A moult related question

[lewlew]

Hello!

Long time lurker but first post, and sorry that my first post is asking for help, but I'm worried about my boy.

I've had him about 12 months, he was a rescue. He landed on my friends head when he was in his garden, August 2020 and despite a fairly intesive search to look for his rightful owner, nobody ever came forward - so he came to live with me, as I've had lots of budgies in the past, although he's the first I've had in around 10 years. I'd estimate he's about 18 months old now. He has been to the vet before they said he was in really good shape, really vibrant colours, healthy looking, couldn't see or hear any issues etc.

But he moults. Like it's going out of fashion.

I've been tracking it and it's almost exactly every 2 months. He goes through what I'd consider fairly typical moulting behaviour; feathers coming out, lots of grooming but I wouldn't say he's pulling the feathers out, there are no bald patches at all. I can already see pin feathers in some places. Feathers will be dropping for a few days, then he'll be sleeping and eating less for a few days and in a fortnight the whole thing will be over and he'll look brand new, playful, alert, energetic and generally up to no good.

I'm just worried though that it's so frequent. The envionment in my home doesn't change every 2 months. I could understand some moulting in the winter and summer as heating comes on and off say. He's a bit of a bugger with food though; he has seed, pellets and fresh veggies - but he's not into veggies much at all, only marginally more into pellets and the bulk of his diet is seed.

Should I be worried with a moult every 2 months? I know that each moult, he doesn't lose the same feathers as the moult before it. It's very much a cycle and ione moult seems to target some feathers and another moult targets different feathers.

Any advice is greatly appreciated.

[ladybird]

Hello and welcome to the forum. I am going to leave any advise to the more experienced members, but I just wanted to tell you that my budgie Charlie is exactly the same or maybe even moults more frequently than that. After each moult he is a bit off colour for a few days then back to normal. He is healthy and happy, but like your budgie he isn’t into veg no matter how hard I have tried. He does love herbs though…… Do you have any photos of your lucky budgie, we love to see them…..what is he called?

[Hezz]

As long as he doesn’t develop bald patches, there really isn’t anything to worry about. It isn’t normal, but neither is it totally unusual. You may find that as he ages his moults come back more in line with what you normally expect. Just give him lots of protein during these regular moults (hard-boiled egg or dry eggfood, whatever he will eat) to keep those healthy feathers happening.

[lewlew]

Thanks both. It's reassuring to know.

I certainly can't see any patches I'd call bald anywhere, he's a bit less uniform on his belly than when he's not moulting though.

He lost one of his cheek spots last night - which he didn't lose any of last moult. He's almost always lopsided with his cheek spots

He's pretty happy in himself today - asking Alexa what the weather is, and asking if I'm being a good boy or not.

[ladybird]

He looks fine to me, gorgeous bud. So funny when they copy what we say 🤣🤣…My Charlie asks Alexa to play radio 2, because we put the radio on for him when we go out.

[ffiscool]

If max talks, he’ll probably say Alexa, remind me in … minutes. I use her for oven timings

[tweetiepiesmom]

He is very pretty and sounds like a clever little guy.