Silly little Budgies

[GrGranGriz]

One of my new little budgies (Poppy--the blue one) is very pudgy. Just like a little blue ball of feathers. I wasn't very surprised that she eats a lot, but she was getting clear into the food dish and squatting in it to eat if Penny (the green one) came to eat, too. So Penny had to really just push her way in wherever she could grab a bite. If she waited till Poppy stopped eating and then went down to eat by herself, Poppy would come right back down and eat, even though she had just gotten done eating and left.

I finally took a little bit larger little bowl and put a second one in the cage, thinking that way, each could have a place to eat.

Now Poppy eats from the other bowl---but now Penny does too, and they both crowd into the new bowl and both sit in it!

My question is about Poppy. I wonder why she's so fat and so aggressive about food that she won't let Penny eat without coming to eat too even though she had just finished.

I don't understand why Penny still eats with Poppy, with both of them now sitting in the new dish. LOL

 

[Somebudgie]

How old are your girls? Sounds like there is some territorial behaviour going on. This is usually caused by hormonal changes or overcrowding in the cage. Does it seem like they are laying in the bowl as a means to nest?

 

[GrGranGriz]

They're quite young, I think. Lots of banding still on their heads. They still have banding about halfway if looking at the top of their heads. They were bought from Petsmart and they were an early birthday present to me. The cage is quite roomy for two parakeets. It isn't a huge large bird size but it also isn't small like a canary cage, or at least what some might call a canary sized cage. It's probably three feet wide and about two feet the other way, and definitely two feet tall.

 

[Finchbreed]

Sounds like a just right size cage for 2 Budgies.
Juvenile budgies (which these are if they are still banded on the head) will quite often try to share everything - it is a nestling thing.

 

[GrGranGriz]

I can't express how very happy and excited these two little birds have made me. And not only do they make me happy and excited, but the fact that having them led me to this wonderful forum of new friends also makes me happy and excited.

I ordered Poppy and Penny some toys and a cuttlebone.. When I first put the toys in their cage, they did what I expected they'd do. They just sat silently for awhile to see whether the new things were going to attack them. But now they're back to normal. They haven't done any foraging with the new toys yet but by tomorrow I'm sure they'll go exploring and having a good time with them.

I have a really wonderful source of bird-safe natural items in the forest around me and down by our creek that I can make toys with. I probably won't get much done on that project till spring because I'm finishing up a move into a new place and I have to settle in and get through the holidays. We get lots of freezing weather and snow here, too. But what a wonderful birthday present my grand-daughter and her family gave me!

 

[GrGranGriz]

I forgot to add that the girls have sorted out their differences now and they're eating out of both dishes and treating each other very nicely. No more camping in the food dish and bickering---at least for now. Sometimes one or the other will scold but then they sit and warble so nicely and will even pretend to feed each other. I don't know what that's called, but that's what it looks like and it's a common thing all my parakeets in the past have done.

 

[Finchbreed]

Juveniles that have just been weaned will sometimes practice that feeding process with their weaning mates - (it is how young hens in particular learn to be good mums in the future)
At least half of the Juveniles in Mum's weaning cages do this every year.
Young budgies love to chew on gum/eucalyptus and bottlebrush twigs with or without flowers.

 

[GrGranGriz]

I don't have any eucalyptus or bottlebrush here. I'm on the northwest coast of the US. I live in Oregon. Further south, in California there's lots of it, though.

 

[Finchbreed]

That's why I mentioned it - am aware that gum/eucalyptus was exported from Aust to the USA and is grown in many parts (just did not know which parts)

 

[GrGranGriz]

What is bottlebrush? I don't know if I've ever seen any of it. I think eucalyptus probably wouldn't thrive here. The area I'm in is rain forest and where the eucalyptus in California is found is quite a way into that state where it's not rainy very often. In that area there's sage and manzanita and palm trees, etc. Further north, nearing Oregon, there are rain forest areas, too, where the redwoods and other big trees flourish.

 

[GrGranGriz]

Talking about the area nearer to Oregon where the redwoods are reminds me of when I camped there. There are HUGE yellow banana slugs there and zillions of centipedes. I only had sandals to wear which weren't any protection for my feet so I mostly just watched the ground to make sure my bare feet wouldn't touch a slug or centipedes. I had opened my eyes that morning with centipedes IN MY BLANKETS all around me! And the reason the slugs are called "banana" slugs is because they're about the size of a banana as they mature as well as being yellow. The centipedes we have here aren't poisonous and I think maybe they're actually millipedes, but whatever they are, waking up with them all over the inside of my blankets was a trauma I never had imagined.

 

[Finchbreed]

At least you do not have to worry about leaches and ticks (blood suckers) - like we do in parts of Aust.
Bottlebrush is another Aussie native plant, which may have been exported for garden use.

 

[GrGranGriz]

Well we do have leeches and ticks. Lots of those in most places in the rain forest areas. Deer ticks are abundant and they carry Lyme disease. I haven't run into any leeches myself, but I know others who have.

 

[Finchbreed]

Yes - Lyme disease is a problem with the ticks here too. But ours are Kangaroo ticks.

 

[GrGranGriz]

There are so many cougars now from them being a protected species that the deer have migrated down into the valley into the towns down there and cougars are showing up down there, too. My daughter was bitten by one of those ticks when we lived down there. Here in the mountains we have elk but those are harder for a cougar to kill so they've been killing sheep and goats and people's pets which are easier to kill.

We had a cougar here in the park I live in that was stalking people and pets here but a couple of months ago it was killed. Its lair was very close to this park and there are people who are able to kill cougars that pose a threat to people and livestock. Two of the residents here had permits to kill the one here if it got any more dangerous, which it did. It would sleep in the bushes right across my driveway but about three days or so before I moved to this space, the cougar guy who is backed by the state euthanized it. Grown male cougars, which that one was, are about 250 pounds and they're apex predators, so they're not afraid of people at all.

 

[Sparkles99]

That sounds like it would make for stressful dog walking, & here I thought avoiding vicious dogs was grim.

 

[GrGranGriz]

Someone told me the other day that cougars prey on the slowest in the herd. Well, even with my walker, I'm still the slowest one in the herd here, so I was glad they dispatched the cougar. Actually, they got two cougars here that night so there might have been a mating pair or a mother and her almost-grown cub. They're solitary animals but sometimes the mother will keep her babies with her till they're almost grown and she teaches them to hunt before they leave her. A male and female only get together to mate and then she goes off and has the babies and raises them on her own. Cougar females will sometimes adopt orphan cubs. Cougars aren't very vocal. The female screams when mating but other than that they're mostly silent. The mother makes a chirping noise to communicate to her cubs and both males and females make a loud mewing-on-steroids kind of sound when they're looking for a mate, but they don't stay together any length of time.

Oregon has been re-populating the wolves and they're coming closer to where we live. But now they're also talking about re-populating grizzly bears and I'm totally against that. (Well, unless their primary food source is cougars.) We have black bears here and they're worrisome enough.

 

[Sparkles99]

At least errant wild animals get dealt with. The last time I saw the two XL Pits that mauled a boy off leash & unmuzzled (supposed to have both) in the park was Friday.

 

[Finchbreed]

So glad Aust does not have large predators. Unless you count Cassowaries - but they are only in Qld.
We do however have lots of venomous snakes and spiders.

 

[Sparkles99]

Did cassowaries historically have a wider range? I’ve always admired them, from the safety & comfort of my couch…