) is low in fat and is more carbohydrate.
Dark coloured seed (brown or black) are oil seeds and have a lot of fat in.

If you feed a varied diet with a mixture of these seeds, the birds are fine. I used to increase the amount of oily seed in winter and during breeding so the birds could gain a bit of weight. But they do need some all year round. As long as you don't buy packets of oil seeds with no carbohydrate seeds, the birds will be fine.

The other thing to do is make sure they eat most of the seed before you replace it. Some parrots will eat all the sunflower seed as soon as they get new seed. Then they won't eat any other seed. If the owner replaces the seed each day, the bird simply eats more the sunflower and leaves the rest. Eventually the bird gets fat and has nutritional deficiencies and dies from a heart attack or fatty liver disease. This is more common with larger parrots and cockatoos that are kept in small cages and don't get any exercise.

If you get the bowl of bird seed and take it outside, you can hold it above an empty container and slowly pour the seed into the container. You can gently blow air over the seed and it will help remove the empty seed husk and the good seed falls into the bucket and can be re-used. Do this 2 or 3 times to get rid of most of the empty husk and put the remaining seed back in the bowl for the birds.

If most of the seed is gone, then replace it with fresh seed.

Most bird seed has a mixture of carb and oil seeds (about 90% carb and 10% oil). This is fine for warm weather, but you can increase the oil in colder weather, if the birds get regular exercise.

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If you offer smaller bits of green feed, the bird won't be as scared of it. Birds also learn from each other so if the new bird sees the older one eating greens, the new bird will be more likely to try it.

Offer a wide variety of fruit and veg to the birds.

I have budgies too!
My fav name for your new budgie would be Amethyst!
Some other names:
Blossom
Flora
Petals
Quartz
Lilac
Lavender

OliveFish05 said:

I’d heard that seeds are fatty and can cause issues. And Wink won’t touch veggies, I’m working on it. He seemed afraid of the collard greens I offered him this morning

ok. He is able to move it and flap it, he stretches it and grooms it. The only thing “off“ is that he holds it away from himself a little bit

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Some budgies just don't like greens. My male budgie doesn't care about anything other than seed. Meanwhile my female budgie Venera rips spinach, lettuce rosemary but hates apples, bananas or anything similar. She likes ripping things som much that she loves ripping this corn toy designed for rodents!

StripySnailGirl04 said:

Some budgies just don't like greens.

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You must have weird birds.

I can honestly say I have never had a bird refuse green feed. However, I normally use green grass seeds, buffalo grass, green leafy vegetables like spinach and silverbeet, and fruits.

Budgies and parrots don't normally take citrus like orange or mandarin but canaries do. But they all ate apple, pear, plum, peach, nectarine, and most would pick at watermelon and rock melon (cantaloupe for the US inclined).

Periwinkle and Penelope are doing great!

I upgraded their cage too. Of course bigger would always be better, but they get lots of time out with me throughout the week.

I’m ordering some natural perches for their feet, I had two but one’s hardware fell apart.