One Foot Budgie

[janeenie]

Hi all! Im new here and hope to get some insight from experienced people. I adopted a special needed budgie last week and ira been going very well. However tonight i notices she is sleeping on the floor of her cage. She has been eating singing and acting great! I am wondering if her one leg gets tired from taking all her weight all the time. Should i get her a nest to sleep in? She is 5 months old. Thank you.

[Ira]

Not a nest, because you don't want to encourage breeding behaviours, put you could try offering her a flat platform perch or two that she might like to lie down on every so often.

The gripping position of a bird's foot is actually the relaxed position (if I remember correctly), so generally they don't seem to want to spend too much time with their feet flat, but actually exerting a grip to avoid falling is probably also tiring. The choice of flat and rounded perches of different diameters will allow her to exercise her foot and choose where she is the most comfortable.

[Loz]

Hi janeenie !
I cannot add to Ira's excellent advice here but I wanted to welcome you to the forum and congratulate you for taking a special budgie under your wing.
Do you have other budgies? And can we have a pic of them including your little one?
We'd like to learn more of how you are getting on!

[Marianne Marlow]

Hi janeenie

Welcome to you and Ira, and how funny that our member Ira answered your post first

We'd love to see phots!

[willowsmum]

Welcome to the forum janeenie and Ira

[janeenie]

Hi again everyone! Thank you for the warm welcome. I am not sure if I am relying the correct way as I only find one "Reply" button and its at the top of my own post. Second, I cannot seem to figure out how to add photos yet. I consider myself pretty good at these things but this forum is new.

I do have a couple of platforms for my Stella to rest on. I don't see her using them yet though. She seems to lean between a perch and the side of her cage. She IS ADORABLE! Very playful, going upside down....I enjoy her so much! I want to put her in the same cage (when they choose) with my other budgie, Frankie who is male but I don't necessarily want them to breed. UGH! The drama of the birds in my life

[Marianne Marlow]

You've added the photos. I'll just correct your avatar for you, one minute..

[Marianne Marlow]

If you go to the bottom of the page there is a quick reply box, which you must have found as you added a photo

[Loz]

Stella is beautiful!

And coincidentally, marked very similarly to my beautiful Mr Hibs 😊

[janeenie]

Thank you Marianne for correcting my avatar.
Lozhinge thank you! She does look like yours. My Frankie does not have these markings I think, from what I have read, Frankie is a regular budgie. I am not sure what "type" Stella is but she sure is beautiful. I wish I could tame them.

[Hezz]

Hi and welcome. Some budgies, disabled or not, do like to have a lie down and appreciate a platform perch as ffiscool has mentioned. I have a disabled budgie hen, and she never uses hers, typical, but it is there if she wants. She seems to prefer ladders laid horizontally so that she can still have her legs under her but can lay her body on some of the steps. It doesn’t look comfortable but must work for her. She has one leg that she has little control over and will also lie on her bung side, on the floor of the cage, holding the side of the cage with her good foot. That one really does look weird, but again, her choice.

[Ira]

Munchy liked lying on a ladder too when his feet were getting really painful. It was angled, but he's lie with his feet dangling through the gap and hold a rung with his beak.