Reptile & Amphibian Forums

how big should a cage for trios be? also how can i tell gender by sound and behavior alone? my budgie is a ressesive pied and it has a pink cere, we think it is a female we have had her for sevaral years. i would like to introduce another budgie. is this a good idea? its current cage is 18x18x13 how many more budgies can this support? also can anyone throw in some breeding info please

all of a sudden my budgie has a swollen and itchy eye and the feathers around that eye are stuck together and her body feathers are all ruffled, what should i do? i reacently moved some stuff and added some stuff to her cage could this be a stress caused problem? i change her water every day and food every other day and i change the paper towels under the wire floor every week, am i doing something wrong? also she has a prch above her water dish and waste semms to get on the perches of the dish but it has been like that for a long time before this happened. we have no other birds so can she stay in the same cage and all this seemed to happen over night. should i completley clean the entire cage. i don't often clean the dishes so is that part of the problem? please tell me what i am doing wrong and how i can fix it and what i can do do help my budgie.

The dishes definitely need cleaned out daily and more if you notice fecal matter in or on the dishes. It is a really good idea to have a second set of dishes so you can just switch them. Then you can clean the first while they have the other set in and then switch back again.

As far as the eye problem this matter really needs a vet. I really doubt cleaning the cage will "cure" this (although papers should be changed every 1-2 days and cage should be scrubbed around once a week.). It sounds like an infection or maybe a serious allergy and there is nothing over the counter to treat this. A vet would probably give you an antibiotic depending on what the cause of the infection is. Depending on what you are using in the bottom of the cage there is a remote possibility that she has gotten somthing in he eye that has scratched it causing an irritation. If this is the case gently cleaning the area around the eye and fully cleaning her cage should make the irritation go away but I would still suggest a vet if she has never seen one.

As far as adding other birds to the cage. First only after her irritation or infection has cleared up and then the cage is not really large that you described. You might be able to add one more budgie if they get along (either way you would need a separate cage to begin with for quarantine and them getting used to each other). The only way I would suggest adding another bird though is if you can quarantine them, then introduce them slowly and lastly are able to allow them out of the cage time or else the cage would be too small!

thank you for the help. her eye troble cleared up over night. how much flight time should bugies have outside their cage each day and how can i get her to leave the cage? she hates to leave the cage.

Glad to hear that her eye trouble is gone!
I usually just open the cage door and 'slim' flies out and around the house for a min, then flies back in his cage. I don't force him to come out. I let him do his thing. He doesn't come out a lot, he actually likes just singing/ talking in his cage, so I guess it just depends on the bird.
Just open her cage door, and see what she does.

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Animals are like us, they live for love