Fostering 3 Baby Budgies...How Did I Get Sucked-Into This?

Well I'm obviously a push-over and an easy target, and everyone knows it!!! At least when it comes to animals anyway...

A friend of mine called me late last night to tell me that his girlfriend, who has 5 or 6 Budgies (at least 5 or 6, I'm not sure, she seems to buy one every time she goes to a pet shop), and who house them all together in a huge flight cage, regardless of their sexes, had just called him admitting that 2 of her Budgies had been mating, she knew it and did nothing about it, and that they had laid 10 EGGS!!! "About a month ago" (obviously not true, it had to be at least 2 months ago), and she didn't know what to do, so instead of asking, she decided to keep it a secret and just let them hatch...And hatch they did... apparently she figured out there was a problem about the time that she went from 10 eggs, 8 of them hatching and having 8 baby Budgies, to having only 3 living babies by the time Monday rolled around...ugh.

She did call a vet yesterday, I don't know which one or what kind, only that it must not have been an Avian vet, as she was told that "Oh, it's not a big deal, the parents just aren't feeding them, so you'll have to go and buy formula and feed them 2-3 times a day"... I'm quoting what my friend heard this vet say on speakerphone, but these babies are at best between 2-3 weeks old, so no wonder they were all dying! I kept telling my friend that there is no way that 8 of these babies hatched, simply based on the timeline, and the fact that she has 3 babies now that are between only 2-3 weeks old...do the math...but his girlfriend knows zip about this, so she told a bunch of lies that she didn't realize were blatantly obvious to anyone with bird-breeding experience...Anyway, he asked me if I would take the "remaining 3 babies", ahem, and hand-feed them, as she had yet to do it, NOT ONCE HAD THEY EATEN SINCE SUNDAY WHEN SHE PUT THEM IN A RUBBERMAID CONTAINER! Of course I said yes, based on the information i had at the time: I THOUGHT THAT THEY WERE OLDER AND ONLY ON 2-3 FEEDINGS A DAY AND WERE STARTING TO WEAN, AND I ALSO WAS TOLD BY HIM THAT HIS GIRLFRIEND HAD ALREADY GONE OUT AND PURCHASED FORMULA, SYRINGES, STUFF TO SET-UP A BROODER, ETC.

This morning I got up at 5:30 to await the delivery of these 3 baby Budgies and all of the supplies, as I have not bred my birds in almost 4 years, and all of my equipment is packed away, nor do I keep any formula or anything else no-name. They show up with 3 baby Budgies that are between the ages or 2-3 weeks and will need fed 5-6 times a day, including over night, and ZERO SUPPLIES... NOTHING. NO FORMULA, NO SYRINGES, NO BROODER, NO THERMOMETERS, NO BEDDING, NOTHING!!! They handed them to me in one of those little, tiny plastic "critter cages", the smallest they sell, with filthy dirty paper towels in the bottom. Everything was plastered in feces-the container, the lid, the paper towels, and yes, the 3 babies...WITH COMPLETELY EMPTY CROPS AND SCREAMING BLOODY MURDER...poor little guys, this wasn't their fault, so I took the container from her hands and asked "Where's all their hand-feeding stuff? BROODER? She looked at me with a half-angry, half-embarrassed look and said "Will you take them or not, because I can't listen to them screaming any longer"...So I obviously took them...ugh again.

We got baths, we got one of the 10-gallon aquariums unpacked, along with my heating-pads, thermometers, syringes, etc. We sanitized everything, then I ran to Walmart and Petco to get baby bird hand-feeding formula, some unflavored Pedialyte since they're extremely dehydrated, and some other precautionary stuff like Apple Cider Vinegar, Probiotics, Alka-Seltzer tablets, etc., as I'm expecting some yeasty-crop and whatever else might go along with the conditions they've been kept in. Then we ate...AND DID WE EVER EAT! I'm shocked they didn't die of dehydration after going 3 days without anything. We're now sleeping soundly in our "BROODER" with our crops full...They finally stopped screaming, which my friend just told me they hadn't since he went over there last night around 9:00 when she called him balling until they were left with me this morning.

While I can't be angry at my friend for this, as he just found out about these babies last night for the first time (and is pissed as all-hell at her himself), I'd like to drive over to this girlfriend's apartment and make her scream in pain for hours like she made these baby birds do. I told him to try to convince her to at the very least give me all of her females or all of her male, so that this never happens again, but he said that "She loves them to much"...Yeah, that's love alright...

Wow....oh wow is all I can say. I want to shake this person and ask what was she thinking?!!!?! The poor babies....so glad you were thought of and called to help, as I don't think they would have survived much longer without your experience and help. Bless you!!!

As for the girlfriend, I hope she has learned a lesson in all this and sincerely thinks about what she's doing with her birds. I hope she'll give you either gender so this doesn't keep happening.

Again, thank you for taking in these babies!!! They are in the best hands now, thank heaven.

itzjbean said:

Wow....oh wow is all I can say. I want to shake this person and ask what was she thinking?!!!?! The poor babies....so glad you were thought of and called to help, as I don't think they would have survived much longer without your experience and help. Bless you!!!

As for the girlfriend, I hope she has learned a lesson in all this and sincerely thinks about what she's doing with her birds. I hope she'll give you either gender so this doesn't keep happening.

Again, thank you for taking in these babies!!! They are in the best hands now, thank heaven.

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I know, this is still blowing my mind, though it shouldn't I suppose. My friend keeps calling to check on them and to apologize to me, I just keep telling him that I'm glad he called me, as these 3 would surely be dead by now...God only knows how many babies she actually had and how/why they died...I just found out that she had blocked the father out of the cage because she didn't know he was helping, she thought he was "bothering them"...So the por hen had no help at all, no one feeding her, or the chicks, or laying on the eggs/chicks. No wonder she gave up on feeding them if she had 8 babies and no male to help her!

I told him I have no issue taking either sex of adult birds, or at the very least he needs to make sure she gets another cage and separates them immediately. He is afraid of this particular hen becoming egg-bound, as apparently she has been laying non-stop for months, and she's fed only a seed mix from Walmart . I gave her a bunch of mineral blocks to hang and a bottle of Avian Multi-Vitamin powder, and a big container of chop I had frozen... Hopefully she'll get the idea, but I doubt it...

Very Sad! This is largely due to the low economic value of budgies. In India they cost between 300 to 500 rupees a pair (Approx 5 to 9 US dollars) depending on the place.

So they are more prone to being purchased on Impulse and hence many meet really terrible ends after equally terrible short lives.
And since pet shops supply cages with an Earthen pot already inside, a lot of accidental breeding takes place.

And now sadly show budgies are gradually entering the market though India does not have the culture of showing birds. These birds, at least the ones shown in this video are a grotesque caricature of the graceful bird that roams the outback of Australia in large flocks.

[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hoa1uWfxZeQ"]A New Budgies Breed Ready to Hit the Market... - YouTube[/ame]

wow...

Sooo... this girl is what? 12? Cause that's roughly the age she is acting. She needs a reality check because right now she's responsible for the deaths of 7 budgies (going by her words) and potential death of her adult Budgie that she "loves". If I had my way that would be a case for animal cruelty but of course birds are all totally dumb and don't matter according to the law (idiots)

All you can do now is take care of the babies and hope they get better. How are they doing at the moment?

"I can't listen to them screaming any longer" yeah it must be hard getting on with your day listening to baby birds screaming for food as you starve them to death you stupid ***** I'd be tempted to leave a soundtrack of screaming baby birds on at full volume for her to hear until the babies are grown up. Torture is what she did to those birds and she needs to be made aware she willingly has tortured the babies, the mother who could easily die, the father by blocking him from getting to his babies, and in turn, you.

Ha ha, my exact words to my friend were "What is she, 10?" The really pathetic thing is that they are some of the easiest babies I've ever fed, they go to sleep as son as they're full, they sleep for at least 4-5 hours, and their crops empty perfectly...stupid little twit couldn't take the screaming? I told my friend that I'm sure she would start screaming too if she went without food and water for 4 days...

Day 2 and all is well, though I'm starting to remember why I stopped breeding birds, lol...Feedings last night at 11:00, 3:00, and then around 7:30 because I slept through the alarm I set...Good god they are adorable though! The 2 darker ones are warming up to me, but this little light colored chicky is my little buddy...

haha you love it really! I love hearing baby birds, especially the squeaks when they're gobbling up their food

EllenD said:

Ha ha, my exact words to my friend were "What is she, 10?" The really pathetic thing is that they are some of the easiest babies I've ever fed, they go to sleep as son as they're full, they sleep for at least 4-5 hours, and their crops empty perfectly...stupid little twit couldn't take the screaming? I told my friend that I'm sure she would start screaming too if she went without food and water for 4 days...

Day 2 and all is well, though I'm starting to remember why I stopped breeding birds, lol...Feedings last night at 11:00, 3:00, and then around 7:30 because I slept through the alarm I set...Good god they are adorable though! The 2 darker ones are warming up to me, but this little light colored chicky is my little buddy...

Click to expand...

So glad to hear things are going well!!

Thank you fo stepping in! You are definitely a saint taking on this responsibility. I have hand reared before and it is no easy job - so I really admire your willingness to step in.

Ugh, people can be really irresponsible. It is so simple to prevent something like this from happening. No nest boxes (which I am assuming she had, it would be so unlikely for them to just lay at the bottom of the cage and actually be able to incubate the eggs without there being aggression with the other birds), remove any eggs that have been laid, if mating continues, separate the pair... It's almost common sense.

In my aviary, it is pretty difficult to prevent mating, but there are no nest boxes (just heat lamps for the winter and sleeping quarters so that they don't get cold), and whenever I see any eggs I remove them immediately, and I have never had problems with mating! Unfortunately a lot of people are misinformed and think that budgies need nesting boxes, when it is honestly the worst thing ever if you want to prevent breeding.

I hope she has learnt her lesson and has separated the pair!

That makes me so mad Thank you so much for taking in these babies!

Well the 3 are doing very well, and getting BIG! They are eating like horses, and they are growing the most gorgeous colored feathers...looks like they are going to be a combination of turquoise, green, yellow, and gray...I can't wait to see how they turn-out, as their colors so far are just amazing...

My friend's girlfriend is officially "off the list", as after he tried desperately to get her to rehome one of the gender's of birds to me, or at the very least separate them into different cages, she flipped out and told him that I "just want her birds"...This after I voluntarily took in the 3 babies she almost killed, unpacked all of my hand-feeding/raising equipment, and then spent money on supplies to feed them and house them in the brooder...free of charge to her. I'm apparently the evil one now. I called her and tried to be nice, I tried to explain that the only reason we want them separated is so they don't continue to breed and lay fertile eggs, but she doesn't see it that way. She won't even agree to freeze any eggs that are laid, as "that would be cruel" (apparently starving the babies and allowing them to literally starve/dehydrate to death wasn't cruel though)...My friend was going to move-in with her next month, and that's not happening now, and that's my fault too...couldn't be because she's just a ditz, lol...

Ugh, that’s so annoying... wish there was some way to convince her that she needs to learn from her mistakes and take active steps toward the care of her birds in the future! [emoji849]


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This world needs more people like you,Ellen! I THINK I already know the answer to this next question,but I need to ask anyway
You AREN'T going to give those budgies back to her,after the grow to full budginess,are you??




Jim