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I am very excited to tell you all that our little Raisin finally came home today!! We brought him home this morning along with a cute little budgie that we haven't named yet. So far, so good, except that I spent most of the day with the girls and the birds so I'm very behind on my work. Fortunately I can work from home when needed so I will be doing so tonight and all day tomorrow to catch up. Well, I take that back -- we were actually able to schedule an avian vet appointment for both birdies tomorrow at 11:30am which will take some time as the vet is a good distance away. So, I guess I'll be working this weekend to catch up too! Oh well!

We are all so thrilled with the birds and I know we are handling them way too much, but right now they have gone night, night, so I just wanted to let you all know the good news. Raisin is a little darling and the budgie seems to be doing okay, both enjoyed treats and millet and were eating out of the dishes in their respective cages. The budgie will perch on your hand and even stepped up a couple of times, but any fingers near the face etc...brought biting. It will take time. We hope that the vet will find them both in good health tomorrow.....the only thing I am a little worried about is the budgie's "butt" or "vent" as I think it may be called from reading about it because it seems that there are feathers missing around that area and it can be seen and sometimes we could see poop there and it otherwise seemed brown. I think when the poop was there, it was on it's way out!! I stopped reading horror stories on the web and will just ask the vet about it tomorrow. I feel bad that we will be stressing them out again tomorrow, but I know we have to do this....

So, I'll write again and let you know how everything is going and post some pics! My camera memory is full and I haven't had time to unclog it yet.


I

Wooops, your excitement has infected me too Glad the babies are settling in and am hoping along with you that tomorrow goes well. Don't forgo bloodwork on the little budgie. Very important!

Enjoy!

We just returned from the vet and all seems to be well with both Raisin and the budgie! The vet said the budgie's vent looked fine and his poop looked normal too. I think it was perhaps just a little stress and our inexperienced eyes because we had never noticed this before on our other budgies. The vet did poop cultures (I'm sure there is some other better term than this!) on both of them and said he will call us in three or four days with the results. The vet actually said that he thought we had a really special budgie who was going to turn out to be a good personality because he said that she was allowing us (and him) to handle her better than most other budgies that come to visit him. He had a very calm demeanor which I think helped. He gave us some Probios powder to use in their water (just for a week or two) which acts like yogurt and puts good bacteria into their systems which he said would help during this stressful adjustment period.

The place we went to is called "For Pet's Sake" and it is an avian and exotic animal hospital and they have a wonderful selection of toys and perches in the lobby area. The vet recommended a concrete perch for each of them in the tops of their cages, a natural wood perch in the middle and he said to just use the perches that came with their cages low down near their food. I was also tempted to buy some lovely playgrounds that I saw there, but they were quite expensive. We bought the perches and a couple of toys. He also advised switching to a Harrison's all pellet diet and gave us instructions on weaning them away from seed and onto the pellets. A small bag of this was quite expensive. Do any of you have your birds on an all pellet diet? I know we have pellets in our seed mixture, but he didn't seem to think that they eat the pellets.

There's a lot of quoting of Dr Margaret Wissman lately Here's what she says about 'tiel and budgie nutritional needs:

Budgies and cockatiels consume a primarily seed diet in the wild, and they do seem to thrive on a seed-based diet. However, pellets, sprouted seeds, fresh fruits, vegetables, pasta, whole wheat bread and healthy table foods are sound additions to the budgie and cockatiel diet. Birds that eat just seeds should have access to a cuttlebone or mineral block, and should receive supplemental vitamins (but NOT in the drinking water). I recommend Nekton STM as a general vitamin supplement. It should be sprinkled on moist food. Some budgies and cockatiels are extremely resistant to dietary changes. It should be noted that it could be dangerous to try and convert any bird to a different diet without first ascertaining that it is healthy. Dietary conversion in a sub-clinically ill bird can precipitate a health crisis. Always evaluate a bird's health before to attempting to change the diet of a budgie or cockatiel to make sure that is healthy enough to withstand the stress of changing the diet. This seems to be a common mistake made by enthusiastic, beginning avian practitioners who want to convert a bird to a better diet at the same time that it is being treated for an illness...

Sprouted seed is healthier, and should be offered daily. Harrison's pellets can be a part of a healthy diet (I use these as the basis of the diet for Quaker parakeets with hepatic lipidosis). I also recommend offering pasta and whole wheat bread, plenty of fresh veggies and fruit, and some table foods (without butter, margarine or other added fats). Increasing the activity level of obese birds should be undertaken. To this day, some budgie books still state that feeding greens, fruit and vegetables will cause diarrhea. Of course, we all know that the consumption of foods with more water in them will cause increased urination, and not diarrhea. Feeding vegetables and some fruits is recommended...

Cockatiels and budgies should probably not receive a 100% pelleted diet. I have seen too many cockatiels and budgies that have been on a pelleted diet for years develop renal disease. However, pellet manufactures have assured us that they have rectified the problems related to renal disease in these birds. But, as before, birds on pellets are essentially on long-term nutritional studies. For this reason, I recommend not feeding more than 50% pellets, some seed, and a good portion of the diet should be table foods, fruits, veggies, pasta, whole wheat bread, and other nutritious items.

I've taken this from here: http://www.exoticpetvet.net/avian/budgi ... #Nutrition This page and all the other avian pages on Dr Wissman's extinsive site are a valuable resource for each of us. You'll want to read, and then read more, and then reread as your two babies settle in. Check out sprouting early. Some sites talk about soaking and rinsing for 3 long days. Others I like better suggest soaking overnight so the seed just barely begins to crack open and grown the very tiniest little sprout. Much better nutrition, lots easier, and less likely to get contaminated from inadequate rinsing at frequent intervals.

Bluesbird and Mfids -- thanks for all the great info as usual! I am so glad to hear it too because I felt very resistant to the idea of trying to convert them both to an all pellet diet and really didn't (with my limited knowledge) think that this could be the best thing and I didn't want to do it. We have been keeping their dishes with seed there all the time and then offering fresh foods in the morning and evening which have been totally ignored so far. We've tried corn, green beans and banana so far. Raisin supposedly liked corn a lot and was picking it out of the vegetables at the store yesterday morning. The vet seemed to think that they would like raw broccoli, parsley and carrots better. The vet did mention cooked rice and pasta, so perhaps cooking for the birds will help me to get into cooking for the rest of the family! I haven't heard of the sprouted seeds before, I'll have to look into that. Thanks for the list of foods, that is great and I will refer to it often.

I'd like to find out how you present these different foods to them. I've just been putting the dish of fresh food in the cage with them while keeping their seed there too and leaving it for about 2 hours. The dish I use just goes on the bottom of the cage and is not attached to the cage like their seed dish. Is this the best way to offer the fresh food? In the cage with their other food or should they come out of the cage for a separate meal? Or should we remove the seed temporarily? Also, do you add the pellets to their seed mixture? I know the pellets don't stay as fresh for as long as the seed and I don't want to waste a whole bowl of seed. I'm thinking I need different, more shallow bowls so that we can just put less and refill more often.

Raisin is doing very well and we are now falling in love with the budgie. He is letting us hold and pet him once we get him calm enough and hold him for a while, plus he is showing us how playful he can be in the cage and it is so sweet. He seems to like the new perches and the toys and has started to climb up and down the walls and can get himself anywhere with ease. He is completely different from our other budgies who just sat there and didn't do much. Our little clumsy Raisin is another story. She hasn't tried to make it to her highest perch yet, but she's learned to go up the ladder and get onto the lower one. We are always holding our breaths for fear she is going to have a bad fall. We're keeping a soft towel at the bottom of the cage while she is learning! We did have her wings clipped before we brought her home which may not be helping her much. I got the impression from the vet that they had been cut too much, but I'm not sure.

catjsykes,

Congratulations on bringing your new charges home! You have started out in the right direction with both birds, and the advice you have been given by Monica and others is so correct, but I will share with you some ideas that I have found to to work with a good portion of my flock, but not everyone. Foods to cockatiels and budgies are much like anything that conjures up good thoughts in people, and it really truly is as much of a social event for eating as it is a nutritional event. Over the past 3 years, I've noticed that my most "social" birds, which include Missy, Gizmo, Chirp, Suzie, & Shelly, as well as Lil'bit all seem to congregate in the kitchen area when we start cooking supper. Yes, it's a dangerous game when you have red hot burners going, with boiling pots of food and deep frying grease on the stove, but we are very, very careful to make them stay away from anything that could burn them, and while I do wish they would wait till food is ready, it's just not going to happen. Anyhow, the act of cooking food, the smells of human foods they all seem to like is enough to make them sit on the top of the china cabinet, and on the top of the refrigerator just like a bunch of vultures ready to pounce on the latest roadkill Once the cooking is over and food is placed on the table, we provide them all opportunities to eat whatever we have on the table, and that can be anything from fried chicken, pork chops, fish, roast beef, potatoes, vegetables of various types, and rice, which is a staple item in our house since Emi is Japanese. Anyhow, they have their choice of what they want to eat, and while it might not be normal cockatiel fare in the wild, we try to diversify their diet as much as possible. Their bird room foods consist of a good seed mix which contains a LOT of huge sunflower seeds (3-D Cockatiel Diet) sold at most WalMarts, pellets by Lafeber, fresh baby bok-choy, whole wheat bread, captains wafers (now and then) and just about anything we eat. So far, I've not had any dietary problems, health problems with the kids w/r/t diet, and so forth. One difference between me and probably most people except Mfids is all my flock are cage-free and have their own room which is 16x14' plus they have full roam/range of our house. Nothing in our house is sacred, including our bedroom! Cappy, who was the next to last addition is a 9 + old hen who hates my wife, but yet if she's left alone in the den where she normally sits, she'll waddle down the hall to our bedroom where Emi is to have company, even tho she will not even let Emi come close to her Each birdie has a personality that you have to accommodate over time and you learn each other just as you would a human. They just can't talk in human language, but they can and will tell you when something is not normal, or bothering them or when they need attention. You just have to grow with the flock, because YOU are part of the flock.

I'm sorry if I've rambled on too much... probably too many 'ritas this evening, but when it comes to discussing our kids, there is nothing more I like to do, and let others know my experiences so they might gain some knowledge from my experiences and events. It might not hurt to do some searching on this board on diet stuff.. I've posted several posts about what I've learned over time, and by asking questions, but the main thing I always try to drive home to anyone new to cockatiels is diet MUST be varied and not just pellets and seed mix. They will not live long on just that. Meat protein is almost essential to any warm blooded animal or mammal. Cockatiels diets in the wild also consist of bugs, which is where the meat protein comes from.

Ok.. I hush now


Sam

Thank you all for taking the time as usual to hand out some great advice about the types of food and the ways that you get them to eat it! I am going to print up all these posts so I have them on hand for ideas. So far I haven't had much luck with getting them to eat anything fresh, but it is still early and I still have many things to try thanks to your suggestions. Today, I decided to take their seed bowls out first thing in the morning and replaced them with some finely chopped up multigrain pasta and vegetables that I cooked for them. I left it there for about 1 and 1/2 hours and then felt badly as I knew they were starving. The budgie flew down a few times to the bowl, but only seemed to look at it. Raisin, tried a few bites, but wasn't enthused! So, I gave them their seeds and pellets. I think I will let them eat their seed in the morning and then give them the fresh stuff a little later tomorrow.

Raisin now talks to us when we come in and out of the room and it is so adorable. I can't call it a chirp, I can only say it is a squeak or squeal and it just kills me, it is soooo cute. The budgie tolerates us handling him, he isn't biting nearly as much and seems to enjoy scratches on the head. I just don't feel that we've got that bond yet. He seems more distant and hasn't shown that he really wants or needs us yet. I can't wait for that to change. He is so sweet. My daughter hasn't settled on a name yet. He does have the biggest feet and little ankles that I've seen on a budgie!

I would so love to have them out and about in the house more, but we have a little poodle dog and so if they are out she has to be locked away somewhere and we have to be very careful. We also have to make sure we are giving her attention too. So far, we just play with them in one room. My next purchase (besides a variety of different foods and veg) will be a playstand. I don't have any desire or inclination (or ability) to make one, so I will have to buy one. I've been looking online, but haven't found one I like yet that will be good for both Raisin and the budgie together. I want them to play together or at least be together on the same stand, but with plenty of room. So far, Raisin and the budgie are not that interested in each other. The budgie is sweet and doesn't bother her, but if he goes near her millet or gets to close to anything that she seems to like when they are out playing, she will hiss at him! And I thought the budgie would be the bully.... So, it is such a fun time and we are so enjoying them.

Hi! Glad to hear Raisin and the budgie are home, I've been following the posts but haven't had time to write one myself.
I found with the best way to get a bird to try new foods is to eat it in front of her! When she sees you eating, she HAS to have what you have! They are little stinkers for sure. I had Luna home for a one day when I brought a dinner plate into the living room for my husband. Luna was on a small table next to him and hadn't seen the plate or what was on it. As I approached him, she started to get excited and stretch her little neck as if to say "where's mine"!! I handed the dish to him and withing a few seconds she jumped on the couch and climbed up him to get into the plate! We have had her for 2 1/2 years and she still goes for OUR food even though we give her the same food in her cage.

I have a couple of small shallow glass ashtrays I use for her fresh food and they go on the bottom of the cage at dinner time. I also hang fresh kale, collard greens or other large green leafy veggies through the top of the cage bars.

I'll post a picture soon - having trouble logging in to my account

Best wishes to you and your new flock mates!!

Jo

Wow, all the suggestions for food and how to feed the birds have been amazingly helpful! We all had a family/flock breakfast this morning. We made sure the dogs were both outside, ceiling fans off etc.. and brought Raisin and budgie onto a towel on the breakfast table with their breakfast on one big paper plate, they had brown rice and broccoli today. My girls were eating their bowls of cereal and Raisin and budgie were happily sharing the plate of food. Raisin soon started trying to hop onto the sides of the cereal bowls to see how that tasted, but it was frosted cheerios, so we didn't let her try them, plus I wasn't sure about the milk(?) We'll have to get some healthier breakfast cereals. Oh, we're having such fun!

Luna Bella, we like the idea of hanging the green leafy veg through the cage and plan on trying that next....

Cheerios are fine but frosted cereals are not good. Brown rice & brocolli are great for birds!

How is Raisen doing?

Thanks for asking about Raisin! She is doing very well I think. Since we brought her home we have instinctively started calling Raisin a "she, her etc.." yet before this we always referred to "him". Somehow I think she is a girl. She does not sing a lot, she chirps or does her cute little squeal to get our attention, but she is rarely noisy. She and the budgie get going occasionally for a few minutes. The budgie is noisier than she is. He will chirp to the birds that he hears outside.
I enjoyed catching up with the posts today especially reading about cockatiel's moods and personalities and showing their feelings. We are definitely experiencing Raisin's little moods now. I'm not sure that we have deciphered them all yet, but she lets us know when she is irritable by pecking at us quickly, but gently and just looking very disgruntled. We have been very busy getting ready for "back to school" this past weekend and yesterday was the first day back. My daughter got up early around 6:00am and woke the birds up just before 7:00am to feed them and play with them before going to school. This was about 2 hours earlier than usual, but they seemed fine with it. It was later when we came home that Raisin ate and played, but soon became very irritated and just pecked at us. We figured she was just very tired from waking up so early and we took her back to her cage where she just perched looking grumpy. So, she will just have to get used to a new routine where we are not around as much during the day. It is so funny how birds are like humans with their moods and emotions and get grumpy when they are tired or hormonal and need a routine of good sleep etc. Whereas our dogs seem to mainly stay very stable in their happy little doggy moods. I do notice differences occasionally, but not to the degree of the birds.

The budgie will not stop biting, but we really don't think it is anything to do with him being scared anymore. He steps up onto our fingers and eats from our hand, but when we hold him, he just nervously, almost compulsively has to lunge down at our fingers and bite really hard. He also does this on his concrete perch (which is pink), he constantly rubs his head and beak on the perch and now has a pink hue to his face and feathers. I'm assuming it is all non toxic since I got it at the vets. My daughter held him for a long time (which seems to be what is needed) yesterday after school and after about half an hour of just sitting on her hand, he finally allowed her to pet him and scratch around his neck and he enjoyed it. He is still scared to a certain degree, yet he steps up and when he does fly off our hands to escape, he will find himself lost on the floor and step back up to our hands gladly. It's strange. Raisin tolerates him, but if he tries to perch on us near her, she won't have it.

One thing I wonder is whether or not Raisin and the budgie really play in their cages and enjoy them while we are gone. Mostly when we come back they are just perching. Raisin really doesn't seem to play with the toys in her cage much. She has never made it up to her highest perch either (the concrete one that the vet told us to put). We have put a nice toy there, but she shows no interest. She only climbs up the ladder to her middle, wood branch perch and perches there all the time. I don't know if we just need to put another ladder in there or what. She can climb on the sides of the cage, although she only does this around her other perch and the ladder. When we bring her out, she loves to play and is very curious of everything we are doing or touching.

Another thing is that our new house will finally be ready the beginning of September, so we will be moving. Will this be very traumatic for the birds since we've only had them such a short time anyway? I'm thinking I should keep giving them that probios powder that the vet gave us during that time for sure.

Well, this post is all over the place, so I better stop rambling and get back to work.....