Farm Flock: follow along with *all* the birds in our flock

[bug_n_flock]

Well, the bird pasta was quite a hit. Wahoo! Today I am making a big pot of bird safe greens: kale and collard. One of my favorite dishes, but Mr. Bug won't touch veggies usually, so often when I make a pot of greens at least some goes bad. Not this time, hopefully. I'll share with the birds!


Also.... WOW, ok. Our budgie flock is about to nearly double in size. The cockatiel guy and I have been talking.... we are going to completely buy him out of birds. Birds, cages, nest boxes, books, food, everything. He has 19 birds now. 2 pair from a semi local breeder, 2 pair from a breeder a state away. The rest are the offspring of those 8 birds. He has records on who is related to whom, takes care of them correctly, and feeds them properly. In the end, it was too good a deal on too good of quality birds. We couldn't say no. We pick them up Friday after this'un. The guy is 2 hours away, so it will be an all day project I'm sure. So.... for the next month, our bedroom may have 21 birds going thru quarantine. However, that just may be too many quarantine birds too close to the rest of our birds. We may try to figure out somewhere else to quarantine them for the safety of all involved. Maybe a room in the 2nd mobile home, maybe we will throw up a shed outside(after this heat wave passes, fall weather is mild here), IDK. We will figure it out. Maybe just clear out the large walk-in closet in the bedroom and put the cages there for quarantine. Still in the same building as the rest of the flock, but a little farther away from them. Rather than being 2 doors between them and most of the birds, there would be 3. And Alex and Hima would be 2 doors away rather than 1. IDK. What do you guys think?


For the tiels, we have been thinking about names. So far the front runners are:


Riff(hen) Raff(****)
Bonnie(hen) Clyde(****)
Hiro(****) Mitzy(hen)


Any suggestions?

 

[AmyMyBlueFront]

Yanno Ms Bug...pictures say a bazillion words!




Jim

 

[bug_n_flock]

Goodmorning, little snake. Watch out for the chickens, they'll eat you if ya let um.


View attachment 23101

 

[bug_n_flock]

The joys of a boatload of budgies.....




I got (most of) the budgies to eat harrisons pellets for the first time the other day. Guess how.



Lmfao I put a mountain of it on a paper plate on the bottom of the two biggest budgie cages I have(one has 6 birds, the "baby cage" even tho those were spring babies and are now several months old, and 1 cage with 10 birds- a pair and their most recent(also several months old) clutch. The pair with their clutch need separated, but so far they have all behaved and the cage is plenty big enough. We do have more cages coming soon tho) Both pellet mountains were gone in a day. Hahahahaha a flock is just *soo* much easier to feed than 1 or 2 birds. The cages with 1-2 budgies each in them the pellets went un touched. I also gave all the cages some seed, so it is not like they were starved into nomming those pellets.



Speaking of, Mr. Chubby Alex Borb has finally ended his pellet strike it seems like. He still would prefer cooked food or junk food, but he will eat the pellets again finally. He really has managed to get himself downright *fat* without me noticing lately. He hops on your finger and it's like, "oof. How does a cotton ball with opinions weigh that much?" Diet time for fatso. He just loves junk food so much.... IDK wheeeere he gets that from.... :27:


Turkey Bird has taken to sleeping on top of the chimney. Can't imagine a coyote getting him up there, tho. Good thinking, tho is the nightly game of chimney hopscotch really necessary? He hops from the fireplace chimney to the wood stove one and back seveeral times nightly before he settles.

View attachment 23102


We have 2/3 bird cages in the house now that I inherited from my grandmother. They really make me feel sad for her African Grey. He passed a few years ago now and lived around 50 years, but these cages are very small. 1 is the size I'd use for a travel cage for a cockatiel, another about the size of a cage I would bring for a tiel to stay in for a few days while on vacation. The travel cage size one was a travel cage, but the other one was the primary residence of JD the congo grey for years. Even with out of cage time, it is heartbreaking. And the accessories that came with the cages... ohh boy I don't know if Jay actually ever had parrot appropriate toys. poor guy. The third cage is bigger, but still wildly inappropriate for any parrot, but especially for a grey. Dang. Sadness. We will probably use the cage for decoration. Put in it a fake bird and fake bird toys, maybe a lamp, IDK. I want to keep the cage because of family memories, but no bird should live in it again. The little cages may be of use as travel cages tho.


lookjng forward to getting the budgies this weekend, and we are still working on clearing out space in our bedroom for them to spend their quarantine time. The pair of tiels are doing good. I think once quarantine is up I will separate them. Still have their cages near each other, but separate cages. That sould help with socializing them, and with making sure they don't over breed. We are thinking 1-2 clutches per year for them and no more. It ocured to me yesterday that there is a boutique pet shop next to the kroger 20 miles from here. The last time I was in there they had a couple of empty terrariums on the counter and apparently they sometimes sell small reptiles. I wonder if they would be interested in selling small numbers of tame budgies every now and then, or if they would take business cards to give to anyone wanting a bird. At the least, I bet they will let us put flyers up if they have a bulletin board.



We are recently listed on bird breeders . Com, but it couldn't hurt to also post flyers around. I don't know how I feel about shipping birds, and the website is not locals. Shrug. We do already have a waitlist for chicks, but I prefer to have more homes than chicks so I can be choosy about where they go.


The drought has finally broken, and it has been raining on and off. Creek is still VERY low, but now everything outside is muddy squishy and slippery slippery! I am not going outside much until things become a bit less hazardous. I'm mostly healed, I guess, but a tumble would take that right back to square one. No thanks! So I'll have to excersize indoors. My strength and endurance is still frusteratingly low. All I did was break a small bone and it is this significant! Yipe! Oh well, can't rush it. Still annoying tho when theres stuff I want to do, but can't.

 

[bug_n_flock]

Still have not decided on names for the cockatiels yet. I think they were tame at one point, but a previous owner must have grabbed them. They are really on edge around hands, especially in the cage, and the male seems the most frightened. They will both come over and nervously eat spray millet from my hand. The hen seems way more trusting, and actually hopped on to my hand to eat the millet a few times. I do think I will be able to "tame" them easily, but I think distrust of hands may always be an issue with the male.



Why do people do that? Otherwise caring people who feed and look after the birds "correctly", will just *grab* birds. I don't get it. Our breeder budgies aren't tame, but they don't have a fit when hands are moved around them.



Maybe someone grabbed and then restrained them tightly? IDK, but they are *terrified* of hands.

 

[bug_n_flock]

We are under a frost watch until tomorrow morning.



We decided, after all that moving around of birds, that we are going to take care of the wood stove and the plumbing ourselves. Save a bit of money, and also we just don't really trust many of the locals to do a good job on such critical things. That criminal who "fixed" our truck really has us quite gunshy about trusting locals right now.



So today I need to dig out one of our electric radiators from storage and plug it in near Alex's cage. We still have not ordered him a heater. Partly procrastination, partly because I am unsure what one or even type to get! We have ceramic heat emitter bulbs and also red heat lamps(not going to use a red bulb), we have heating pads. I have thinking about setting him up with a shielded CHE to heat his area, but then how to cover the cage without a fire hazard, and also humidity would drop(it will from the wood stove too if we keep him in that room). I have a heated perch in my shopping cart for one online retailer, a radiant heat panel for birds in another shopping cart... ughhhhh so many choices, but I need to hurry up and get at least one before it gets consistently cold.



Also need to deal with the last remnant plants in the garden, either pick all fruits and call it a season, or somehow protect the plants from frost. Shrug.



Plus, we seem now to be on kitten watch! We have a cat now that we think is pregnant(big belly and obvious nipples), so we put her in a dog crate and are waiting for her to have babies. Mr. Bug wants to keep all of the kittens. Her belly isn't HUGE, so if she has them soon it would probably be only 2-4 kittens, IDK, but if she is still a few weeks off she could have several. Well, I guess time will tell. We could keep quite a few, certainly... our 2 outdoor barn kittens could use some reinforcements to keep rodents away, and we could always take 1 or 2 more to be indoor cats... 4 isn't SO many to have inside, right?


I definitely have reservations about keeping all of the kittens. We will see how many she even has first, though. No sense in starting drama about not being able to keep 10 kittens for her to only have 2 or something. We will figure it out. And we do have plenty of outside space to accomodate a few more barn cats, and plenty of rodents for them to hunt. No kidding, the other day I was sitting in the living room and THUD. I look over and a young mouse was sitting in the middle of the floor, a little dazed. Then he recovered and took off before I realized what I was looking at. He fell out of the ceiling! There is a gap around where the wood stove chimney goes thru the ceiling and up to the roof. The mouse dropped down from there is all I can figure. Thankfully Seymour, our scotty mutt, keeps rodents out of our kitchen etc, but it was still unsettling. This is the time of year where they come inside, though.



So I guess, we kind of do have need for a couple more good mousers, but I don't want to end up with 30 cats running around or anything like that. I mean, we already had 4 cats(2 indoor and 2 outdoor) before the issue of a pregnant momma cat even came up lol. Good thing our friend runs a spay neuter clinic.



At the end of the day we both love cats, I just don't want to have so many that the wildlife starts to stay away or the cats start to be a nuisence or something.



From phone, as usual, so please forgive any typos.

 

[bug_n_flock]

Ohhhhhhhhhh *boy*! It has been a BUSY couple of days! I am ready for a BREAK!


On Sunday we drove out to get the birds and all supplies from the guy. Turned out to be 22 parakeets total. 4 spangles, an english budgie hen, a creamino, some nice birds. And a few unexpected red flags.



On that trip we also stopped by a house around halfway to the bird guy(we drove about 2 hours each way) and adopted two little boyrats from a girl moving out of her parents home. These two boys are so obviously spoiled and were very much loved by the girl. Ollie and Felix are their names, one light tan with a white belly and a blaze on his face, one a hairless rattie who has become my hot water bottle. Lol the hairless ones are a smidge warmer than haired rats, and this guy is a cuddler. Both boys have dumbo ears. Really sweet ratties. We are looking around for some girl rats too. It has been ages since I had rats. After what happened to Pistol I just couldn't have rats around me, it was too hard not to blame them for what happened. So I sold all of my rats that I had at the time. Now I am ready to have rats again. Of course, they are in a room with NO BIRDS. EVER.



Now, the budgies. There were a few little hints that the guy did NOT maintain a clean environment for his birds, and that there had been a last minute cleaning blitz before we came to get them and the stuff.


The adult birds all look great, quality wise. A little scruffy. But what worried us were some of the babies. He would have been totally willing to sell us breeding pairs without their "weaned" chicks(we wanted to wait to buy until all were ready to go. He said they were). One bird when he was catching birds from the aviary, he just grabbed off of a food dish and said it came out of the nest "two days ago". Uhhhh, so not. Weaned.



There were three chicks in the nest that he claimed "came out but they go back in, theyre ready" The youngest in that nest I would guess is around 4 weeks old. Not. Weaned.



But most concerning were the poo balls on the feet of the chicks, the scruffy looking feathers on some of the chicks, and the upturned, deformed beaks on some of the chicks. YIKES!


So I wasn't thinking yes PBFD, I was thinking maybe PBFD. Regardless, I couldn't leave them there or he would have listed them for sale and parted out his flock. So all 22 birds and all the guys cages and accessories got loaded up in the vehicle. We had to fold most of the cages, because there were also 2 5' long custom cages that do not fold.



They went, all of them including the tiels we got from him previously, into the large closet off of our bedroom. Put in a HEPA filter and we keep the door shut. Bedroom has no birds and another powerful air filter. Living room no birds, air filter. Bird room has all of our previous birds(even Alex and Hima, who I have partially covered since they are afraid of Freedom), and another HEPA filter. Weather allowing, we keep many windows open too.



Called the Vet first thing Monday, and they set us up for Tuesday. Was a tense couple days. Vet agreed to see 4 of the budgies(when I made the appointment I didn't know how many were deformed, they were not right in front of me) for a "flock fee rate". Monday night I sorted thru the babies and decided who would go to the vet. I took out the 6 most concerning(4 for beaks, the rest just scruffy feathers), and got them settled in a cage to go to the vet. Anyway long story short, our CAV does not think it likely to be PBFD(I could have tapdanced out of the vet's office I was so relieved). She thinks they were kept filthily, same as we were thinking. They are a little underweight and they were fed wal mart seed and given the cheapest vitamins in the water, so probably also nutritional issues. Vet is confident most will straighten their beaks with proper care, one or two may need beak trims as they get older. One I brought due to scruffy feathers ended up having a constriction injury under the poo ball on her foot... she has a dead toe. Vet says it will either fall off on its own or it wont, either way might need amputation(if it falls on its own but has exposed bone for example).



The 2nd we brought due to feather issues she thinks has a respiratory infection.



We came home with antibiotics to put in the water for all the new birds, and pain meds for the poor bird with a dead toe. We also have instructions for soaking and cleaning the toe wound. We did not, however, bring the massive weight of horrid anxiety and fear home with us.


I stand by that the parent stock are good quality birds, but I do not think they were cared for correctly at all. The guy was talking about overbreeding birds to the point where they "blow out" as he put it, then quickly changed that to his friend had overbred birds. He only let them have 2 clutches and then a break. *He* had never overbred birds.


I think we will not breed any of the new birds until next year(meaning next fall at the earliest, not January). Who knows how much of a "break" they were actually given between clutches. Besides, they will need that time to settle in and get on a proper diet and get all that evened out.


We have a followup appointment in a week. At least for the poor chick with the dead toe, maybe others who should be seen(if we think any others should be. The 6 we took were really the worst ones). We could also come back sooner if need be. I like this vet honestly. She was very aware of the budgies as sentient feeling little individuals. Tried with everything she did to reduce or eliminate stress. Too bad she is located an hour and a half away. Closest vet that will see exotics, VERY lucky she is a CAV.


I'll probably scramble some eggs for all of the birds today. Molting and stress issues. Freedom and I had a serious head scratchie session this morning and she is just LOADED with pinfeathers.



Overall lots of drama, but it seems to be turning out alright. Oh, and that flock fee turned out to be around 20$ a bird. Meds extra, obviously. I was quite surprised how reasonable the cost was; I'd only previously taken birds to the vet one at a time.





We have 49 parrots in our house right now.

 

[SailBoat]

By the way, congratulations on having 5000+ views on this Thread...

 

[VIKI_21]

Hello i'm waqar. My question is that i have a budgies pair the male budgie call to female to come into the box but female did not reponds and also the male trrying to matting and put his leg onto the ffemale but same satituation female did not matting and fly away.Male is too hot male put his on leg on box snd second leg on to the stick that i place infront of box and act like matting.i have a small colony of 10 bird.
I put them sperate cage but no works what i do now.

 

[bug_n_flock]

Hmm, the female may not like the box or may not like the male. She may like a different box or male better, or she may not be ready to breed right now. How old are the birds?

 

[Squeekmouse]

I love following this thread and reading about all of your interesting adventures. I love hearing about all the birds, parrots, rats, wildlife, and of course updates on how Freedom is doing.

 

[AmyMyBlueFront]

49 birds...I can only imagine the chattering going on there!:54:


Jim

 

[bug_n_flock]

Boy I tell ya: you don't think of budgies as big eaters until you have 45 of them. Lmao collectively I'd say they eat as much as 6 people(including what the 3 tiels and Freedom also eat), give or take.


Well, if people ate pellets, chop, and seeds, that is.


The new birds, even being in a flock situation, seem completely unwilling to eat food other than seeds though. Even the fledgelings, who usually are pretty willing to try new stuff. Guess too much stress all at once. I'll keep seed in their dishes, millet in their faces, and dishes of tasty chop and or bird safe cooked meals in abundance. They can't hold out forever! Not even Stubborn Alex Bird could hold out forever.





And yeah, the noise is spectacular. I'm sitting in the living room "bird desert" right now, and I can clearly hear both flocks chattering away.


Ohhhhh and I was naughty and didn't keep you guys informed of a couple other things. . ... we have 2 incubators going now stuffed full of eggs. The chickens in the first 'bator started hatching yesterday and we have a box full of lovely mutt chickens from our flock. We also have a couple broody hens in the barn. And the 'bators have duck eggs AND chicken eggs in 'em.


I'll post photos soon, but I wanted to post this, my phone is acting oddly and I think our local cell tower is struggling today. It may drop out, it does that from time to time.

 

[bug_n_flock]

I think Freedom wants to eat the baby chickens. O.O


We have them temporarily in the bird room since it is the warmest room in the house until we get the wood stove up and running for the year(cleaning the chimney today and/or tomorrow). Every time I go in there to mess with them she says "mmmm!" Which is her way of asking for something edible, demanding something edible, the noise she makes when she eats something particularly tasty, etc.



So I held up a chick where she could clearly see it and told her, "you don't eat chicks! It's a baby! Be nice to the baby"


She responds with eye pinning and "MMMMMMMM!"


Well then, Freedom. Didn't figure you for the baby eating type. Lol


6 chickies hatched from the first incubator(the duck eggs in that incubator have a few more days before they will start to hatch). 5 are teeny(bantam mixes?), 1 is normal chick sized. 5 are mostly black, a couple with yellow, some with white. The big one is dark with a reddish face, and there is one yellow and blue ish chick. I think most are barred rock mixes(no surprises there, we have a TON of barred rocks), the big one might be a wyandotte mix, the little blue/yellow? Your guess is as good as mine. It looks similar to a spitzhauben chick, but all our spitzhaubens from the first group were picked off by predators. The others are too young to breed, and also are penned away from the free range birds.


We have dogs back in our property. At least 2. They have been getting bolder lately and coming up close to our clearing. That is going to be something we have to do something about soon.



Ms. Mallard got got a couple nights ago. We think raccoon got her. She was in the pasture and something had taken her head thru the fence. A dog would have just gone thru the fence. We buried what we could of her. She wasn't friendly like some of our other ducks, but we really liked her. Her mate is wandering around quacking like he is lost without her.


Turkey Bird is still very friendly, but he has finally started to flock with the bronze turkeys rather than the chickens.



Still no kittens, but momma cat brought in what seems like an unlimited number of fleas with her. :26: We have been told not to chemically treat her for fleas while she is pregnant. Nor should we vaccinate her or treat her for worms. So we are dealing with it for now. :26::26::26: As soon as those babies are born we will vaccinate mom. Still need to look at worming and flea treating a nursing mom, but vaccination while nursing is safe.

 

[bug_n_flock]

THE VET WAS WRONG!


Doing the evening antibiotics and foot inspection.... a section of what looked like dead toe tissue broke off to reveal.....


Drumroll please




HEALTHY TOE TISSUE! The tip of the toe is still coated in gunk OR is dead tissue, but the midsection of the toe is STILL ALIVE!!!!!! Hopefully little Sunny as I have been calling her will keep all of that toe. Yay!!!!


Go Sunny, Go!

 

[bug_n_flock]

Come on, mom, pull us on the wagon!


View attachment 23167







Wood stove is done and having now done it, we feel exceedingly silly that we were considering paying someone to do it for us. Talk about a simple job once you have the proper equipment.




We have the big cage I inheireted in the house now. We had to take it up the melting porch(it was unsafe last year when we bought the place, but we haven't taken it down and replaced it yet) and thru a door that we really don't use. Storms coming thru tonight and then cold, so we wanted it in the protection of the house. We literally couldn't have waited any longer.. about an hour after it was in the house, the turkeys took out about 1/2 the porch by trying to roost on it. Fatbirds, LOL.


Speaking of fat animals.... when we stopped by the rescue today to borrow a ladder tall enough for us to get up to the roof I met probably the fattest cat I have ever seen in person. A big fat orange kitty. Looked like a fluffy pumpkin. Friendly, too. Hope he gets a home soon. Our friend has been calling him Garfield LMAO


I am utterly exhausted, it was a long day. Still no kittens, and still about 3 or 4 more days until duckies hopefully hatch from the first incubator, and chickens start to hatch from the 2nd incubator. Lockdown starts today, so I have to still unplug automatic egg turners and add more water into the incubators. ETA: also have to do a pre-lockdown candling to see how the eggies look.

 

[SailBoat]

Congrats on the wood stove and tacking up ten pages on this Thread!


Really looks like the group wants to travel. Got wagon, will travel!!!

 

[bug_n_flock]

So as I hinted at in another thread (http://www.parrotforums.com/macaws/82536-prefab-aviary-b-g.html), I found Freedom has a line in the sand. The budgies are *her* budgies, and I better not tick them off or she will have things to say on the matter!


I was rearranging budgies to start them bonding with their partners for the year, and they started swearing in budgie language.... Freedom was not pleased. How *dare* I upset her little friends! :smile015:


Mr. Bug very unexpectedly now has a job. He went over to the rescue to drop off the ladder we borrowed, and got recruited as a helper for walnut season. At least on Tuesdays and Thursdays when the lady half of the rescue couple is working at the spay/neuter clinic and the gentleman half gets overwhelmed doing animal care, meeting with adopters, AND running the walnut stand(they buy and hull the nuts and contract with some company who buys all the hulled nuts. It doesn't sound like the sort of thing that would be very busy, but folks around here are very very poor, and 15$ per 100lbs of hulled nuts is a very appealing offer for locals... cars line up down the road at times to bring nuts to them).


We have decided Mr. Bug is going to take another trip to Previous City in order to pick up a few things, so we mostly are focusing on getting ready for that. Though, we haven't quite decided when exactly he will make the trip.

 

[AmyMyBlueFront]

Never a dull moment I see! The photo of all the "girls" in the wagon was super lol I told my brother if he sets up for bee's and hives, I'm going to "rent" a coop and 6 cluckers I've been reading up on them and not only are they adorable,but smart,and can make awesome pets






Jim

 

[bug_n_flock]

Chickens are AWESOME. Such personalities in these birds. :39: And the fresh eggs just can't be beat!



And "girls" is right. At least 2 on the wagon are boys. The black and silver one in the front is a boy named Webster. He isn't my favorite bird.... he lies to the ladies by making the "tuk tuk tuk tuk" noise that means "come here ladies, I found something yummy" while messing with rocks, sticks, etc non edible things and then grabs the girls roughly when they get close enough and tries to erm, fail at hopscotch. He isn't aggressive to people so we have kept him around in the hopes he will start to be nicer to the girls. So far no luck tho and he is still a jerk. The lighter black and white striped one behind him(from the camera. in front of the way he is looking) is also a boy. His name is Baron for no other reason than he used to roost in the chicken trees with Duchess(brown leghorn, one of my favorite hens) so I started to call him Baron while evicting them so a raccoon wouldn't climb the tree at night and eat them. Baron is a nice bird, but Barred Rocks aren't my favorite breed. Shrug, he just needs to be good to the ladies and not aggressive to people or other roosters in order to stay here. He does behave himself, so he isn't going anywhere.


Turkey Bird on the wagon we still aren't sure if male or female, we go back and forth on it but I guess time will tell. He is a real character of a bird tho. Very much a pet.


Still no kittens, but we figured out a workaround for the flea situation- putting a seresto collar on one of our other indoor cats and letting her hang out in the same room as momma cat. I have heard seresto collars will also treat the area around the animal wearing the collar, so maybe that will work. We did something similar when I was living with my mom. Three dogs lived with us at the time: Lilly- a then 16 or so year old beagle, Bear Bear- an 8 or so year old at the time mixed breed, and Seymour- a 6 or so year old Scotty mutt. We didn't want to treat Ms. Lilly because she was so old, and Bear Bear weighs 4 lbs when she has been hitting the dog food a little hard, so Mr. Scruffles(Seymour, my dog) got to wear the collar and it seemed to take care of the problem for all 3 dogs. Hopefully that trick works again.


We also got a whole bunch of goodies for the fids while out. I can't wait for lights on to spoil them all. Papaya, aloe leaf, sugar snap peas, cranberries... also got 2 coconuts, 20 little gourds of various kinds, small pumpkins, and a big pumpkin to let Freedom carve with that can opener on her face. :43: Tomorrow is going to be fun!


So far out of the shell are 3 ducklings and about 6 chicks from the other incubator. They still need a day or 2 in the incubator before they can come out and go into a brooder.


I'm pooped. It is nearly 1 in the morning and we still have a bit more to do for the critters tonight. Days when we go to town are *long* days. Tomorrow is another long day, and Mr. Bug is leaving bright and early Saturday morning. Hopefully either the kittens are born before he leaves or after he gets back. In addition to him wanting to be here for that, he will be taking our only vehicle so if anything goes wrong getting to the vet wouldn't be an easy thing to do. We do have friends who would be willing to take me and a kitty to the vet in the case of emergency, but their vehicles would only be able to reach the neighbor's farm. I would have to walk out with Fionna(momma cat).



Hopefully it will be a smooth delivery, though. Fionna is not obviously old or young. Firmly an adult kitty so no teen mom drama or anything like that.