A blog about my beautiful budgies.
Perry often rubs his head on the ‘triangle’ perch. He steps down into it & rubs his head on a knobbly bit:
One time he fell asleep mid rub:
Perry
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!
Moriarty
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.
Moriarty’s foot
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.
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!
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!
Perry & Lennie often pop into Dalai’s cage for a change of scenery.
Lennie is the more frequent visitor & will be in & out, but Perry also visits & spends some time ‘chilling’. Initially, they were wary of moving around the cage, almost like they were uncomfortable that Dalai was not there, but over time they have become more relaxed.
That said, neither have dared to sit on Dalai’s perch at the back on the far right (a twig-like perch, diagonally across the corner). Dalai did not allow them to sit on it. Perry accepted this rule pretty quickly & did not bother to attempt to sit there. Lennie wanted to sit next to Dalai on that perch, but the nearest he could get was to cling to the cage bars near the perch & if his luck was in, Dalai would go over & chat to him. If Lennie was feeling particularly bold, he would tentatively climb onto the perch when Dalai was otherwise engaged at the seed trough, but he was on edge & never hung around there for longer than a minute.
(Incidentally, Bezukhov was allowed to sit on this perch, possibly because he lived in the cage before Dalai & it would have seemed churlish not to allow him!)
Even though Dalai is not here, Perry & Lennie still do not sit on Dalai’s perch.
Here is a rare moment when Perry sat on Dalai’s swing:
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!
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.
This time last year, I posted about our first Christmas without Cagney. This year, we face Christmas without Phineas.
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.
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)
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.
~
A few months back, I posted that Phinny’s bedtime swing had been damaged beyond repair. Initially, so Phineas had somewhere to sleep, I gave him the Toyboys’ ttmss swing as they only used theirs sporadically.
Parcel from the US of A
Phineas breaking in the hot pink perch
A manly Phineas on his hot pink swing
Phineas loves his swing
When the new replacement swing arrived, that was slightly different to the old one, I gave it a ‘test drive’ in the Manor. Both Cagney & Bezukhov completely ignored it. The next test was in Phinny’s cage. One day, when he was out & about I replaced the Toyboys’ old swing (I hope you are keeping up with the swing versions!) with the new replacement swing. However, that did not have as good a reception as I had hoped. I found Phineas stopped dead in his tracks on the perch next to it (where he then jumps onto it), looking puzzled, confused & bewildered. I put the old swing back.
It was then time to return to the internet for a proper replacement. Previously, I had found it online but the cost for postage & packaging was expensive, hence buying the slightly different (& now I know, completely inadequate) one. I thought I would bite the bullet & pay the P&P costs, but it was out of stock! Cue another frenzied internet search!
So, I found another swing that looked pretty similar, in the US. P&P was obviously high for the UK, but was not as high as the out of stock one. I decided to get it! Surprisingly, the swing arrived within a few days & with much hope, I opened the parcel….
Fantastic! It is virtually the same swing!
Oh goodness me! What a bright, garish, girly PINK!
Well, I knew they would not have a problem with the design & structure…. but the colour? Even *I* had a problem with the colour!
I checked to see if the old perches could be interchanged with the new one, thereby reducing the amount of pink on the eye, but they were too fat to fit into the gaps. The new perches would fit the old swing though, so to break Phineas into the new swing (& colour!) gently, I gave him one hot pink perch. Would he sit on it?
Naturally, the change was made whilst he was out & about. The first one to notice it was Cagney. He bounced onto the open door platform, about to go in to eat Phinny’s seed, but looked up at the hot pink, stopped suddenly, then turned tail & flew back to the safety of the Manor! This did not bode well.
Phineas it seems, is made of sterner stuff though. He took the new hot pink in his stride, so much so that the very next day the whole of his bedtime swing turned hot pink. You will see from the photos that he is happy with it. It also has an extra feature of a little loop on the bottom so I was able to hang some beads in case he wanted to count them to help him sleep.
Sweetpea pet memorials are beautifully crafted pouches to hold your beloved pet’s ashes.
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