bertie update

[dallas]

:)well, we've had the wonderful bertie for 6 days now. seems to have settled in. he sings from morning to night, is eating well and i have gotten him to eat from my hand.
we still can't quite get near him as he pecks at fingers like mad -- but i guess that will come in time.
he does an awful lot of preening and pecking round his feathers and quite a few feathers have come out, would this be moulting or anything more sinister?
apart from that he seems fine, loves his mirror and forever kissing himself in it. love hearing him chat away. definatly love our budgie -- wish we got one sooner.

[cheekybirdie]

As long as the feathers are just the little ones and Downey ones with the odd big flight or tail feathers mixed in its fine. Only worrie if all flights and tail feathers come out and he starts to get bald patches in the rest. Sounds like Bertie has settled in well with you. Xxxx

[Hezz]

Dallas from all accounts all budgies are having a bit of a moult at the moment. Even mine all are, so nothing to worry about unless as mentioned above, Bertie loses lots of flight feathers together or doesn't replace the feathers that have been lost. I am sure he is fine though - as before, a noisy budgie is a happy budgie.

[dallas]

ok, thank you. no its his little feathers and just a couple of long ones. oh yes he's noisy, but encouraged. trying to teach him my fave-- the dallas tune!!

[stace]

This is what a moulting bird looks like.



The first thing you notice is the feathers on the floor. Then you'll probably see little black dots around their head. See in the photo how there are a few black specks...that's usually how it starts. Then the waxy sheath-covered new feathers push through. They can look really terrible, but it's all normal.

Young birds have their first moult at around 3/4 months, when they lose their striped bars on the top of their head.