PINK Flea Market Find and baby pics

[petek]

I tried to get some closeups of the parents but they don't take to the camera too well.
You can see one of the hens poking out of her nest box, that's the only white nest box so you can see her chicks in the picture above.
Over on the left side of this picture you can just see the green head of the English Budgie..she's very camera shy I'll have to try again to get one of just her.
It's a messy affair raising birds LOL

 

[petek]

x

In this pic the hen who was poking out of the nest in the above picture is now front and center. Unfortunatley the flash sort of washed out her coloring,,,she's called a Type II green faced spangle, a not to common color pattern. Green face, yellow head, blue/turquoise breast, yellow wings with gray "spangling" like lacework, and a green tail. Barely seen behind her is the father of the chicks, a normal blue cock, on the left is a lutino hen and you can again see the English budgie hiding under a nestbox in the background.

Once the chicks hatch the hen will set on them tightly for about 4 days and the "father" will come up to the nest and feed her almost continually throughout the day as she feeds the chicks. Later she will come out of the nest, feed herself get a drink, and the father will also feed her on a perch. Once the chicks start poking their heads out of the nest hole, my favorite time, the father will feed them and also for the first couple of weeks that they're out of the nest.

 

[petek]

Tom, the English or British budgie is no different genetically than the American only that they are bred for the purpose of size and head shape with appropriate markings. I probably exaggerated when I said she was as big as a pigeon but they're probably twice the size, slightly longer, way chunkier. Like having the Arnold standing beside Don Knotts. Unfortunately with all the cross breeding etc to get the large size they have a much shorter life span of about 7-8 years compared to 15 or so for a normal budgie
BTW.. altho budgies (budgerigars) are in the family of parakeets, there are many other species of parakeets such as Grass Parakeets and Quaker Parakeets, so calling them parakeets isn't quite correct. Somehow years ago they got stuck with being called parakeets in the US and parts of Canada when the proper name is budgerigar, budgie.

 

[tomturbomatic]

They probably were labeled "parakeets" when Woolworth's or Kresge's started selling them.

So even though the little naked chicks were 5 days old and had no way to keep warm, the hen would leave the nest a bit?

Your Type II green-faced spangle hen is beautiful. You mention when the chicks leave the nest. Do they fly by that time, or do they just grab a twig or perch or something and pull themselves over to it and grab hold one foot at a time? I must admit that our parrot moved around that way so I do not know if budgies do it.

 

[Brneyedgrl80]

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Do they speak?
Do they roam about freely outside their cage?
How old can they become?
What is the average age?

Ummm... from what I gather from my friend they can learn some words, but mostly they make noises that mimic the sounds of certain words.

My friend most definitely lets her bird roam around the house and in her car.

As far as the ages go, I'm not sure, so I googled it and apparently they can live to be 65.

As for the gerbils, it's not too bad. You just have to like/love tiny little furry mammals. I pretty much let the mome do everything because I didn't want to interfere. I just made sure she got some extra vitamins and stuff. But let me tell you how cute they were when they were finally walking around the cage. Little black and white mini-me versions of the mom!!

http://www.birdsnways.com/wisdom/ww55eiii.htm

 

[veg-o-matic]

Methinks brneyedgrl has led a sheltered life...

veg, who hasn't

 

[maytagbear]

Veg-

Should we start calling you Mr. Gere?

Love and laughter!

Lawrence/Maytagbear

 

[Brneyedgrl80]

You know, I was hoping that this whole gerbil thing wasn't going to get singled out in any way... sigh... lol

Leave it to veg I suppose to pick on my one time gerbil breeding!

 

[toggleswitch]

Get that gerbil away from me....

Welcome, dear girl.

NO ONE is safe.

You have been initiated and accepted! Isn't it nice to be loved? LOL