Post by fernspethuman on Oct 18, 2022 11:07:58 GMT
Hi I've got a turquoise male that I've had for around 4 month bought from an amazing pet store, he's very healthy happy and chatty, once we got our male (disco) we decided to buy another one. Disco was around 14 weeks when we bought him so we wanted one around the same age or younger. I found a seller online who was local to me, he has an Aviary and also keeps budgies indoors. The first problem arose when he said he didn't give out his home address due to previous break ins? I didn't really think too much about it at the time as he sent me a variety of photos of 'babies' and I allowed my son to choose the one he liked best. He chose a beautiful green one, not the typical bright green. Seller told us this one was hand tamed and was around 8 weeks old so this sounded amazing. He delivered the budgie in a little travel cage he told us to keep. He arrived at the door handed me the cage asked for the money and left. This was when I first felt uneasy. We removed her from the travel cage she did immediately step up and put her in a brand new cage (separate) and left her to settle. This was when I noticed an issue, her wings looked clipped, no primary flight feathers but it looked like she had no secondary flights either. What really worried me was she also only had one long tail feather. I immediately txt the seller and asked if he'd clipped her. He seemed offended and told me that 'this is a baby bird, her feathers haven't grown in yet' I kept a close eye on her and the next day when we let disco out Fern seemed keen to join him. I wouldn't let them out together but once disco had went back into his cage we opened the door for Fern to come out. This is where I was immediately aware we had a problem. She couldn't fly at all, she tried to fly from the cage and went crashing down to the ground. She was happy enough running around on the floor and is amazing at climbing but seems unaware she can't fly and will still try at any opportunity. We've had her around 4 weeks now and although she seems happy, friendly and tame I think this is because she is reliant on us to help her move around. There are new feathers on the bottom of the cage daily, I've never seen her pull them but I've seen them with dried blood on when I've checked the waste tray. I've tried treating her for mites, used plume spray. She loves bathing and gets herself absolutely drenched so I'm not sure if this helps her but she enjoys it regardless. Whenever I see new feathers grow they seem to stick out and look weird then I'll look again and they're gone. I'm now wondering if she has French moult? She's also alot bigger than disco so I don't think she's a baby as we were told. She's fed on pellets, a range of herbs, veg, fruit, seeds and I grow grass and sprouting seeds for both budgies. She's a beautiful little bird with a lovely nature, she's curious and funny and we adore her. We've made some adjustments to her living environment to help her get around better but she is so desperate to fly it makes me sad. I've read alot of different opinions on French moult, feather loss etc but I'm still worrying. I'd love her to live a full and happy life. Does anyone have any sort of experience or advice on this? Thanks
