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Puddings & Toyboys
A blog about my beautiful budgies.
Tag Archives: perches
Favourite head rubbing perch
6 May 2021
Posted by on Tales from Quarantine – Thirty-Five Second Tour (8 of 8)
25 February 2021
Posted by on Moriarty puts his tour guide hat on & shows us around his quarantine cage:
Tour Itinerary
0:01: Begin on diagonal perch
0:05 Dried grass
0:08 Ladder
0:13 Platform perch
0:18 Perch where mirror is
0:24 Food bowl
0:25 Swing
0:27 Diagonal perch & platform perch (again)
0:28 Diagonal perch (again)
0:30 Middle of cage (flying area)
0:32 Conclude on perch where mirror is
Don’t give up the day job, Moriarty!
Tales from Quarantine (1 of 8)
13 February 2021
Posted by on Moriarty coped with quarantine (Oct/Nov 2020) well but it was clear he needed lots of attention.
When his previous owners brought him in, & the cover was raised, there he was, swinging away, seemingly not bothered about the move. That first sight of him made me think he would take most things in his stride. As for the elephant in the room…. yes, he has a similar colouring to our dearly departed Bezukhov but in real life perhaps a greener shade.
His cage originally had 3 cement perches & a cement platform perch, along with a wooden perch & a wooden platform perch. I replaced the cement perches with a variety of wooden ones (there is nothing wrong with cement perches but ideally they should not be the main perches & not used as a roosting perch). I did notice a small red/orange spot on the underside of one foot which might have been the start of an irritation – it disappeared quickly. You will see from the photo posted here that the toenail on his short, forward toe angles inwards. The odd angle has not caused any noticeable problems.
As far as toys, he had a lovely swing with colourful, wooden beads, a mirror, a chewy toy with a bell at the bottom. I should note that the swing has two bells at the bottom – it was quickly apparent that he loves shiny things! I added some more toys, such as the rings, the disco ball (ultra shiny!) & a paper rope toy, along with some dried grass for further stimulation.
- Before
- After
He was not scared of hands so though not tame, was not worried about me entering his cage to make all these changes. In fact, he had quite a bite on him but I think that may have lessened with the introduction of more toys to keep his beak busy!
The seed situation was curious as he had one of those gravity seed fountains mounted in one of the cage gaps for the incorporated seed bowls. Though he would perch on it, I never once saw him eat a seed from it! He had millet, so was not starving but at times when there was no millet, he still did not eat the seed. (It had an area underneath that collected the husks so I could see if he ate any). Given his love of shiny things, I put in a stainless steel bowl with seed & he immediately took to eating from that. Knowing he was eating the seed mix, I could start rationing the millet!
- Gravity seed fountain
- Stainless steel bowl
I also put in a water bottle along side his water fountain in the hope he would use it. During quarantine he never quite understood it was for drinking water, but was fascinated watching the bubbles go up the bottle as I pressed the water end. He also got quite attached to the shiny spout, often having long chats with it!
Lennie and the Long Perch
18 July 2020
Posted by on Recently, to encourage Perry & Lennie to explore a bit more outside their comfort zone, I rigged up a long perch between the two cages.
As the cages are both the same & alongside each other, when their main, middle doors are open, it lends itself to having a perch connecting across them. It just needed to be a long perch, which fortunately I have. Once in place, Perry & Lennie naturally ignored it, but at least were not scared of it. Extra encouragement was needed, so I pegged some seeding grass to it. Eventually, Lennie decided it was worth braving this new perch for the treat.
When I saw him jump on the perch, I grabbed the camera & filmed:
As you can see there was the obligatory faffing about, a brief chew of the prize, followed by tucking into grass nearer to him!
Lennie’s Pleasurable Places
29 August 2017
Posted by on This post has been a long time coming & because of that, is quite long & video heavy. Warning over!
From early on, Lennie began to wiggle & jiggle when & where he could. He has come across as experimental but it is possible he has just not been fussed & made the most of whatever was available at the required time. In the following videos you can get a flavour of his open-mindedness.
1st December 2016 – Raffia toy.
14th December 2016 – Perch, holding onto millet.
22nd December 2016 – White seed feeder.
Remembering Phineas at Christmas
24 December 2016
Posted by on This time last year, I posted about our first Christmas without Cagney. This year, we face Christmas without Phineas.
In the photo above, the perch he is sitting on is still in the same place in the Villa, in the front doorway. In fact all is how he left it, so I can easily picture him in all perching spots. This particular spot reminds me of a specific occasion last summer.
I was out all day & came home after their bedtime. Bezukhov, Phineas & Dalai were in bedtime positions in the Villa, but because my sitter was still there they were not locked up & their front door was still open. When Phineas saw me, he sleepily got off his swing & made his way to that perch. I approached & held my hand out to him. He regurgitated to my finger. It was only a quiet, brief session as he was tired, but it made me feel so loved, missed & needed. That little action by my beautiful little grey man seemed to say, “Where have you been today? I have missed you. Here’s some regurgitated seed I have been saving for you. Glad you are back home. I’m going back to bed now I have seen you.”
So, this Christmas (& every day in fact) I am thinking of Phineas. I am also thinking of Cagney & hoping they are having fun together over by rainbow bridge with Atilla, Raspy & Thomas.
Bezukhov’s addendum
28 July 2015
Posted by on Last year, Bezukhov wrote an informative post on “How to Avoid Taking Your Medicine” (click here to read it). This is an addendum to that post. Apparently, another key method has come to light & Bezukhov wants it documented. Here is what he has to say:
Hello millions of followers & fans. It’z Bezukhov here.
I hope you all found my post on how to avoid taking your medicine helpful. The first & most important method of avoidance dat I wrote about was to ‘Stay Free And Avoid Kapture‘. As my human usually traps me in the Manor, my area of ‘staying free’ iz very limited. Kapture iz, I am most annoyed to say, inevitable.
However, there is another technique dat kan be deployed to seriously undermind the authority of the human: ‘Feet Clamp‘. This iz where you stay still but firmly clamp your feet around the perch. It sounds too simple to be effective, but effective it iz. The human kannot move you away or pick you up. They kan try to pull you up off the perch but stay strong, & you will go nowhere.
Your human may den have to use their other hand to prise your toes from the perch. Remember to do The Clamp on the highest perch so your human has to do all this on tiptoe. S/he will give up soon enough.
I think this technique iz a worthy addition to my original post. I just had to share.
Whilst I am in a sharing & confiding mood & I have your attention, I would like to give public thankz to my best buddy Cagney. In the last week or so, he has got increasingly displeased at the way our human harrasses me every 48 hours & has rebelled. The times when Mama has her hands around me, but kan’t move away as I am clamped to the perch (see above), an impetuous Cagney leans across from his perch & viciously attacks ¹ her hand to get her to let me go. I am very grateful for his support at such a time. Thankz Caggers!
I also grudgingly give thankz to Mama for allowing me this platform to express my thoughts & opinions.
Wishing you all plentiful seed.
Over and out. x
[1] ‘Viciously attacks’ can be interchanged with ‘gently nibbles’ (Cagney has no idea how to bite), onesweetiepea (ed)
When is a knot not a knot?
18 June 2015
Posted by on Recently I asked myself a searching question:
When is a knot not a knot?
Fortunately, the toyboys helped me come to an answer:
When it is untied.
Those clever boys like chewing on pieces of string. There is a piece of string holding up their willow perch. I noticed Cagney & Bezukhov had untied it. Fortunately I noticed it before the silly boys jumped on the unstable perch.
Now I am always checking that the knot is still knotted.
~