Our 1st budgie hatched!

I'm so excited! Our first baby budgie hatched today. Momma is green body with yellow wings, daddy is blue with a yellow head. There are 5 eggs total. The first baby is so tiny it would fit on a nickle lol. The picture in this post is not our baby. The momma bird is too nervous for pictures. I borrowed this picture off the net so you can get a idea of how small it is.

More Pictures

If you are interested in more pictures of our set up you can see them on "twitpic" http://twitpic.com/photos/TumbleweedBirds If you Twitter ( http://twitter.com/ ) please follow me @TumbleweedBirds

Our first fledged finch.

Poor little guy is trying to get away from me. I think he's camera shy

Sprouts Day 3

This is day 3 of my seed sprout experiment. They smell fresh and nutty. I started a new batch. This time I'm using more blackoil sunflower and some saflower in the mix. I must admit, some birds (mostly the finches) flocked to them right away. But the cockatiels wasn't as excited about breakfast as I had hoped. I'm a little disappointed in that because I have 3 nest boxes with babies right now. I might have to give out a 2nd breakfast of some bird bread to them.

My version of this soaked seed recipe. http://www.javafinch.co.uk/soak/soakndx.html

I'll post more pics tomorrow to show you how it turned out.
I used a basic premium cockatiel blend that did not contain pellets.

I did not have a small piece of muslin cloth, so I used a new dish rag. lol

Sweet Potato Mash

Today's bird treat is baked sweet potato mash.

I take 1 large sweet potato, (baked and cooled) then mixed with 2 hard boiled eggs that have been crushed and crumbled, (with the shell on).

Then I lightly sprinkled some hand feeding formula on top of that.

I serve with a chopped mixed salad with roman & iceberg lettuce, red cabbage and shredded carrots.

I normally don't feed iceberg lettuce but it came in the bagged salad. (left over from dinner last night)

You can see one of the trays ready to go to the bird room. Again, I use left over plastic tops to hand out daily treats, then remove them after a couple of hours. I use paper plates for the large outdoor aviary's.

I repeat treats in the evening when I have babies in the nest.

This is a great pair.

Dad is a heavy pied, Mom is a Lutino. This is a great pair.

White Face Pearl & Lutino Hen

This is a White Face Pearl Hen and a Lutino Hen in the early morning sunlight

Here are a few of my Lutino's and Albino's in our outside aviary.

Chicks from Lutino & Albino Pair

2 chicks so far from a Lutino & Albino White face pair. First egg hatched Sept 3rd. See the white fluffy downy feathers? That is a white face chick, The other chick has yellow down feathers and it has red eyes, that shows the chick will be Lutino. There should be a 3rd chick hatching today. There was 7 eggs in this box.

Lovely Ms Betty Update

Posting new pictures of Ms Betty. Formerly known as "Ugly" Betty. She now has turned into a beautiful swan.

Recap.......I bought Ugly Betty as a 4 week old chick. Ugly Betty was the 4
week old baby cockatiel who was severely plucked by her mother. I felt sorry for her so I bought her for $20 and hand fed her till she was weaned. She has turned into a beautiful young lady! All her feathers have grown back and she's a very pretty cinnamon pearl.

Morning Treats 2

In this 2nd picture you can see I chop the lettuce and pasta a little finer for the smaller birds.

I divide it up and place it in treat cups or the homemade treat cups made of plastic container lids.

I remove all uneaten soft foods and treat cups after a couple of hours.

Todays Early Morning Treat

I have finch and cockatiel baby's so I feed soft nesting foods each morning.

Today I make some whole wheat pasta and brown rice for the birds. I added some chopped Romaine lettuce, and diced grapes to the mix. My recipe changes from day to day depending on what's available.

In the first picture you can see I leave the pasta whole, but chop the lettuce and grapes. Then I sprinkle on the brown rice. I feed this to the outside aviary in paper plates.

Ants

Do you have ants in your cages or nest boxes? Try this recipe:

Here is a GREAT recipe for ant problems and it is relatively safe and WORKS like a charm!

This is an easy one, but it's bait so you need to be patient and let it work. You will need a couple of margarine tubs (with lids), cotton balls, sugar and boric acid. Mix a cup of water with a quarter cup of sugar (you want this to be sweet!) and add 1 tablespoon of boric acid powder. Puncture holes in the margarine tubs, sides and lids. You want these to be decent size holes, as this is how the ants will come and go. Soak cotton balls with the water, sugar, boric acid solution and put them in the margarine tubs. Cover with the lid to help the solution from drying out. Place your ant traps where the ants trail. Since the solution is sweet, the ants will eat it and even take some of the cotton back to their mounds. The boric acid is what's lethal so it should take out the entire colony.

Does this work? You bet it does! It won't have an immediate effect but you will see the ants disappear within a couple of days.