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Post by ariella on Oct 7, 2021 21:41:35 GMT
What a fantastic room they have to fly about in Ira. So much space, so many landing places and toys - such lucky budgies! Great entertainment for and your OH too.
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Post by Hezz on Oct 7, 2021 22:14:01 GMT
The room looks like a perfect budgie playground, hopefully they are all playing nicely.
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Post by Ira on Oct 8, 2021 6:15:21 GMT
blueelephant That might explain why he hates bathing! ariella Part of my entertainment is watching OH bump into the hanging things! Hezz They all have a nice dynamic. You could put any one of them with any one of the others and they'd be happy in that pairing. Deciding who's getting what food bowl and Yuki being snippy at bed times are the only disputes.
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Post by ariella on Oct 8, 2021 14:51:37 GMT
blueelephant That might explain why he hates bathing! ariella Part of my entertainment is watching OH bump into the hanging things! Hezz They all have a nice dynamic. You could put any one of them with any one of the others and they'd be happy in that pairing. Deciding who's getting what food bowl and Yuki being snippy at bed times are the only disputes. What good buds they are and I’d also be the same. Every time hubby gets up and Chester our dog nicks his seat or spreads out on hubby’s side of the bed I chuckle. Great entertainment!
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Post by Ira on Oct 8, 2021 15:04:39 GMT
But you know, if I leave the cage open all day at some point they'll go in for food and then often sit in there for ages. Like... come on guy's, you spend the majority of 4 days in there! You can sit around and do nothing, but at least do it outside! I might need to split their food between 5 bowls. One bowl had been emptied by the time I let them out this morning, which then makes it awkward if they all want to eat at once. No one seems to be losing too much weight though. Speaking of eating, I have put their food in the cage ready to make it easier to get them in, but they have fresh food on top of the cage. They are currently yelling to me for food, and I am tempted to pick up a vegetable and start poking them with it!
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Post by ariella on Oct 8, 2021 21:18:08 GMT
They’re funny like that aren’t they? Jasper chooses not come out and join the boys despite being allowed to. She sings with them, chatters to them and tells them off, but she stays in her cage. I manage with four feeders the Hamberley and there’s not much squabbling at all. They share their food well though, especially when I have egg, sweetcorn and other treats in one big bowl. I always have a peg per bird though so they can all peck at spinach, grass seedheads, apple, carrot, etc., without squabbles. Same with bobbles of millet. I peg some up, make little cardboard balls they have to undo to get to the millet and poke it into Kevins so they have to work for it. I love their demands though, no matter how noisy! We’re absolute slaves to these little pickles.
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Oct 6, 2011 7:41:27 GMT
Marianne Marlow
Administrator
George, Daisy, Iris, Billy, Peter, Chipper, Dinku, Barney, Ayla and Rocky
Posts: 28,743
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Post by Marianne Marlow on Oct 8, 2021 21:33:32 GMT
Aw, so cute. Blithe and Sky had this sort of relationship when Blithe first came here, Blithe was 6 months and Sky was about 8 I think.
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Post by Ira on Oct 8, 2021 23:06:37 GMT
Aw, so cute. Blithe and Sky had this sort of relationship when Blithe first came here, Blithe was 6 months and Sky was about 8 I think. It's such a sweet relationship dynamic. Then Munchy and Indie are preening buddies. And Pippin is the one Munchy will bop and chat to the most. They’re funny like that aren’t they? Jasper chooses not come out and join the boys despite being allowed to. She sings with them, chatters to them and tells them off, but she stays in her cage. I manage with four feeders the Hamberley and there’s not much squabbling at all. They share their food well though, especially when I have egg, sweetcorn and other treats in one big bowl. I always have a peg per bird though so they can all peck at spinach, grass seedheads, apple, carrot, etc., without squabbles. Same with bobbles of millet. I peg some up, make little cardboard balls they have to undo to get to the millet and poke it into Kevins so they have to work for it. I love their demands though, no matter how noisy! We’re absolute slaves to these little pickles. Maybe this is where I'm going wrong with veg. Maybe I should offer less variety at a time but more of it. I could use the full width perches for that, as there's room for them all to sit on one. Not that they tend to squabble over it now, they just ignore stuff a lot. 'Wetter' things like egg I usually offer on a little plate, sometimes two just to ensure space for everyone, or individually in their ceramic bowls. Those will be their chop bowls. If OH's hours change to 8am-4pm I'm not sure there'll be much point me offering chop before work, they'll barely have time to eat any, but they'll probably still go for it afterwards. At least chunkier/drier veg seems okay being left in the cage whilst we're out. I'll have to give OH strict instructions about where it goes to encourage the communal feeding habits. 😂 Also somehow Pippin still feels a bit tubby. Clearly he's somehow getting the lion's share of the food. Maybe he just eats more at once.
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Post by ffiscool on Oct 8, 2021 23:19:21 GMT
Maybe he’s just big boned, lol
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Post by Hezz on Oct 9, 2021 0:12:09 GMT
… or he is just a little pig with his food like my Misty is. I swear that bird never stops eating or looking for food. I’ve gotten a small amount of weight off him but not what I’d like.
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Post by Morgan on Oct 9, 2021 3:00:50 GMT
I have two budgies, probably related, that are ineresting to me regarding how much they eat. Monkey doesn't seem to hog the food or stuff her face quickly or any such thing, but she has always had a little chest. It's never changed even when I got her weight down slightly, so now I think that's just her body type somehow! Perhaps big-boned! Goat has never had any semblance of a weight issue but is always on the lookout for more food and appears to eat contantly, although he is also a *chewer* so maybe that slows him down a bit as far as actual amount. I think they really do all have slightly different body types. Which would make sense anyway. And it's a bit hard to see exactly what's going on under all those feathers! Edit: and Pippin's honking is absolutely adorable. I am so glad you kept him Ira!! <3
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Post by tweetiepiesmom on Oct 9, 2021 4:09:01 GMT
Such Cute little fluff balls! I like the new birdie room and I caught the occupants enjoying it.
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Post by Ira on Oct 9, 2021 7:11:03 GMT
… or he is just a little pig with his food like my Misty is. I swear that bird never stops eating or looking for food. I’ve gotten a small amount of weight off him but not what I’d like. I have two budgies, probably related, that are ineresting to me regarding how much they eat. Monkey doesn't seem to hog the food or stuff her face quickly or any such thing, but she has always had a little chest. It's never changed even when I got her weight down slightly, so now I think that's just her body type somehow! Perhaps big-boned! Goat has never had any semblance of a weight issue but is always on the lookout for more food and appears to eat contantly, although he is also a *chewer* so maybe that slows him down a bit as far as actual amount. I think they really do all have slightly different body types. Which would make sense anyway. And it's a bit hard to see exactly what's going on under all those feathers! Edit: and Pippin's honking is absolutely adorable. I am so glad you kept him Ira!! <3 We're glad we kept him to. Sometimes, to us at least, the honking that he does when he first puts his head into a bowl of seed sounds really desperate, like he felt starving or something. He well could be, Hezz. If it's been even an hour since he ate and he doesn't know where the food is then he will yell at me. The bowl that was empty was the one he started off at too. I can't really think of a way that I can feed him separately though. Unless I house him separately, which he'd hate. Then I guess on days that I'm home I could give them a smaller portion of their dry food first thing, and then set up all the foraging toys, so when they're out it's either fresh food or hunting for small amounts of dry food.
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Post by Hezz on Oct 10, 2021 1:15:26 GMT
Is there a way of feeding him separately - only putting him in a cage on his own while he and the others are eating, removing the food and letting him out once they have all finished eating? If it is only the seed portion of his feeds that you want to restrict, this can work, but obviously not realistic with fresh. You do want him to be able to feed if he needs to and fresh is the best for him to fill up on.
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Post by Ira on Oct 10, 2021 7:40:03 GMT
Is there a way of feeding him separately - only putting him in a cage on his own while he and the others are eating, removing the food and letting him out once they have all finished eating? If it is only the seed portion of his feeds that you want to restrict, this can work, but obviously not realistic with fresh. You do want him to be able to feed if he needs to and fresh is the best for him to fill up on. Potentially. I thought it would be trickier on a work day but actually I can wake them up, give them 10 minutes to come around properly, and then transfer him to a separate cage for breakfast. OH can then put him back in the main cage easily enough from there. If I'm home I can always try offering the dry food for a set length of time and then removing what's left, or watching them until the other 3 seem to be done and then removing the food. I've been giving them 1tsp of pellets, which is usually gone completely by around 2pm when I'm home but I don't know how quickly it's gone on a work day, and then they get half a teaspoon of seed in the evening. I only started them on pellets because the vet said he wanted them to have access to dry food all day, and I didn't want that to be more seeds, plus if they were being fussy about veg they might at least get some nutrition from the pellets that isn't in seeds. But before that I was just leaving them with fresh food all day and they were fine. Heck, yesterday I had two corn cobettes that needed using up, so I put those in for the day and didn't give them any dry food until the evening, because I'm pretty sure there were a lot of calories in that corn for 4 budgies. No more corn this week! But they were fine. Pooing pretty much water, but fine. And if they don't have access to dry food they're more likely to eat the fresh. Maybe I'll do half a tsp of pellets in the morning, half a tsp of seed in the evening, and just fresh food in between. And Pippin can yell as much as he likes. I might scatter something around in foraging toys just for mental stimulation, but that can just be a tiny amount. Pippin's too used to a massive trough that he can just pick from!
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