New Cage

[Biggles]

The claw's already uncurling, although still swollen. And at times she's almost gripping normally.
And she's eaten a teeny bit of grape I gave her for a treat and she let us stroke her chest. Not bad for a first day. I think she's going to be very friendly once she's used to us.

[jellybean]

Maybe try bathing the leg in some Luke warm water with a litttle salt, it might help soothe it.

[helenmat]

Oh well done you I reckon you saved her leg. It looked like it was cutting off the circulation. She looks much happier already.

[Hezz]

I am so glad that you noticed that the ring was a problem. I think it was the whole problem with her foot. I am also glad that you took her to a vet to have the ring removed, as it is very easy to actually break their leg if you try to do this by yourself. Well done for getting it seen to. Don't forget to quarantine your new girl before bringing her into the same space as your others. Four weeks is the recommended time.

[Biggles]

Yes she's quarantined in the old cage. But she does seem to miss the company (she was in a large outside aviary) and is constantly shouting to the others. When they shout back she goes to the corner of the cage closest to them. She's got a very high pitched call compared to the others.
I did let her out earlier so I could bathe her leg in warm water, and she hopped round the carpet happily, but didn't want to he held. She did hop onto me a couple of times but hopped straight off again.
After she'd had a bathe, she did a bit of grooming of her foot, and straightened all the toes into the right place with her beak, so, although they've gone back curled up, I'm hoping when the swelling comes down that she'll be totally alright.

She does also look like on one side she has some feathers missing from the top of her wing, as well as the flight feathers and tail feathers. One side her wing is almost totally white. I did wonder if she'd been bullied in the aviary, but there weren't feathers on the floor, and there was no problems while we were there. All the other budgies looked very healthy.

But she's very agile, can get anywhere in the cage including all the way across the ceiling! She's going to be a right pickle if she does manage to fly I can see already.

[Hezz]

It does sound as though you caught the foot just in time. Fancy the original owner not noticing that she was having problems. I am glad she is going to be okay.

[Biggles]

She was in a large outside aviary, and I think had adapted very well to not being able to fly. She definitely had been able to fly at some point, because the owner doesn't put the hatchlings in the big aviary until they can fly-which was how we got the original two as they couldn't go out.
I'm not totally convinced they have French Moult now. One of them has grown (and kept) all flight feathers and tail feathers-and he can fly very well. He has circled the living room several times without stopping. The other has grown the tail feathers and all except the longest couple of flight feathers, and can flutter about waist height.
The hatchlings before and after these pair were also fine.

I only noticed her because a cat walked past and disturbed them, and she was knocked to the ground when all the others flew up. When the cat passed the second time she was holding on better and didn't move, so it was just a fluke I happened to be there at the right moment. I suspect she twisted her foot when she fell, and it swelled up on the way home. I'm pretty certain she wasn't holding her foot like that in the aviary because I was watching her quite a while.
It's very much uncurled and she's even using it almost normally some of the time, although one of the back-facing toes does seem to more often then not be still curling forwards. But it does go backwards as she keeps smoothing them out. It looks that she's doing physio on it!
She definitely has ambitions of being a contortion artist. She's currently holding onto the ceiling of the cage backwards. So her back is against the top, which looks very awkward.

Maybe a silly question. My two that moved into the bigger cage. In the smaller cage, if I opened the door, one of them would be out within minutes. Now they're in the bigger cage, I can leave the door open and neither does more than peep out. Is it because they are still uncertain about the new cage (maybe nervous they're going to be moved back into the smaller one) or just that they don't need to come out because they can fly around fine in the bigger cage?

[Hezz]

In answer to your question, possibly a bit of both. Also how big is the door to the new cage? If it is not a large door, or perhaps smaller than they are used to, that can be a deterrent for them - they can be wary about moving through the small space to get to the outside. Is there a place they can perch, either on the door, the doorway or close by? That can help them feel more free to come and go at will.

[Biggles]

It's a bigger door, but maybe they haven't worked out how to get to it-although it was via pulling a swing over in the old cage!