# Luxie’s Ongoing Picture Thread



## Aozane

Let’s start with a glamor shot of the young lady:









…Luxie takes a lot of naps, I’ve observed. It seems like it might be because she is still so young? Internet searching seems to indicate that budgie youngsters sleep more than adults, 12-14 hours. I wonder too whether she is not sleeping through the night (the past couple mornings I’ve found a computer on that I thought I’d put to sleep, so the noise might have disturbed her), or else was on a different sleep schedule. I got her up a little after 8am, but she seemed very cranky and screeched at me while I replaced the bowls for our morning routine. But she perked up today around 9:30, ate some breakfast, and then sat quietly under the UV light. (She doesn’t seem to like the UV light, though I don’t know whether that is due to the world looking different to her when it is on? I was told Lutino eyesight can be poorer, like Albino mutations). She takes many naps:










…I tried very hard to just leave her alone to get settled in, but then, one thing led to another… 










(she is not yelling, I just got lucky and snapped the shot when she was either yawning or adjusting her crop.)

…She has been on my shoulder or at the back of my neck for most of yesterday and today. What a radically different experience to my first budgie! I put her back in her cage for “cage time,” but she tries to find a way out toward me. When I opened the door today, she came right over me, perched, and has been sitting there contentedly since. I’ve been doing homework, dishes, rocking in my rocking chair, and she does not screech at all, just sits contentedly. She seems to snooze on and off as she’s sitting. She seems to go in short bursts of activity (eating, preening, climbing and “beaking” things) and then a snooze.










She tried a bath yesterday! Though I’m not sure if she liked it. I offered her one today, but she wasn’t as interested. The water might have been a little too cold. She was a bit shivery afterward. I got a little rice pack I use as a heating pad and heated it (more moderately than if I were using it) to offer her something warm. She didn’t seem interested. The first budgie never bathed, so I’ve got more to learn about this.

She doesn’t seem to be eating the greens I put in, but it is possible that she is still getting used to the new set-up. She seems to be working on figuring out how to get between perches in the cage. Lots of near-falls. Oh! And even with her wings clipped, she made it up to the top of my tall bookshelf:










So she definitely manages flight, it’s just very fluttery right now.

I’m guessing she’s still getting used to the new setting. I think she was flock-calling for the first time this morning, and I was so sad to tell her that her brothers and sisters weren’t here. Today she has started occasionally chirp-singing while I work. I’m still learning exactly what she is communicating with her screeches—sometimes it seems more like “oh you startled me” and other times it is more of a “leave me alone.” I‘ve been going more off her body language than screeching, since she does it for so much—if she edges away from me, she doesn’t want something, but if she steps up and then refuses to get down, she was probably just surprised by my hand appearing in front of her. Though she often seems irritated when I “interrupt” her doing something, but once she has switched to the new activity, she is fine. I can relate–I hate task-switching before I’m ready too 

Such a different experience from Ibid! I am hoping to get that pet clicker soon and see how she does with some training.


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## srirachaseahawk

She’s adorable and sounds like she’s got a lot of personality that she’s going to happily show you!


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## Cody

Good to know she is settling in and is not afraid. I love the picture of her on your shoulder, she may have been yawning but it is so cute, its looks like she is screaming in your ear.


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## StarlingWings

She is SO cute! Glad she’s settling in well.


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## FaeryBee

*Great pictures of Luxie. She's obviously settling in with you very quickly.*


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## Aozane

Today Luxie was not so interested in hanging out with me. She sat on my shoulder for a short time, and ate some millet from my hands, but that was about it. While I am a bit sad, I wonder if this her feeling more comfortable and wanting to explore her cage and the room more, which, I mean, feeling safer is a good thing. I am trying to figure out how to work on bonding but simultaneously keep from alienating her and “undoing” the benefits of her being hand-fed. I’m trying to give her more space and not be a “helicopter” bird parent… though with how cute she is, it’s hard to stay away.

Yesterday she tentatively poked at a few toys; she seems the most interested in pulling off bits of bark from her perches (this trend has continued today). Today she played with one toy on and off more persistently throughout the day, and explored more of the cage, touching a few other toys. Ibid never played, so it warms my heart to see her playing.

She has also been sighted on the swing:











She also takes preening very seriously, and does it many times a day:









…Today she seems to be getting a little more used to the UV light. She tends to sleep when it’s on, and gets more active once I turn it off. Not exactly what I was expecting, but perhaps she is not used to seeing the UV layer of the world.

She is definitely working on learning how to maneuver around the cage, hopping up and down, flying from one side to the other. She still has that little-kid clumsiness, and today missed a jump and ended up on the cage floor—she squawked in clear annoyance at what had happened, then worked on hopping back up. Ibid was so sure of himself when he moved around; he was really good at “sliding” down the sides of the cage and parkouring off to where he wanted to go, but Luxie seems quite new to figuring out where she is in space. (this makes sense—she’s only about ten weeks old!) She is ADORABLE and I love watching her figure things out. I talk to her especially when I see her investigating things or moving around, though I’m not sure how she feels about this, as she often pauses or stops what she’s doing. Maybe she’s just still getting used to my sounds and my space’s sounds, which are so different from all the birds she was around?

Oh, I hope she likes me and bonds to me! I’m trying to be good and let her explore. I also am preparing myself for her “independence” stage, if it hasn’t started in some manner already.


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## Aozane

So I'm not unprepared for how behavior changes as birds "settle in," but I still miss Luxie being eager to spend time with me  I suppose it is a good sign that she wants to be in her cage, though. She plays with several toys, chirps more and more, and "almost" took a bath yesterday. It's a cushy birdie home, hopefully! She also seems to especially like pulling off bits of the two grapevine perches. As I write this, she is poking at one of the bells hanging from her swing--oh wait, back to shredding the perch  I wonder if there are specifically grapevine shredding toys?










She also does this ADORABLE thing where she "loops" 'round and 'round the perch because she tries to get to bits of the perch to pull off that are on its underside. It is EXTREMELY cute. As is when she exercises her wings and rapid-fire flaps.

I got her a clicker today for training! We have done one session so far, and just worked on "conditioning" the clicker (click, millet, click, millet, click, millet--to get her to associate the click sound with reward). She sat on my shoulder for it, but as soon as we stopped, she fluttered back to the cage. She usually ends up on top of the cage, and hasn't figured out how to get into it herself if she doesn't approach it from just the right angle. I might move a perch to door, that might help.

I need to check my sources, but I believe I need to condition the clicker a few more times before moving on to the training proper. I also need to figure out a target stick of appropriate size/length.

She seems reticent to forage right now, so I'm instead working with several different foodbowls as she continues to settle in. I'm trying the "veggie bowl" suggestion I read, which involves conditioning a bowl with bits of millet in it, and then transitioning to veggies and new foods in it. I'm still trying to figure out how best to establish a routine for introducing new foods, as she seems to ignore fruit and veggies right now.

While visiting the pet store for the clicker today, I spent some time just observing the budgies--it really is such a pretty sight to see a larger flock playing. I am so torn, wanting to bond with Luxie and also wanting an active flock! I do think there will be more budgies in my future, but not right this moment. ...I also saw a green-cheek conure that broke my heart, they seemed so lonely  I do not have the means or experience to care for a bigger bird right now, and I do not wish to support big-box pet store bird practices, but simultaneously I very much get the desire to rescue sweet birds from "pet store suffering" when they aren't getting their needs met. The poor thing watched me a while, and then every time I stepped away it would call out. Goodness, my heart.

I will say though, my "someday" dream bird--assuming I find I do well with birds--would be a white-bellied caique. But for now, Luxie 









...This was me playing around with the filters on the "potrait" photo option on my phone. A bit blurry still.

And then just some cute poses as she's looking around as I work on uncovering the cage in the morning:

















...Finally, another preening shot (one of her common activities):


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## StarlingWings

She is literally adorable and it sounds like she's settling in wonderfully. As you know, the fact that she's finding her independence is a great sign that she's settling in well. 

Hope to see more of her around here!


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## bur

You can use a chopstick as a target


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## Aozane

bur said:


> You can use a chopstick as a target


Great idea! Thanks


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## FaeryBee

*Luxie is beautiful and is very fortunate to have you loving and caring for her!*


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## Aozane

Today I got my first (several) hard bite(s) from Luxie. I think she might have been cranky, as it was at the very end of the day about ten minutes before bedtime. She’d gotten up in a precarious positon on one of her toys (she loves to climb up them as high as she can go) and I was nervous about turning out the lights for fear that she might take a tumble down to the bottom of the cage. I offered her one hand and with my other hand worked to steady the toy, and suddenly, she was biting hard. Maybe she had the situation more under control than I thought? Or at least didn’t want to move! I tried not to react, though I think I calmly said “ow” for at least one bite. I put her to bed after that; I realize I’m cranky as well, so she’s not the only one who needs to head to bed. I am getting better at trusting that budgies forgive pretty quickly; I remember the first time I made a mistake with Ibid, I felt like I had ruined everything forever with him. (Relievingly, that was not the case.)










…Tomorrow she will be 11 weeks old, so I’m expecting extreme independence sooner or later—if it hasn’t started already. Anyone have any tips on working with a highly independent budgie? I don’t mean that I’m looking to dominate, more like I want to keep working on buildling a bond and try and win her friendly affection, but don’t want HER to dominate ME either.











Yesterday Luxie fluttered out of her cage on her own for the first time in over a week—I’ve been leaving the door open, but she has been content to stay in the cage. I’m not sure if flying out was a mistake on her part or not, as (after taking a detour up my pantleg and onto my hand) she quite quickly returned to what she could reach of the cage—the top of it, as she, like Ibid, always ends up just a little too high for the door. I have a toy sitting up there now though, and so she played a bit. She still has no idea how to get back into the cage from being on top of it, so I help her out.









(she always gets this craned neck and does a bit of head-bobbing right before flight.)

She has gotten quite vocal over the past few days, but only in the morning. We have these long converations that go approximately like this:

Luxie: CHIRP
Me: Oh hi
Luxie: CHIRP
Me: Oh hi
Luxie: CHIRP
Me: Oh hi

(Repeat x300)

…and for some reason she seems to like this. I have a few phrase I am repeating a lot: “Hi” or “Oh Hi,” “Yeah,” “I know,” “Pretty bird,” and the longer “I’m just a little bird!” …in the hopes that she might start talking.











She tends to have a snooze early afternoon. She plays and eats on and off throughout the afternoon and evening, but she is MUCH quieter, for unknown reasons.

As per suggestion, I am using a chopstick for target training. We’ve advanced to the “conditioning the target stick” step. I try to train twice a day, but the morning session seems more successful than the evening one, in that she doesn’t seem as interested in eating the millet as much in the evening. I can’t complain about a bird that doesn’t overeat!











I’ve been hanging lettuce in the cage, but she doesn’t seem to like this. However, when I put a small piece of romaine lettuce (maybe half the size of my palm) in the bowl I’m conditioning as a veggie bowl, she has enthusiastically devoured it—or at least, devoured it in a swiss-cheese hole-type pattern. I offered her a leaf from my hand this afternoon and she ate it the same way—by biting holes out of it! I wonder if it’s got that same satisfying feel for her like popping bubble wrap. I’ve been putting sprouts in there too, but she seems way less interested. Though she does continue to “check” them when she finds them... I wonder if it has to do with what seems to be her liking of thin “stringy” things, i.e. the bits of bark she’s always pulling on.











Her balance and endurance has been improving. I think when I first brought her home, some of the intimidation of the cage was that she was still so young and hadn’t been on perches full-time. Now though, I’m starting to see her perched on one or the other foot, which seems like a good perching-strength improvement.











I think she’s still trying to figure out water and drinking. I have a small water tube-dispenser thing as well as the bath, which Ibid always used as his drinking water (he liked it better than water bowl I was using). Luxie does this thing where she kind of spreads her wings and hovers over the water, and it’s difficult to tell whether she is drinking or trying to splash the water on herself in some manner. I took a video of it! I’ll try to figure out uploading sometime soon. In the meantime:










…I’ve been noticing that she loves to lick water off the side of the bath bowl when I replace it after cleaning it (I try to dry it thoroughly, but there is always a bit of water on it still). She also likes licking the water off the lettuce leaf before perforating it. I’m not sure what to make of this! It’s adorable, it’s just odd— she does have several abundant water options, yet seems to prefer this.

I did notice this morning that the seeds I’d scattered on the bottom of the cage and that had not been eaten at all during the day had magically changed to empty hulls; I guess she scavenges at night? She seems to have nighttime exploration sessions, and almost seems to prefer dim light to bright light. I would have figured the opposite, given her potential genetically compromised eyesight, but who am I to say, still as a new bird owner.


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## Cody

You are doing great with her and she is settling in well, she seems to know that she is the Queen of the Castle  Love the napping picture, it looks like she is meditating.


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## FaeryBee

*Your updates and pictures of Lucir are great and very entertaining!!
Keep up the great work. You are doing wonderfully with her. *


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## bur

I loved your update!



> She’d gotten up in a precarious positon on one of her toys (she loves to climb up them as high as she can go) and I was nervous about turning out the lights for fear that she might take a tumble down to the bottom of the cage.


I noticed with my boys that they sleep on the highest thing in their cage no matter what it is. So I can sort of direct where they sleep by making sure a swing or perch is the highest spot and not a toy. They will poop all over the toy if they sleep there, so I'd rather have them sleep somewhere else. I don't know if all birds are this easy, but you might want to give it a try to see if it works.


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## Aozane

bur said:


> I loved your update!
> 
> 
> 
> I noticed with my boys that they sleep on the highest thing in their cage no matter what it is. So I can sort of direct where they sleep by making sure a swing or perch is the highest spot and not a toy. They will poop all over the toy if they sleep there, so I'd rather have them sleep somewhere else. I don't know if all birds are this easy, but you might want to give it a try to see if it works.


Thanks for the good suggestion—it’s almost time to do a big cage clean/toy and perch re-arrange, so great timing. Right now I don’t think Luxie sleeps through the night in one go, re: the seeds on the ground not being eaten when she goes to bed but hulled and gone when I uncover her in the morning. She also will be on a high-but-not-highest perch when she goes to bed (not really going there because it’s bedtime, but because that is where she happens to be when the good-night routine is initiated), and then she’s usually on a lower perch when I uncover her. Her poop piles seem to indicate significant time in both places throughout the night, but generally those two spots. Midnight snack habit I guess? 🤷‍♂️


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## Aozane

Cody said:


> You are doing great with her and she is settling in well, she seems to know that she is the Queen of the Castle  Love the napping picture, it looks like she is meditating.


She DOES look like she’s meditating! Have you seen the bird comic “Chicken Thoughts”? There’s one where a bird is in this pose, picks up one leg, and then picks up the other so that they are magically hovering in a silly but clever twist. I kept thinking of it the whole time I was watching her.


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## Cody

Aozane said:


> She DOES look like she’s meditating! Have you seen the bird comic “Chicken Thoughts”? There’s one where a bird is in this pose, picks up one leg, and then picks up the other so that they are magically hovering in a silly but clever twist. I kept thinking of it the whole time I was watching her.


 I am not familiar with "Chicken Thoughts", I'll have to check it out.


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## Aozane

Cody said:


> I am not familiar with "Chicken Thoughts", I'll have to check it out.


If I may offer a couple links (versus images, to be mindful of copyright)—please do not feel pressured to check it out now or ever. I just like collating resources 

The artist is Sarah Wymer, and it seems that she has been releasing her comics via Facebook/Instagram. However, she was able to publish a book last year, which can be found on Amazon here. While her bird “Chicken” is a cockatiel and is by far the protagonist of the comic, she draws many kinds of birds, including budgies. Perhaps the forum might enjoy this budgie-related comic in particular. Another budgie comic that makes me smile every time I see it is this one.

Finally, here is the comic I was thinking of when photographing Luxie on one foot.

(I looked through several stickies to make sure this was all right, but if posting these links in some way goes against forum rules, please do let me know and I’ll take this post down right away.)


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## Cody

Thanks for the links, these are great, I like the one about the Feathery Godmother and the poop.


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## FaeryBee

*Thank you for posting the links! I'm now following "Chicken Thoughts" on Facebook!*


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## Aozane

Hello All, pictures and words for you. I admit the pictures don’t necessarily line up with the written content—it’s the end of the quarter, and so papers and presentations abound for me.









_A lovely portrait._


Luxie has grown very vocal, and I mean that in a pleased budgie-parent way. We still have our rapid-fire chirp exchange daily, but she has added the delightful budgie chatter-warble to her vocalizations. She is by far the most vocal throughout the morning and early afternoon; she gets quiet after the sun goes down.









_“Dad, do you know where my foot went?”_


We have been clicker/target training for over a week, now. Luxie seems very enthusiastic—when she’s hungry! While she _usually_ will be up for millet, I have seen her a few times this week turn her beak up at it for one reason or another. This morning for example, I think she was grumpy, because me removing the cage covering startled her, and so she would just not respond when I tried training. Several hours later, I tried again, and she was much more into training. I’ve read that sometimes birds just aren’t in the mood for training for any number of reasons. Which makes sense, I’m not always in the mood for my school training  At this point, she knows to touch the target stick for a treat, and will come to my finger for a treat without the target stick IF she sees I have the clicker. My current goal is to get her to fly to me from an increasing distance across the room. She has a tendency to not want to pursue the target stick or my finger if they are too far away, so I’m trying to do the increase gradually. I’m also getting ready to start training her to get on the scale, but I jumped a little too far ahead as the scale was in the kitchen and that is far enough away from the cage that she was all “nope, I’m out” and went back into her cage.









_“Look dad, only one foot!”_

She is such a cage-bird! I was expecting with her boldness for her to be all over the room, but no—I take her out, she flies back into the cage. Over and over. I’m a bit confounded, though perhaps it is my energy when she’s outside the cage, and me being more vigilant about her activities.









_Afternoon nap time._

With this in mind, I’m thinking to get a play gym for her to encourage out-of-cage playtime. I was reading a bit on the forums, and while sadly I’m not set up to do any DIY projects at this time, I read about getting a Java tree—expensive but high-quality and worth it, sounds like. Does anyone have recommendations on where to buy such a Java tree from? I might not be able to afford it right now, but I can save up for a few months, and in the meantime, there is a natural-branch-looking playground on Amazon that will tide us over until then.









_Maybe she’s doing yoga. Budgie pose!_


I did give foraging another go, and it has gone better this time. She was so irritated when I removed her seed bowl, though! When I first did it for Ibid, he just looked lost and forlorn, then triumphant when he found the seeds at the bottom of the cage. Luxie, meanwhile, was disgruntled, and vocally let me know for a bit. When she did finally find them, it did not lighten her mood much; she still seemed grumbly about her “commute.” But as she has gotten better about descending to the cage floor, her mood on foraging seems to have improved.









_The one recent time she was exploratory outside the cage was because she found where I had the millet laid out when I cut pieces of it off the stalk for training. I whisked the stalks and buds off to another location, but let her forage the bits leftover._









_She mouth-feels her own toes occasionally. She doesn’t seem to be doing any damage, and she only does it every once in a while, but it’s different from when she “cleans” them when preening; more like she’s all “oh hey, what’s this thing—oh, that’s my foot that is attached to me. I see.”

She has yet to figure out that there is millet stuffed inside those rattan balls! Maybe someday._


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## Cody

She's looking great and it sounds like things are going great as well. She's quite a model, seems like she enjoys posing for the camera.


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## srirachaseahawk

She really is a cutie!
Etsy.com has some great hand-made play gym options for you, at varying price points and sizes. I like this better than a big box option since you get a lot more transparency on who is making it and where it’s coming from.


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## FaeryBee

*I am SO loving Luxie's pictures and your accompanying updates! She is stunning!*


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## Aozane

srirachaseahawk said:


> She really is a cutie!
> Etsy.com has some great hand-made play gym options for you, at varying price points and sizes. I like this better than a big box option since you get a lot more transparency on who is making it and where it’s coming from.


Excellent, I do love me some Etsy shopping. I also see some nice bird playgrounds and a few java tree perches over at a site called birdscomfort.com (unlinked since it looks like the post got flagged, definitely not intending to push any products!)… curious if anyone’s gotten things from them. Their playgrounds are lovely to look at and look enticing to the kid in me, but then, I’m a human, not a bird!



Cody said:


> She's looking great and it sounds like things are going great as well. She's quite a model, seems like she enjoys posing for the camera.


Birds are so smart! She seems to have picked up very quickly how me grabbing my phone means attention


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## Aozane

Luxie is GRUMPY when I get her up earlier than she is ready to--which is especially oddball, considering she is frequently up scrounging around at the bottom of the cage when I come into the room in the morning, with 30+ minutes to go before her official "get up" time. About 6/7 times a week, she is up early. That other one time is like, HOW DARE YOU I WILL TAKE YOUR FINGERS TO APPEASE MY RAAAAAGE.









_This is of of the 6/7 mornings as I'm starting to uncover the cage. "O hai dadther 'bout time you got up early bird gets the seed and all that"_

So I'm very lucky that she was introduced to some veggies before I brought her home... but I'm finding that while she LOVES romaine lettuce and has warmed to sprouts, she is uninterested in a lot of other things. To be fair, I haven't been persistent in new-food introductions, because she is just so happy to have the lettuce. Today I put some very thinly-sliced carrots in her bowl. She very delicately pulled them out and threw them on the floor.

She has yet to try fruit, which, I mean, there are worse budgie problems. She does seem interested in _looking_ at new foods, so perhaps with more time or more persistence or more innovation or even nothing in particular, she'll give something a try. In addition to the thin carrot sticks today, I also have corn kernels mixed in with some chopped carrot bits in a dish the bottom of the cage.









_Luxie observing--but not sampling--some blueberries in the dish at the bottom of the cage._









_Taken JUST as I was writing this--she is after the seeds, though perhaps keeping track of that mysterious dish with mysterious things inside._

I've taken to drizzling water into the bath dish from the top of the cage. After about a week of doing this, she began coming over when I do it, drinking from the trickling waterfall, and beginning to put her head under it. Today was the second day she did it, and today she did it a lot more confidently. I think she wants the waterfall-like trickle, but she has been uninterested so far in either the sink or the bathtub since her first bath here. Maybe with some time we can get back to one of the sinks for a full-body bath.









_Right now though, she just gets "bath-head."_

I got an inexpensive but "natural perch" playground to tide her over until I have saved up a little money for a fancier one. It was WONDERFUL to have her out of the cage, on the table next to where I was sitting. I HAVE SINCE REMOVED ALL THE ROPE TOYS SHOWN IN THE IMAGE BELOW. I initially thought they would be fine since they are not cotton but natural hemp. HOWEVER, after the play session and with nagging doubt in my mind, I re-checked the stickies here and found that no matter what the fibre, a rope with loose end-bits is dangerous re: crop impaction.









_I think Luxie likes it when I'm in close proximity these days. She doesn't necessarily come TO me, but prefers me present to not._

I'm trying to bring her out of the cage daily; some days she tolerates this, others she heads right back to the cage. Her most impressive return was a rapid-fire hop-skip-jump from the hallway leading to the bathroom to the bookshelf, from the bookshelf to my rocking chair, from my rocking chair to the cage. She approaches parallel to the open cage door, does this amazing mid-air turn as she approaches the cage, and lands on her rope perch toward the back of the cage. I am sad she doesn't want to be out, but any time she flies around makes me happy, as I know she's getting exercise.









_Luxie flew from my shoulder in the kitchen toward her cage, landing on the cage cover/repurposed dark sheet. She is likely contemplating how to get around to the other side of the cage, where the open door is--I caught her mid-neck-crane, looking for where to fly next._

She does occasionally sit on what my friend called the "liminal perch"--the one at the threshold of the cage and the rest of the room that is attached to the cage door itself, which means that when the door sits open (any time I am home), it sits just outside the cage. I always count this a good sign, though sometimes I wonder if she is hoping for a treat, as I often use this perch during clicker training. Or perhaps she _wants_ to train?









_The rainbow block toy in the background is technically for bigger birds like conures, but she loves nibbling on it. Based on her interest in peeling bits off her perches, more wooden-type shred toys might be in order._

And finally, an image of Luxie chilling shortly before bed. She LOVES her budgie yoga!









_I have many pictures of her on one foot because it's SO DARN CUTE--not because she only does this, which would potentially indicate a medical issue. So please take the large number of pictures like this only as me being a human responding to the insanely high cuteness levels of this bird. She actually flexed her foot at me when I took this--I didn't think of it at the time, but if I watch for it with a clicker, I might be able to start training her to wave at me!_


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## Cody

Great pictures, she's looking beautiful and seems to be doing a good job getting you trained.


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## FaeryBee

*I absolutely LOVE these pictures! The spiky feather-do suits her! LOL *


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## Aozane

I am amazed and delighted to inform you all that last Monday, Luxie allowed me to give her head and neck scritches. She does not always allow me to do so, but I continue to be permitted the privilege. It felt like I'd unlocked some budgie achievement!









_No, this is not an image of the scritches. Honestly, I'm still just quietly scritching when she lets me, instead of scrambling for my camera. So have a picture of her pausing during play instead._

The way she started letting me touch her was that I would verrrrrry gently "boop" her beak once in awhile. This was received favorably, and I think she takes it as a game sometimes. This game has since expanded to twirling my finger in a gentle circle around her head. She "chases" the finger, and when she catches it, she nibbles it gently. She seems to enjoy the difference between finger nail and finger. There has been a LOT of training myself to go off her cues, instead of demand she goes by mine.









_Time for the Boop Game! Notice her standing on one of her toys as if it were a perch._

She still only comes as far out of her cage as that liminal perch for the most part. I still try to get her out, if only for the exercise she gets flying back, but perhaps I should do less of that so it becomes more of her choice. She has come out once on her own, last night, but had a bit of a flight flub, which makes me worry she'll not want to do it as much. ...I wonder actually, if part of the lack of wanting to be out of the cage is due to the clipped wings. I think we're still off from the first molt by a month or so.









_A brief stay on her playground next to my desk, lured by trick training and millet._

Much like a certain popular Linnie, Luxie has also discovered a love of perching on glasses:


















...In fact, she has learned that if she "misses" the cage trying to fly back to it, if she flies to my HEAD, she can re-do the cage-return flight. I was so excited to see her fly to me yesterday, and held up my finger for her to land on--only to have her ignore it in favor of my head. As in, bumped against the finger but in no way whatsoever put the landing gear down and kept going for the human summit landing pad.









_"Home sweet home, thanks for all your help getting back Dadther"_

She has preened me a few times though--it was especially touching when she flew to me after first allowing me to scritch her and preened me a bit, like she felt she needed/wanted to reciprocate. It was very sweet. It is mostly fine, though for some reason she bites harder on my ears! I wonder if it's the squishiness of ears. She does the same on my palm if I cup it when I offer her food, but if I stretch my hand out it gets rid of the little squishy folds of skin.









_Little Luxie contemplating deep philosophical budgie things._


----------



## Cody

You are doing so well with her, I am sure that once all of her flight feathers grow back she will be happily flying around.


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## FaeryBee

*Luxie is SO beautiful!
I love the Natural Wood Playground you chose for her.
You and Luxie are doing great together and I can see from the pictures that she is just a wee bit spoiled and rules the roost! LOL*


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## srirachaseahawk

The glasses thing 🤣

I love the contemplation photo. She looks quite regal.


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## Aozane

Cody said:


> You are doing so well with her, I am sure that once all of her flight feathers grow back she will be happily flying around.


Aw thanks. I was initially starting to get really nervous thinking about her flying around when I first got her—like, knowing fully flighted birds are happier for sure, and wanting to give her that, but like an anxious parent, I still worried. The more I watch her though, the more I look forward to her being able to fly around the way I think she wants to. I just hope she doesn’t hurt herself crashing into things when they first grow in with the boost in flight power! 🤞


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## StarlingWings

Well, I guess it's a bit like having a human child.. parents want them to run and walk, but can't bear to see them fall. Don't worry; you can't have one without the other and even if she bumps into things a few times she'll soon learn her way around 💛


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## Aozane

StarlingWings said:


> Well, I guess it's a bit like having a human child.. parents want them to run and walk, but can't bear to see them fall. Don't worry; you can't have one without the other and even if she bumps into things a few times she'll soon learn her way around 💛


I have been so seen as an anxious bird-parent  I’m in training as much as Luxie!


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## Aozane

So do your birds know when you are sick? Do they interact with you differently? I received some vaccine shots this past weekend (flu + COVID booster) and two days ago I was definitely down and out of commission. (Doing better today.) Luxie seemed especially affectionate, which was kind of her considering how I ended up spending so much time semi-conscious and shivering. She was willing two days ago to investigate the sink bath I set up for her! (no pictures because my camera was not to hand at the time. Hopefully someday soon.)










_“Lemme out, Dadther! I want to hang out with you! I don’t understand cage doors and them being open if they aren’t on the cage wall I’m facing right this minute!”_

Though I admit I committed a bit of an offense against her in the afternoon when I tried to get her to step up and come out of the cage to show a friend I was on an online call with. She clearly didn’t want to come out, and I was too aggressive and ended up crowding/herding her onto my hand; she bit and moved again to the back of the cage. As soon as I did it, I realized what I’d done and backed off. I spent the rest of the day apologizing to her. Feeling ill (I was definitely sleep-deprived) definitely messed with my judgment. She’s been more reticent to hang out with me since then, so I’m working on rebuilding that trust. So sorry, Luxie  I’ll keep working on being a good human for you.










_That birdie tongue, tho’._

She was definitely not as interested in coming out in the morning for breakfast, and later when she expressed an interest in bathing, she adamantly refused to come out to see the sink. So I went with it. On the upside, she‘s begun eating broccoli (if I pull the teeny bulbs off for her and mix them in with her seeds) and has been mouthing the carrot greens I’ve been adding to her veggie bowl or offering her. She seems to not want to “rip” into her food, and is more delicate in beak-exploring; I’ve appreciated that when she hangs out with me because her nibbles are so gentle, but I simultaneously wish she might “bite” the veggies I offer her more. She has yet to understand that she has to “chomp” on things like carrots, apples, snowpeas, and the like. Any ideas? I do keep putting a piece of broccoli in the cage, so maybe she’ll make the connection if she watches me rip off the little bits enough. She does seem to be more interested in investigating food if I poke at it with my finger (you know, my two “hand budgies” ).










_In the morning, I entice her to the kitchen and let her have a go at her seed + pellet + vitamins mix while I get her veggies and water ready. She totally doesn’t eat those bigger Zupreem pellets as far as I can tell, but they gave them to me as part of her “birdie kit” when I purchased her so I just throw a few in every day rather than just throw them away. I also do some dishes and run a sink bath with a plate and a trickle of water for her in case she’s interested. Then I take the rest of the seed mix and scatter it in her cage. It gives us some routine time together in the morning, it gives her some time out of the cage, and it gives her opportunities to either bathe or get a little exercise if she’d rather head straight back home._

Ahhh, but tonight, Luxie flew out of the cage and to me when I was eating my dinner! (She actually tried to get to me in the morning too, but after not quite making it to my hand, she quickly went back to the cage.) She had been playing on the liminal perch at the front of her cage, but I noticed that she saw me move into the kitchen and start making something, and she moved to the part of her cage that was closest to the kitchen to watch me, and then when I sat down she suddenly came flying. I got my hand up in time, and while it was a bit of a bumpy landing, I was proud of both of us for making the impromptu flight a success. As soon as she got to me, she started eyeing up my salad, all “whatcha eatin’? Flock gotta share, birdie code an’ all” And so I went and got her a little of her own dinner that was NOT my salad (too many human-only things on it!). I’d purposefully saved a bit of her daily seed allotment for her evening meal/training to help her get over our mini-setback, so she got to have “dinner out” as I put it  She went right back to her cage when done, but I’m delighted she decided to come out on her own not once but twice today. I’m hoping me being chill about her coming and going will make her coming to me when she wants to a more positive experience. I’m also kinda thrilled that she recognizes now when I eat and goes off of that in wanting to eat, too. I understand that eating is often a flock community activity, so that feels like a good sign for bonding. (I might be singing a slightly different tune later if she starts thinking she gets rewarded for coming to me when I eat, but for now I’m rewarding the bravery of coming out to me from the cage. Though as a human who has struggled with loneliness at many stages of my life, it’s awfully nice having a dinner companion )










_Cutie._


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## StarlingWings

She's adorable  I love hearing about her antics! Surely with time she'll grow even more confidence. It's a learning process for everyone


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## Cody

Sounds like your are going to have to set a place for her at the table  try shredding the carrots finely and see if she has any more interest with them, sometimes the shape can make a difference. Also try taking a dark leaf of romaine lettuce, cut out the center rib portion and roll up the leaf like a cigar then cut thin strips off and mix with the carrot, a few of my birds love the very thin strips of the lettuce. You can add a few kernels of corn to it and a couple of peas too. As for those large pellets, crush them up and see if she will try a bite that way.


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## Aozane

Cody said:


> Sounds like your are going to have to set a place for her at the table  try shredding the carrots finely and see if she has any more interest with them, sometimes the shape can make a difference. Also try taking a dark leaf of romaine lettuce, cut out the center rib portion and roll up the leaf like a cigar then cut thin strips off and mix with the carrot, a few of my birds love the very thin strips of the lettuce. You can add a few kernels of corn to it and a couple of peas too. As for those large pellets, crush them up and see if she will try a bite that way.


Thank you for the tips! I have noticed so far Luxie prefers a whole leaf of lettuce to little pieces, but then again, I don’t think I gave her enough time and days working with it. I wonder how she might feel about the thin strips of lettuce? Corn and shredded carrots both I definitely need to give her more time seeing and interacting with. And I didn’t even think of peas on their own!

I also keep meaning to try to make a more dedicated chop with which to start exposing her to as well. I have heard one can freeze chop into ice cube tray servings and thus have a small store of it, which would be lovely if I can manage over winter break before my next session of school.

I will see if I have something I can crush the Zupreem pellets with, but I‘m not sweating them too much—I have been focusing my efforts on introducing Harrison’s pellets, which I had been using with Ibid and so had at hand already when Luxie came home. I have been mixing them in with her foraging as well as having a dedicated bowl for them, and I’m happy to report that I see Luxie eating some at least every other day if not nearly every day. Maybe not a ton, but I count any amount of freely-eaten pellets as a win, when it comes to raising a budgie


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## Aozane

Today Luxie woke up and chose violence. Well, as much as a grumpy-but-bonded budgie chooses such things! She greeted me in the morning with a definitely stronger-than-playing bite, and then throughout the day she’s given out strong and aggressive bites. She also climbed onto my glasses post-breakfast, scooted out in front of my vision, and proceded to bite at my EYELIDS. And then screeched at me when I proceeded to gently but firmly push her beak back and away from my eyes, like _I_ was the one doing something wrong. 🙄









_This was a few days ago, in which she headed for the cage and landed instead on the lamp neck. Which is actually an improvement on her targeting! She had a habit of aiming for the lamp itself, but could never get a foothold on it. She sat here for a good half an hour after breakfast. Maybe she liked it because it was a tall perch. Maybe she just was contemplating her next move._

Luxie continues to have unpredictable play rhythms—some days, she plays her heart out all day, others she just kind of quietly sits. She has developed a love of jumping off her swing, and then turning around and attacking the bells on either side of it as it careens back and forth. Then she’ll hop around to where she can get back on the swing, and the cycle repeats. She is also figuring out finally that the rattan balls are meant for destruction.

She has also picked up a new sound: the video game menu sound. I don’t watch TV, but I grew up playing games and I still do when I have the time, so whenever possible I have a video of a game playthrough going in the background for Luxie’s ambient “flock is safe” noise. We’ve been “watching” some PlayStation Final Fantasy games, the kind you can spend a lot of time moving around in menus making selections, healing party members, equipping new items, that kind of stuff. And then a few days ago, I hear this adorable synth-y squeak from her, like a menu selection but live. It is DELIGHTFUL.









_Luxie on an earlier post-breakfast morning as I am working on her veggies. It sort of turned into a play-explore moment._

I have been noticing that while Luxie eats many good things—seeds, pellets, lettuce, now broccoli, maybe carrot greens?—she also will occasionally go for her birdie poop. It doesn‘t seem like it’s a priority or that she is compulsory about it, but every once in awhile, she just casually has a nibble of her poops, and I don’t exactly know how to explain to her that it’s not for eating. I did get a mineral block into the cage to make sure she wasn’t doing it due to some kind of deficiency. She does also nibble bits of bark she’s pulled off perches that have fallen down, or other bits of toys, so I’m thinking it might be more the necessities of foraging. …Note to self, I must get more seeds, going to be running low soon.

She’s still emphatically a cage bird. The door is always open, but it still takes the enticement of food—and good food, mind you, seeds or millet—to tolerate a small amount of out-of-cage time. 🤷‍♂️

She‘ll be four months old late next week, but no sign of her first molt. —Though perhaps today’s grumpiness foretells something! I continue to be permitted to occasionally scritch her, and she continues to have her peculiar “almost-baths” in which she hovers over the water and gets a little of her chest and head wet. Maybe someday!









_These are gentle greeting nibbles. I’ve come to change out your paper lining for the evening, Little One. …She was fine until I changed the paper, and then the not-gentle-at-all angry bites came again. “How dare you! I wasn’t finished with all those interesting bits of things on the ground!” It’s a no-good horrible very bad day for Luxie, I guess—some days are like that!_

EDIT: We are sitting here having dinner, and she is eating like she is STARVING. She is also aggressively attacking my fingers whenever I get close to her or the bowl, which she does not usually do. (She makes the most adorable chitter-squeak when she does it too, which maybe she thinks is intimidating, but only just endears me to her more.) I do wonder if the molt has begun; I’ll try some egg tomorrow with her food.


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## StarlingWings

It seems like Luxie is growing up! Mallorn also does not like my fingers near her bowl or toys and makes the same noises, haha. The angry chattering is cute, right  

As she gets older she'll appreciate you invading her space less and less so it's best to give her space as much as you can when she's asking you to back off. As for the biting, Mallorn used to do that too especially when she was going into her first moult and over the years with positive reinforcement she's stopped doing it; essentially what you do is only reinforce her positive behavior rather than disciplining her on the negative behaviors. So, what I started doing with Mallorn is that every time she bit me, I would say No firmly and put her back in her cage, close the door, and go away without a backward glance, or simply say "no, Mallorn, that hurts, please be gentle", and then leave. Withdrawing your presence is the best type of positive reinforcement since it removes the two things that could encourage her to continue biting, which is 1. your presence and 2. attention. In the end Mallorn decided over time she preferred that I was in the room with her and began to understand what it meant to be gentle with her biting. The important thing is not to encourage this by accidentally giving her attention with lengthy telling off or something like that. Budgies are also good at understanding emotions and facial expressions so showing her that you are hurt from her biting might also help. 

After a period of time, I would come back, and then when she was on my hand or arm without biting or she nibbled gently, I would shower her with praise and affection, which is her favorite thing on earth, lol. All birds are different but perhaps this may help as you navigate Luxie's oncoming teen stages


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## vrabec

StarlingWings said:


> As she gets older she'll appreciate you invading her space less and less so it's best to give her space as much as you can when she's asking you to back off. A


Are we talking Luxie here or my ex-gf? 🙊


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## srirachaseahawk

vrabec said:


> Are we talking Luxie here or my ex-gf? 🙊


Some of column A…some of…


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## Aozane

BREAKING NEWS: A drama of love triangles and heartbreak!

Luxie completely ignored me and broke with what has been several weeks of morning routine to skip breakfast in order to play with the bells on her swing. THAT was exceptionally out of character of her. No amount of food enticing would get her to stop. So I ended up just standing next to the cage and watching her for a bit.

And I noticed that while she played with the bell often, she also would hold her face up real close to it for short periods. And when I came really close, I realized that in these specific bells, which are a little bigger and a little clearer than other bells in the cage, SHE CAN SEE HER REFLECTION.

And suddenly, I have suspicions concerning the origin of her recent sudden aggression.

As she watched aghast, I removed the swing. And then, as if the tragedy of losing Bizarro-Bell-Luxie at the hands of me— apparently the cruel jilted lover—weren’t enough, I proceeded to rearrange the cage. Luxie vowed to never forget the loss of her One True Love, and to live the rest of her life in mourning.

Five Minutes Later:










…She has a new flame in her life, Chew-Swing.


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## srirachaseahawk

Budgies are more fickle than Shakespearean Romans


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## StarlingWings

Wow, what a saga 😆 Good thing you're so attentive to Luxie 💜


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## Aozane

Just a few pictures to share—today Luxie is four months old!


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## FaeryBee

*Luxie is as cute as a button. I love seeing her foraging for the seed on the paper at the bottom of her cage.
Hearing their little feet as they run about finding the perfect seed is always so much fun to me!

ALL of her pictures are great -- Luxie is an excellent model.*


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## srirachaseahawk

She’s such a cutie


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## Aozane

FaeryBee said:


> *Hearing their little feet as they run about finding the perfect seed is always so much fun to me!*


I love hearing little bird feet too! ☺


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## vrabec

It's not just a great sound, it's also horribly adorable how they poddle-woddle on the floor with their claws 😁


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## Aozane

Looks like someone’s starting their first mo~lt!


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## StarlingWings

Aw she is such a cutie. Hope her moult isn't too rough


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## FaeryBee

*I see a couple little pinnies on her cheek!*


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## Aozane

Some pictures of a gently molting birb.


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## FaeryBee

*So doggone adorable!! 💜💜*


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## Aozane

Luxie had her wellness vet visit this week. We went to the vet that was also her breeder, but it was a bit far to drive; I am thinking I may look for a closer place just because of wanting to not have that drive in the event of an emergency. Also, the vet was quite cagey about making a call on Luxie’s gender, which felt odd since I thought we (as in, forum experts + pet store + me) had generally solidly thought on female. She followed up with offering a gender test—hopefully she was just trying to be helpful, and not make more money off me.










The vet noted that Luxie preens A LOT. I told her she was molting, but the vet out of caution kindly gave her a complimentary drop of medicine they put on her chest in case it was mites. I was told that if it is mites, she’ll seem especially itchy for the rest of the day and then the next day be significantly better. I admit, that is very much how things have gone, and I think she’s preened the least I’ve ever seen her preen today (even with the molt!).

All in all, Luxie handled the visit like a champ. She ate both millet and seeds at various times, explored, and even made some chirps. She seemed to like the car ride and the “walks” in between, even. I hazard I was the more stressed of the two of us.


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## StarlingWings

She is definitely a girl but for some reason many avian vets still don't have the experience with budgies necessary to tell and feel uncomfortable doing so; most parrots are not as obviously sexually dimorphic so I guess that's probably why. 

I'm glad the vet visit went well!!


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## Aozane

StarlingWings said:


> She is definitely a girl but for some reason many avian vets still don't have the experience with budgies necessary to tell and feel uncomfortable doing so; most parrots are not as obviously sexually dimorphic so I guess that's probably why.


Oh, that makes sense! My brain was stuck on the “But you breeeeeeed them” part, not the “but you have this whole other job where you are required to have expertise in so many other birds and animals and how that will interact with this issue.” I think it also felt weird to me because I hadn’t been taking into account the super-specific information feed I’VE been absorbing over the past few months, what with observing so many of this forum’s budgie gender request threads. (I have a mediocre guess-to-myself average… many color mutations still throw me for a loop!)


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## FaeryBee

*I sure hope you didn't pay for a "gender test"! 

Glad the vet visit went well and (female) Luxie looks like a real champ in her little carrier!*


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## Aozane

FaeryBee said:


> *I sure hope you didn't pay for a "gender test"! *


Definitely not! I need that money for very important things—like more perches and toys ^__^


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## srirachaseahawk

Aozane said:


> Definitely not! I need that money for very important things—like more perches and toys ^__^


It never ends


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## Aozane

Hi all. I’ve been very busy and tired, so haven’t been around here much. Luxie seems well, though  She now plays fairly regularly on top of her cage (though in part because I put her up there after breakfast). She has learned how to get back into the cage from the top when she wants to “go home,” both by flying and by rappelling down the side of the cage. She has occasionally climbed up to the cage-top too. She especially loves when I am working next to the cage; I think she likes the company while playing. She can get suddenly very rough when playing, which means I step away to let her know it was “too rough.” She was characterized as the “bossy” one of her clutch, and she’s been a solo budgie with me for three months now, so that might be some of it. But she is sweet and gentle so often, so I think currently she just gets carried away with excitement.









_Playing atop her cage together. She loves to throw those little rattan balls, and I pick them up and she just starts happily head-bobbing and dashing around. I don’t mind having been trained to play pick-up so much, it is a delight to see her so happy _

She takes baths now in the sink! Not every day, but several days a week. Every morning, after breakfast, I do the dishes (while she sits on my shoulder) to make sure the sink is clean and then set a plate in the sink and run a gentle stream of cool water. If she’s interested, she’ll clamber down my arm. Sometimes she just takes a few drinks and heads back up to my shoulder, but other times, she gets off my hand and into the water. I then go get the water spray bottle, and mist her while she moves around in the water. She always seems a bit wary of the water stream, but lately when I put my hand under it to create a more gentle waterfall, she really likes that. Then, when she’s done, she hops back up on my arm and climbs up to my shoulder. …And then I get a little bit of a shower from her, too!









_Needed my hands for the camera, but otherwise my arms and hands are present and further block the drain._

Had a bit of a pleasant surprise over the past few days, as she has gone from “polite occasional pellet nibble” to “frequent trips to the pellet bowl.” I do know I just started a fresh bag of pellets (Harrison’s), and mixed in 1 Tbsp of Red Palm Oil into the bag (1 lb), so it’s easily possible that the fresh pellets are tastier than previous.

I’ve had less luck so far with veggies other than lettuces/spinach (which she can’t have often)/kale. But what with how suddenly she went from ugh-pellets to omg-pellets!!, I’m more at peace with the long haul of getting her to eat more vegetables. Currently, I mix up little dish of sprouts, corn, and broccoli: the corn is diced, and the broccoli bits are cut from the stalks, because she just doesn’t seem interested in food that requires her to dig into or pull hard at it. I put garlic powder and dill on it. I do see her mouthing the sprouts in particular every day, but I genuinely cannot tell how much of it she eats. I know I keep saying I will try some chop, but I’m still working my way there.









_I think this picture was taken before she lost one pair of the five clipped wing feathers. So we continue to inch our way toward the someday of fully flighted again._

I’ve been giving her about 12 hours of covered cage time, but lately I’ve started covering her as soon as I see she has jumped up to her “sleep perch,” which results in 12.5-13 hours of cage cover. I was apprehensive about it, not wanting to make her bored/frustrated, but she seems more cheerful in the morning now. Maybe she’s like me, and needs more sleep, not less!









_Zzzzzz…_


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## FaeryBee

*Luxie is looking as beautiful as always. I love the picture of her in the sink enjoying her bath!*


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## Cody

She looks like she is meditating in the last picture.


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## StarlingWings

She's beautiful and sounds like she's doing wonderfully!


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## Aozane

Luxie says hello, how are you doing, and totally unrelated, do you have any millets?









…though thanks to a recent post here, I tried bok choy and found that she seems to like it—at least that‘s what I assume those holes in the leaf mean.









Look at those wings! There is a pair of flight feathers that have grown back! Luxie seems to already have figured out that flying takes a little less effort, as she has done more of it since they came in. I’m expecting a second pair soon, as that is the number of pairs of clipped flight feathers she has lost in molt thus far.



























Bath-time with some of the widest wing-spreads yet. She has such opinions about how exactly how strong the spray of water must be—too strong and she’ll avoid it, too weak and she’ll just drink it.









…a bit blurry, but photographic proof that she allows me to scritch her. Once in a while.









Oh to be a well-cared-for bird, contemplating bok choy.


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## FaeryBee

*The updates and pictures are priceless!!
I love them. 💜💜*


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## StarlingWings

She is SO cute and clearly is living the best life ever. I'm so glad to see updates of her!


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## Aozane

Luxie‘s 6-month “hatchday” was a couple weeks ago; since then, her cere has been turning brown.










I assume it’s hormonal and puberty-type things? I’m trying to limit her daylight and protein, but it doesn’t seem to be affecting the change. I rearranged the cage a few days ago, too. On the other hand, she is exhibiting no nesting behavior and no aggression (without cause, like if I interrupt her when focused on something else). She’s actually been more interested in just sitting and chilling on my arm or shoulder, which has been nice. I do wish she’d let me scritch/preen her a little more, I want to get those feathers on her head that she can‘t reach opened up. Does that ever bother anyone else? It is of course not worth forcing anything upon her, but it is a bit like seeing a loose thread or bit of lint on someone else’s shirt.

On the other hand, her comfortable-ness with me has led to some “oh what’s that you’re eating flock always shares food so gimme” behavior. Today was the first time she came over when I sat down to eat something and tried to bypass me entirely to land on the plate to partake. Needless to say, she did not get what she was after—carrot cake that it was, even I the human eating it knows saying “I’m getting my veggies!” doesn’t negate the other things in the cake coming along with it.










I’m trying chopped fine red pepper + green bean + corn or basil right now in the evenings before she gets the other half of her daily allotment of seeds. She’s still putting in regular munches at the pellet bowl, which is great; the veggies remain generally uninteresting for her. This evening she did nibble some at the little bowl of informal chop, so I hope that might be a good sign. She does seem to like basil enough to take several little bites all over—I bet it tastes more strongly than other vegetables. I forgot to do it today, but I yesterday after we’d spent some time with just the basil leaf, I chopped it up for her dinner‘s seasoning. My general thinking is that if she likes the taste of basil, what with how fragrant it is, it might help make other vegetables more appealing (a la FaeryBee’s use of garlic powder on sweet corn). She looks like she’s really into the veggies in the above photo, but I think it’s more that she’s really into the seeds that are also in there.










Another “classic pet bird” thing that has happened: she has finally discovered the computer keyboard. And like so many birds, she loves to be on it (leaving her poops wherever she pleases) when I have typing to do. She will chitter at my fingers all the time like she’s irritated, but never bites or leaves; I think she finds it a form of play and spending time. I’m pleased to report that the “apple”-type keys don’t seem to immediately be pry-able. (Though I am keeping a vigilant eye, as one never knows how birdproof things turn out to be to our smartie birds). Our basil plant is visible in the background, and lives in a pot with some parsley (more for my love of tabbouleh than her nourishment).

She has gradually increased her zone of exploration while she’s out of the cage: she now explores the ledge beneath what I call her “porch perches” (the ones on the cage but the outside of the cage—so like a porch for her cage home!), as well as the computer time work space next to her cage. She really loves the porch perches; I think it might be because of how she can keep an eye on me, the birds outside, and her own home all at once. It also is a place where she gets sun in the afternoon.










(this was from a bit ago, as her cere was lighter.)

Luxie has also figured out that “kitchen” = “food/bath/time with flock human,” and so she has started to come flying over especially when I’m in there doing dishes or at the cutting board. The first time she did this while not connected to an approximate seed mealtime, I was focused on something else, and turned around and she was just standing there on top of some chard I was working on rescuing from the back of the fridge. (Narrator: “The chard could not be rescued.”) I admit I got quite a jumpscare! I hadn’t heard her flight approach at all. (Being a grad student in student housing, my kitchen is quite tiny and really more of an extension to the main room, so she’s had time to observe me working in the kitchen for quite a while… but was at the time content to stay in her cage. Looks like it’s time to institute mandatory cage time for when the knives are out or the stove/oven is on.)










She’s gotten much more comfortable climbing around her cage of late, which makes me happy since all the cage rearrangings cannot guarantee a clear path everywhere every single time. This was a recent morning in anticipating of me opening the door. Daylight saving time was rough on me (it always is), and so her schedule is regrettably a bit all over as my circadian rhythm adjusts. So far she’s quite polite about it all, waiting in the morning for me to uncover the cage without being noisy, and then hopping up on her swing when she’s ready for bed.

Also, I found her first molted tail feather this morning, and at least one of another pair of clipped flight feathers has come out recently. The clipped feather discovery was another little surprise, as she had been sitting on my shoulder preening while I was working, and I vaguely register a kind of cronching sound, like she’s cracking seeds. I look over and find she’s got the fallen-out feather in her beak, chewing away at its shaft end. Her flight definitely seems affected, as she has been flying in these sudden change-in-direction zig-zag patterns (probably due to the number and type of feathers present), but this hasn’t seemed to be a deterrent. If anything, she actually seems to be more willing to fly about.

Amidst the arrival of spring and the changes that brings, we do our best, here 💛


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## Cody

Luxie is looking great, she's becoming a lady, sounds like she has you well trained. 🤣 The pinfeathers bother me too, I just want to scratch them open, I have even tried gently brushing them with a child's soft toothbrush, that did not go over too well and did not achieve the goal


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## Aozane

Cody said:


> Luxie is looking great, she's becoming a lady, sounds like she has you well trained. 🤣 The pinfeathers bother me too, I just want to scratch them open, I have even tried gently brushing them with a child's soft toothbrush, that did not go over too well and did not achieve the goal


I’ve been trying with the target stick and occasionally a knitting needle… no dice. I do hear you when you say the toothbrush didn’t go over well, but I hadn’t thought of that and I totally want to try it now >.> Luxie loves to use a few toys that are “bristly” to scritch her own head (while I tell her “I could do that for you if you’d just let me!”), so maybe she might be interested in a toothbrush. Of course, imagining and reality are totally different worlds!


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## FaeryBee

*Wonderful Luxie updates with pictures! You made my day, thank you.*


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## Aozane

We have successfully acquired a vegetable!! Which I believe is budgie-owner-speak for “my bird finally will eat this vegetable I’ve been chopping up and offering them in all shapes and sizes for the past two months.”









Behold! CORN.

However she finally decided to try it, she now combs through her veggie plate for the bits of corn, and works the kernel “skins” until she’s gotten all the juicy bits out. I am delighted.

I figured out in this process that Luxie does not like garlic—I had offered vegetables with garlic powder on them before, and had chalked up her disinterest to the time it takes for budgies to try veggies. However, _after_ establishing her willingness to eat corn, when I then offered garlic-powder corn, she bit into a kernel and then aggressively spat it out. And then aggressively tossed it off the plate. And then left the plate in a pointed huff. Apparently, this was, as the internet might phrase it, one of the #toptenanimebetrayals.

For Luxie, _basil_ has proven the spice winner. As for #veggiegoals, we‘re still testing mint. Red pepper has yet to make an impact—I might try a yellow pepper next, since it might look more familiar now that she will eat corn. I genuinely can’t tell whether she eats sprouts or not—she definitely plays with them. No interest in green beans, carrots, or sugar snap peas yet, either in full-length or chopped-up form. I’ve also tried peels of carrots, with no luck yet. Luxie tends to be more willing to try leaf-like vegetables, so I try to have some kind of leaf clipped to the side of her cage daily. This week it‘s been butter lettuce or red kale. Sometimes she just rips the leaf up into pieces, but I do see that she usually has a few bites before or after the confetti-making session. She definitely likes spinach, but I believe that’s a once-in-a-while veggie due to something in it that blocks calcium absorption for budgies. I keep meaning to try sweet potato for its vitamin—A, I think? But I think that’s a thing that I would need make a bunch of and then ice-cube-serving-size freeze it to conserve my own low energy stores.









Luxie‘s taken a few flights around the room of late, and this morning she found her way on her own to this perch near my desk. Historically when I’ve placed her on this perch for training, she has “tolerated” it, but left as soon as she decided the session was done. As far as birds go, I’ve just had Luxie long-term thus far, but owning a bird after having owned dogs is an interesting experience. My dog learned a lot growing up, but then settled into a routine that he didn’t deviate from to the point that I could keep time by where he was in the house (Is he on the couch? Mid-morning. Is he in front of me? 2:30-3pm, time for a walk. Is he in front of his foodbowl? 5:30pm, dinner. On the stairs? 9pm, bedime.) It feels like birds, even with their love of routine and their potential fears of things like new toys, simultaneously seem to enjoy “changing it up” without warning. At least, that’s what Luxie seems to like so far.









We took a walk together a few weeks ago! It was about half an hour, with ten minutes each of walking to and from a shaded bench we sat at for about ten minutes. I couldn’t tell whether she enjoyed it or not. But I was hoping she might feel a little more used to travel if we did it here and there without a vet visit destination. She does seem very interested in _looking_ at the world around her. The vet recommended that I wrap those travel dowel-rod perches with—something. Some kind of veternarian tape? Might I trouble knowledgeable readers to point me in the direction of what she was talking about? 🙏









In the evening, after dinner, she occasionally spends more time with me if I hold my hand like a perch (held close to eye-level and generally still) and if I blink slowly at her. So sometimes we just sit and blink at each other, and it’s lovely.


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## FaeryBee

*Luxie is doing GREAT! It's lovely that you took her out for a walk in her little carrier to enjoy the outdoors.
Vet "tape" or "wrap" is a self-adhesive flexible bandage. Here is a link to give you an example: **Vet tape*


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## Aozane

FaeryBee said:


> *Luxie is doing GREAT! It's lovely that you took her out for a walk in her little carrier to enjoy the outdoors.
> Vet "tape" or "wrap" is a self-adhesive flexible bandage. Here is a link to give you an example: **Vet tape*


Thanks, FaeryBee! The link is super-helpful


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## Aozane

A small off-the-topic-of-Luxie post. Yesterday, I came across an injured wild rabbit on my way home from school. Historically, I might not have even noticed, but after watching it not move despite how closely others got to it, I got worried. I walked right up to it and sat down next to it, and it still didn’t move. I went home, fetched gloves, a box, and a towel, and gently transferred the rabbit to the cardboard box. This is when I was able to ascertain the severity of the injuries—for mindfulness of the many readers on this forum, let us just say the injuries were severe (there will be no pictures of the rabbit). I was not optimistic about its chances of recovery, but I felt strongly that I could not just leave it where I had found it.

It was already too late to take it to a wildlife center, but I tracked two locations down and prepared myself for getting up early the next morning to take it in. Following online resources, I closed the lid of the box, placed the rabbit in a dark, quiet spot in my small living space, and added a gentle heat source (a sock with rice, though if I had had a heating pad, setting it on low under the box would have been ideal).

Sadly, the rabbit did not make it through the night. I hope I might have been able to give it even the smallest bit of relief from the suffering it was in.

…

Last night, after I had carefully brought the rabbit in and made sure it was in a separate room from Luxie (I did NOT want there to be risk of disease transmission!) and having verrrry thoroughly washed my hands and arms, I sat with Luxie quietly. She seemed to know something sad was going on. I actually explained to her a bit of what had happened; whether or not she understood the words, she seemed to understand something was serious and sad.

I also think that my experience owning a bird is part of what got me to be willing to give the rabbit a chance at something more than just dying in the street. Things like having the skills to recognize when a prey animal is in distress, and also having more experience looking for best-practices resources for animals in distress. Perhaps it is a little bit of a stretch, but maybe I could say that Luxie helped me help the rabbit—even if all I could do was give it a warm and safe place from which to cross the rainbow bridge.








_Luxie sitting with me as I process everything that happened._


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## FaeryBee

*Bless you for giving the the little bunny a comfortable setting in which it could spend its final hours before it moved across the Rainbow Bridge. * 💜


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## Aozane

So I was watching some videos of a certain honking cockatiel beloved by the internet (RIP Alex), and was joined by a VERY interested birb, who stood stock-still and watched in rapt attention:










…and then within less than 24 hours began honking herself. It is ADORABLE.










She looked so offended when I caught her climbing on top of her lettuce leaf for maximum rip-crush-tear technique…










This quarter with in-person instruction, I’ve had to go to campus a lot more. She HATES me leaving, and when I put her in the cage, she lectures me in high-pitched screms. It does not change the situation, but seems to make her feel better.










Just a beautiful portrait of her—the sunlight is reflecting off her water/bath bowl, and it created a nice glow.


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## FaeryBee

*Wonderful pictures and great captions!*


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## Aozane

Snapped during a blink, not a snooze, but it looks a bit like a happy nap


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## StarlingWings

Great portrait!!


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## Aozane

Some little bird doesn’t understand why I spend all my time staring at these strange pieces of paper with all these bits of black on them—and I don’t even once chew the edges.









She’s being a “yellow potato” in admiration of some forum-favorite green potatoes 🙃


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## FaeryBee

*How sweet that she doesn't even chew the edges!
My birds would be demolishing the paper given the chance. LOL*


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## Aozane

She only chews the edges if she can find them, and even then she’s only an occasional chewer of paper. When the paper is lying flat, she seems more interested in staring at it—maybe she’s trying to ”forage” and find the seeds in all those little marks? That or chase my pen around…


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## Aozane

I started a modest little effort to sprout Luxie’s seeds over the past week. I followed our sticky here and

1.) got a bag of Hagen’s seed
2.) Looked through my pantry and found Wild Rice and Green Lentils
3.) decided I didn‘t have to have everything listed in the sticky to get started
4.) got one of my little tea infusers as per a recent forum post mentioning using a tea ball for sprouting
5.) I found a little cup to set aside with it
6.) In the morning I put about 2/3-3/4 tsp Hagen’s seed + 6-7 grains of wild rice and 6-7 lentils into the strainer
7.) I rinse and then let soak throughout the day (minimum 8-12 hours).
8.) Before I go to bed, I drain/rinse the seeds and then empty them onto a plate. I let that sit overnight to dry.
9.) The next morning I mix the dry sprouted seeds in with some pellets, some mash, and 3/4 of a couple other seed blends that have things in them that shouldn’t be sprouted
10.) …and that’s the day’s seeds! While Luxie is eating breakfast, I start the process over again at step 6.

…Luxie eats these right away (and does seem willing to eat them wet as seen in the pictures above, though I read that not all budgies will), so I’ve not seen the tiny little sprout “bud” while doing this yet. I can probably slowly add some other grains as I go, but this is the best I can do right now. Hopefully it’s helping her be healthy.


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## srirachaseahawk

Sprouts are great!

A fan favorite for my boys are lentils and split peas.


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## Aozane

srirachaseahawk said:


> Sprouts are great!
> 
> A fan favorite for my boys are lentils and split peas.


Peas! I have a bag of split peas in the pantry right now, it didn’t occur to me to use those. This also reminds me to try peas in the fresh veggie dish, too!


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## srirachaseahawk

Aozane said:


> Peas! I have a bag of split peas in the pantry right now, it didn’t occur to me to use those. This also reminds me to try peas in the fresh veggie dish, too!


👍🏻
Give the lower half of a red bell pepper a go, with the seeds! Instant foraging bowl. 
remove the stem and you’re good to go.


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## Aozane

srirachaseahawk said:


> 👍🏻
> Give the lower half of a red bell pepper a go, with the seeds! Instant foraging bowl.
> remove the stem and you’re good to go.


I’ve been including chopped/diced/sliced bell pepper in Luxie’s veggies for over a month now, and she seems uninterested, but I remember someone here saying that budiges can have preferences on veggie “form.” I’ll give it a try!


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## Aozane

Sometimes we sip...









...and sometimes we take a dip.









_(...thank you for putting up with my tortured rhyming, here are a few more from the photo session)














_


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## Cody

Loox  like she's having a great time in the bath.


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## FaeryBee

*I love pictures of budgies bathing!!*


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## Aozane

She has slayed the mighty basil monster, ending its long herbal scourge:








_(…my thumb has green smudges all over it because someone kept wiping their beak there)_

And now to immortalize the hero with a commemorative portrait.


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## StarlingWings

She's so cute! In that basil pic she really has the expression of someone who has slayed an evil beast


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## Aozane

StarlingWings said:


> She's so cute! In that basil pic she really has the expression of someone who has slayed an evil beast


For creatures that don’t have the facial muscles we do for expressions, it’s amazing what kind of expressions we find in their faces! I adore how triumphant and satisfied she looks in the basil picture, even if it‘s just me projecting/personifying.


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## Aozane

“Dadther got me corn from a different grocery store and he insisted for weeks that it was the same as the corn I love but I knew better and refused to eat it until he finally corrected his corn-purchasing habits”








_offending corn (with peas) in the back, preferred corn in the front_

“Just goes to show you have to be consistent and patient when building a bond with your human”


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## StarlingWings

This is just classic 🤣🤣 She’s so cute!


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## Aozane

Since I last posted, Luxie has had her first illness, and I had to take her to the vet for an emergency same-day appointment. The visit with medications cost me about $250. BE READY FOR THIS EXPENSE, y’all. I put about $40 a month into savings specifically for bird care. Sometimes it’s just for toys or food (or that fancy Etsy-made climbing net ), but sometimes it’s for stuff like this.









_(Close-up of her favorite part of the fancy Etsy-made climbing net)_

Luxie had been fine in the morning and afternoon the day she first showed signs of illness, but around 7pm that night, she started vomiting (the movements she made looked like she had something stuck in her crop and she was trying to get it free; I only saw one actual vomit, but found evidence of several more at the bottom of the cage). She also got very quiet and puffed, her poops had become diarrhea-runny, and she looked very sleepy. Later that evening, she sat on my chest and snuggled with my chin over and over—I’ve heard of a few anecdotes about budgies getting quite snuggly when the are sick. I’ve seen pictures of sick birds before, but in person there is just… something about the eyes that makes it so clear something is wrong. No pictures of this—I was too anxious to think to take any.

Anyway, I was of course anxious that night and next morning, and after noting that she was no better at breakfast, I decided we had to get to the vet. We had to go to an unfamiliar vet because our vet (though I’m thinking of looking around for another one, as her office is over an hour away) was on vacation. The long and short of it was that Luxie had an upper respiratory infection. She was given an antibiotic to take for two weeks. We gave her the antibiotic via syringe at the vet’s office the first time, but I was told it could be put on food too, and so I found that she would eat her seeds just fine with the antibiotic on them, so we went with that method. Within 24 hours she was already doing better, and after about 3-4 days, she was back to her usual energetic self. We still finished out the antibiotics, of course—that’s SUPER important to do so that the infection is completely treated. If antibiotics are stopped midway, the bacteria they are targeting won’t be fully eliminated, AND a resistance to the antibiotic starts building, making going back on antibiotics in the future (when the bacteria return to high levels) less effective. (And now I will get down off my little soapbox about this.)

Luxie is normally 32g, but she dropped to 29-30 while sick. She seems to have returned to normal at this point. What I found I had to do in order to make sure she got her medicine appropriately is give her 4-5 small meals throughout the day, two with the antibiotic on it (we were also given a probiotic, which I did put on one of the meals dutifully, though I am skeptical of the efficacy of probiotics while giving antibiotics). We’re now back to our usual foraging routine, but I have noticed Luxie has picked up a new behavior:









…she now flies over to the ”food station” to indicate that she is hungry, since that is where I would prepare her medicated seeds. I thought this was great communication for the first few days… until she started flying over every half an hour or sooner. Clever bird… It’s such a delicate line to walk, trusting her to tell me when she’s hungry, but then being a good parront and not just feeding her each of the 20+ times she tries to get more seed. (You can see the Hagen budgie seed and my modest mix of grains for sprouting!)

I’ve finally been able to try a new veggie—sweet potato! (I recently moved apartments, and then the current apartment‘s oven was not usable, so I had to wait over a month + put up with some unreasonable pushback to get a replacement.) I cut them open and found they are yellow inside, just like my li’l yellow potato 










I baked the potatoes, then smushed some of one along with some corn and a bit of seeds/pellets/mash to get her to dig around in the potato. She seemed to enjoy the activity, so I’ll try it again for several more days to help her get used to the taste of it and realize it’s food. It’s my first step on the way to making a sweet-potato-base chop that I can cook up and then freeze in ice cube-sized servings. Hoping to get to quinoa as my next step—I think I’ve just been very nervous about quinoa because of needing to rinse off the coating on it that is toxic to budgies, and worried that I won’t do it right and harm Luxie.

I’m going at a slow pace toward chop, but I’m getting there. I’m trying to be happy about the little, slow steps instead of scold myself for not going faster. We go the very fastest we can, even if that is sometimes quite slow.

Oh! Almost forgot—on the “fruits” frontier of introducing fruits and veggies, she has at least licked a piece of cantaloupe now:










I’ve not gone out of my way to give her fruit because of the sugar content, but I occasionally offer her some—she doesn’t usually take me up on the offers. The cantaloupe was the most interested she has been in fruit, as well as a few days earlier when she licked at a bit of watermelon. It might be the heat, or the fact that she does love licking water off her various green leafs, or maybe a bit of both.

And speaking of the heat, we do our best to stay cool here:


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## StarlingWings

She is so adorable, I'm glad you were able to take her in for the visit and her infection was quickly treated. This is a great example of how to be prepared for unexpected illnesses and I'm glad that you also put that bit in about finishing a round of antibiotics completely  

I'm actually an immunologist so it's for sure something that should be emphasized in ANY medical situation, not just for birds. 

Luxie is doing great trying new foods! 

(PS from Korea sweet potatoes with purple skin and yellow flesh are the best so sorry )


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## Cody

Great wet Luxie picture. Thanks for sharing your experience with her illness, it is a perfect example of how important it is to see a vet at the first sign of illness and to have funds put aside to cover the expense. If you had not taken her to the vet when you did, things may have gotten much worse and made the recovery longer and more difficult, and could have possibly required hospitalization, so glad she is back to her normal self. Love the yellow bird, yellow plate, yellow food picture


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## Aozane

StarlingWings said:


> I'm actually an immunologist so it's for sure something that should be emphasized in ANY medical situation, not just for birds.


Yes! I actually had a longer soapbox-speech drafted—we humans need to finish our medications too! Even if we’re feeling better. My parents were both in the medical field, so I’ve had such things drilled into me.



StarlingWings said:


> (PS from Korea sweet potatoes with purple skin and yellow flesh are the best so sorry )


I know the ones you’re talking about! They are pretty great  Sadly these that I made had brown skin


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## Aozane

Cody said:


> Love the yellow bird, yellow plate, yellow food picture


OMG I did not even notice I’d grabbed a yellow plate (the set has three other colors), good photogenic job Past-Me


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## FaeryBee

*Wonderful update and excellent pictures of beautiful Luxie!
I hope all of our members and guests read it.

I'm so glad Luxie is now healthy and happy. You are a great budgie parront!*


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## Aozane

I don’t know about you all, but it’s been a hard summer, for me—like, generally, not specifically in relation to Luxie. Though her getting sick is a straw in the pile on the camel’s back, so-to-speak. Related: you know Seasonal Affective Disorder that some people get in wintertime? Apparently, there’s a summer version  









_”It okay dadther, i loves you and the millets you give me whether you are sad in summer or not”_

But I am on the upswing (probably in part because we’re moving into fall), and with that comes me doing some fall cleaning, baking (having an actual working oven helps too), and taking stock of some long-term goals for Luxie’s health.









_Got a grape-branch perch recently for Luxie from an Etsy sale. She‘ll sit on it occasionally, but not much right now. Maybe if I find a way to get a toy near one of those branches…_

Specifically, I’ve noticed that Luxie hasn’t been eating her pellets anymore. Historically, when she’s hungry but out of seeds, she’s made her way to the pellet bowl and eaten from there, but she’s stopped doing that. I was preparing some food for her the other day, and when I smelled the pellets, they smelled—rancid. If you’ve ever had grains go bad, you know the smell I’m talking about. Luxie seems to have known they had gone bad long before I noticed.

Here’s the thing—Harrison’s used to have a suggestion on their website to mix Red Palm Oil with their pellets. I did this with my first batch, and all seemed fine. When I got my second bag, I needed to look up the ratio of palm-oil-to-pellets that I had used. I found at that point that Harrison’s had removed the suggestion from their website, as far as I can tell. I did manage to find an archived version of the suggestion, and mixed up the pellets again. Luxie was exceptionally interested in eating them when they were fresh, so I think the palm oil was doing its appealing job. However, at this point, I don’t quite know whether it was the palm oil or it was the pellets themselves that went bad, and my confidence in the mixture has waned with this recent pellet rancidness plus the disappearance of the suggestion from the Harrison’s website.

So this is the thing that’s been weighing on me of late about what to do next. Order more Harrison’s and do smaller batches of the palm oil mixing? Skip the palm oil entirely? Or try a different kind of pellets?

















_Me contemplating pellets. Luxie stretching._

I ultimately decided to give a new kind of pellets a try, since I was worried she wouldn’t eat plain Harrison’s due to previous experience with those that had gone bad, and I have to do a cross-country Harrison’s order if I am going to get new pellets. Instead, I decided to see how she liked the Zupreem fruit-blend pellets that many here on the forums have had success with. I like many here are not keen on the sugar content I’ve heard they have, but it also seems like there is a greater number of positives than negatives for them.

When I got Luxie, the pet store had given me a sample of the Zupreem, and they _were_ the budgie-sized ones (“for Small Birds”). BUT Luxie never touched them. They’re too big. I’ve seen on the forum the Canary-sized (so “for Extra Small Birds” size) ones work much better for budgies. According to this week’s experience, this is absolutely true. Luxie was eating the Zupreem within one meal, and I see her back at the pellet bowl regularly now. Her poop has turned significantly browner, more than I’ve seen even with the Harrison’s, which is also a good sign in that it means she is actually eating enough pellets to make a nutritional impact.









_Note the corn that has been dropped into the pellet bowl. She loves to eat her corn “take-out” style, carrying it with her all over and dropping them frequently anywhere but on the plate._

Luxie also seems to really like the sweet potato “dig sites” I make for her. I press corn, Harrison’s mash, pellets (now Zupreem), and seeds into the sweet potato and specifically mix it so she’s got to dig for the seeds. I saw a mention on a casual bird group that budgies specifically can enjoy digging; it makes me think of some forum members having forage boxes, or bead/toy boxes for their budgies to dig through. (I did make a little button pile for Luxie to play with recently, but she had zero interest.)











With regards to the sprouted seeds themselves, I’ve also recently tried letting them soak two days instead of one. Luxie seems to eat them more thoroughly if I do that—she seems to really like chewing on the wild rice in particular, and it gets softer and kind of “bursts” more if it is soaked for two days. She also seems more interested in the lentils if they’re soaked longer. I wonder if I should try cooking the lentils instead.

Next on the agenda: Quinoa. Maybe after this week’s heat wave, though 😑 I also have in the queue trying the Twin Beaks Aviary Herb Salad mentioned in many places here on the forum.









_ Luxie proudly showing off her “morning poop.” “Here’s what I think about your heat, summer”_


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## StarlingWings

Love the updates about Luxie! It’s funny that they always know something is off with the pellets before we do; I had a similar experience with Mallorn re. nutritional content of pellets (during the pandemic shortages, we had to buy a random pellet brand and she started acting weird and foraging for droppings because they had a different nutritional profile than the ZuPreem).

I feel the same way about summer as you do. The heat affects me a lot and I think partially because I become reticent to go outdoors which I think is why some people have SAD during winter (lack of going outdoors, lack of sun, etc). Funnily enough I have these same symptoms during the summer because I have a really high sensitivity to heat and get absolutely miserable. I didn’t realize how much it was affecting me actually until a few days ago, the weather got somewhat more cool and I noticed an immediate mood change when I went outside. Interesting timing with this post, haha, I was recently thinking the same thing myself. Hang in there, fall is coming soon~

Luxie sounds like she’s doing great. Can’t wait to hear more!


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## FaeryBee

*Thank you for the updates! I always love when you post pictures and tell us about Luxie's latest adventures.

Your concern about the pellets/palm oil situation is due to the palm oil going rancid while on the pellets.
To alleviate this problem, when you mix up the batch, use only as much as you think Luxie will eat in one day.
Either refrigerate the remaining pellet/palm oil mixture or divide it into portions which can be used in one day, place them in ice cube trays and freeze them.
You can then thaw one portion on the counter on the day you want to feed it to Luxie.*


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## Aozane

StarlingWings said:


> Love the updates about Luxie! It’s funny that they always know something is off with the pellets before we do; I had a similar experience with Mallorn re. nutritional content of pellets (during the pandemic shortages, we had to buy a random pellet brand and she started acting weird and foraging for droppings because they had a different nutritional profile than the ZuPreem).


Oh wow, now that you mention different foraging activities, I realize Luxie’s stopped “getting into everything” since I got her the new pellets instead of playing—she was going after dried droppings before the new pellets, too. I just thought she was being an ornery bird, so I was doing my best to be patient with her, but now she’s back to playing with toys and seems a lot more content. Thank you for sharing about Mallorn’s experience!



StarlingWings said:


> I feel the same way about summer as you do. The heat affects me a lot and I think partially because I become reticent to go outdoors which I think is why some people have SAD during winter (lack of going outdoors, lack of sun, etc). Funnily enough I have these same symptoms during the summer because I have a really high sensitivity to heat and get absolutely miserable. I didn’t realize how much it was affecting me actually until a few days ago, the weather got somewhat more cool and I noticed an immediate mood change when I went outside. Interesting timing with this post, haha, I was recently thinking the same thing myself. Hang in there, fall is coming soon~


From my research so far, it sounds like Summer SADs is still a bit more of a mystery than Winter SADs. One theory is that for some people there is such a thing as too MUCH sun, and that it messes with our circadian rhythm. Another theory is in fact the heat—it’s possible that for some people, heat contributes to feeling low/depressed/sad. I’m way sensitive to heat, too. It makes me feel just awful, so I also stay indoors all the time in summer, and I really struggle to exercise during summer months. One of the suggestions for treatment is actually AC! I’ve lived in places without AC in the buildings for the past four years, and my summer symptoms have been much worse, as I think back on it. I’ve used a portable AC unit for the bedroom because otherwise I couldn’t sleep, but when I let myself get another unit for the rest of the apartment recently, my mood improved _noticeably_. …I think there are probably more factors to my mood and situation than just this, but every little bit of improvement helps! Oh goodness, I can’t wait for fall 🍁 While I’m not glad we’re suffering, I am grateful to hear I’m not alone in struggling with summer heat.


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## Aozane

FaeryBee said:


> *Your concern about the pellets/palm oil situation is due to the palm oil going rancid while on the pellets.
> To alleviate this problem, when you mix up the batch, use only as much as you think Luxie will eat in one day.
> Either refrigerate the remaining pellet/palm oil mixture or divide it into portions which can be used in one day, place them in ice cube trays and freeze them.
> You can then thaw one portion on the counter on the day you want to feed it to Luxie.*


Thank you for the insight into the situation! I was wondering if it might be the palm oil going bad. I will definitely not mix up a whole bag‘s worth of mixture ever again (or at least not without having enough ice cube trays available for the freezing). Not the most costly mistake I’ve ever made, but I still regret losing the rest of that bag o’ pellets 😭 Learning journey, this.


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## Cody

Aozane said:


> Oh wow, now that you mention different foraging activities, I realize Luxie’s stopped “getting into everything” since I got her the new pellets instead of playing—she was going after dried droppings before the new pellets, too. I just thought she was being an ornery bird, so I was doing my best to be patient with her, but now she’s back to playing with toys and seems a lot more content. Thank you for sharing about Mallorn’s experience!
> 
> 
> 
> From my research so far, it sounds like Summer SADs is still a bit more of a mystery than Winter SADs. One theory is that for some people there is such a thing as too MUCH sun, and that it messes with our circadian rhythm. Another theory is in fact the heat—it’s possible that for some people, heat contributes to feeling low/depressed/sad. I’m way sensitive to heat, too. It makes me feel just awful, so I also stay indoors all the time in summer, and I really struggle to exercise during summer months. One of the suggestions for treatment is actually AC! I’ve lived in places without AC in the buildings for the past four years, and my summer symptoms have been much worse, as I think back on it. I’ve used a portable AC unit for the bedroom because otherwise I couldn’t sleep, but when I let myself get another unit for the rest of the apartment recently, my mood improved _noticeably_. …I think there are probably more factors to my mood and situation than just this, but every little bit of improvement helps! Oh goodness, I can’t wait for fall 🍁 While I’m not glad we’re suffering, I am grateful to hear I’m not alone in struggling with summer heat.


I hate the summer heat and the awful humidity also and stay inside in the AC unless I have to go out, I love the fall also but it seems that here in the Midwest the summer is lasting way beyond what it used to.


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## Aozane

Cody said:


> I hate the summer heat and the awful humidity also and stay inside in the AC unless I have to go out, I love the fall also but it seems that here in the Midwest the summer is lasting way beyond what it used to.


The summers really are worse than they used to be  And Midwest humidity is _wretched_. Climate change/crisis weighs heavily on my mind these days 😭


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## srirachaseahawk

Cody said:


> here in the Midwest the summer is lasting way beyond what it used to.


You say this like it’s a bad thing 😁


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## StarlingWings

srirachaseahawk said:


> You say this like it’s a bad thing 😁


I see you have not been informed this is an “anti summer” convention 🧐

🤣🤣🤣🤣


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## srirachaseahawk

StarlingWings said:


> I see you have not been informed this is an “anti summer” convention 🧐
> 
> 🤣🤣🤣🤣


😁


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## Aozane

srirachaseahawk said:


> You say this like it’s a bad thing 😁


Tell you what, we’ll trade you. You can have the extra summer days, and we’ll take some of your crisp fall and sleep-in-snow-covered winter days.

In the meantime, the anti-summer convention will now adjourn to a session of intense air-conditioned cooling therapy ❄❄❄.

Or bird bath, depending on attendee preference.


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## StarlingWings

Aww, wet birdies are the cutest


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## Aozane

I meant to post a few weeks ago when Luxie had her first hatch-day, but had so much going on I never got to it. So happy belated one-year-old-hatch-day!


























Nothing major to report, though you can see her cere has turned back to the light color (just a teeny bit of the brown flakiness left in the center) and she is well into her autumn molt.









_I collect her feathers, as I saw someone on the forums suggest making ornaments out of them by filling a clear glass ball with them. I love them all, but these two-toned ones are so cool! She loves chewing on the fallen feather quills—she seems to really like long thin things to chew on, so I‘ve looked for toys lately that have thin twiggy-type construction or are made of the rattan like the little colored balls she tosses around._

The big news is that I finally got up the courage and energy to try quinoa (and out of an abundance of caution I washed the living daylights out of it):










…she seems to really like it! Next step is more green in the chop. I hang leaves of various kinds daily around her cage, though it seems like some days she’s just not interested in them (currently she has been documented to eat bok choy, kale, romaine, and will “tolerate” red-leaf lettuce. I know the romaine doesn’t have much to offer her, but she enjoys playing with it like a toy so much. I think she likes spinach but I’ve been avoiding that because of how too much of it isn’t good for her. She gets basil when the plant can spare a leaf.). Still no luck with peppers or peas (from the freezer, at least). I just got some sugar-snap peas, and I did get her to play with one for a while, so I might try to dice those up. I was thinking she might like wheatgrass since she seems to like thinner leaf-like greens, so maybe I’ll try that. I should try and get broccoli back into rotation, and maybe I’ll try cucumber or zucchini or asparagus next. I’ve also pulled back just a little on her seeds, as I’ve observed that she is now appropriately going for the pellet bowls when she is still hungry. Her poop is a nice light brown color, now.









_Pinfeather central! And she still won’t let me near them. To each their own, I suppose!_


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## srirachaseahawk

Happy hatch day to her!
💛


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## Cody

🌟Happy Hatch Day 🌟 she looks so fierce in that last picture with all those pinnies.


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## srirachaseahawk

Cody said:


> 🌟Happy Hatch Day 🌟 she looks so fierce in that last picture with all those pinnies.


The irises sell it!


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## FaeryBee




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## Aozane

Aw thanks, FaeryBee! I was DELIGHTED to see this. I love her wearing the party hat!


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## Aozane

Cody said:


> 🌟Happy Hatch Day 🌟 she looks so fierce in that last picture with all those pinnies.





srirachaseahawk said:


> The irises sell it!


Though she be little, she be fierce ^_^


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## StarlingWings

Aww, happy hatch day, Luxie! What a sweet girl


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## Aozane

The current favorite toy:


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## srirachaseahawk

Those are good ones!


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## Cody

Aozane said:


> The current favorite toy:
> View attachment 264809
> 
> 
> View attachment 264810
> 
> 
> View attachment 264811
> 
> 
> View attachment 264812
> 
> 
> View attachment 264813


Better stock up on those, looks like she is demolishing it quickly


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## Aozane

I’ve had that toy in the cage since I brought her home. This is how it’s gone (though compressed into the course of one year:


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## FaeryBee

*Great pictures. It's funny how they will ignore a toy for months then suddenly its the best one EVER!*


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## srirachaseahawk

FaeryBee said:


> *Great pictures. It's funny how they will ignore a toy for months then suddenly its the best one EVER!*


My boys do this too 🤣


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## Aozane

My baby girl.


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## StarlingWings

She is SO cute. I love her facial expression!

To be honest, she's one of the first budgies I've seen that looks very similar to Mallorn. I guess budgie owners notice after awhile that budgies actually have different faces, like humans do. Luxie really looks like Mallorn sometimes, lol.

I'm putting a picture so you can tell me I'm not crazy... They look alike, right? 🤣


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## Cody

I see it, I know exactly what you mean.


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## FaeryBee

*It is the priceless “I’m so sweet and innocent” expression! 💜💜*


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## Aozane

StarlingWings said:


> She is SO cute. I love her facial expression!
> 
> To be honest, she's one of the first budgies I've seen that looks very similar to Mallorn. I guess budgie owners notice after awhile that budgies actually have different faces, like humans do. Luxie really looks like Mallorn sometimes, lol.
> 
> I'm putting a picture so you can tell me I'm not crazy... They look alike, right? 🤣​


I absolutely agree with you about budgies having different faces! I’ve begun noticing that too as I’ve observed all the different budgie pictures we see here. It’s even more visible when people post multiple birds in one picture. I‘ve also noticed individual budgie preferences in how they pose and move, kind of like how we humans develop frequently-used gestures or postures or walks even as we go about the same general means of movement.

I see a resemblance too—I went and looked at some of the other Mallorn photos on the forum too for further data-gathering. Mallorn is a sweetie! Such pretty coloring.


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## Aozane

Luxie was hanging off the edge of the cage, and on a whim I offered her the pellet bowl, figuring she’d step down onto it.










…She proceeded to delicately pick out bites, continuing to hang off the side of the cage. Meanwhile, I realize I’ve committed to offering her the food and didn’t like the idea of taking it away mid-meal, so I stood awkwardly with the bowl until she finished. The things we do for our birds!

(That pellet bowl is always available, BTW. It just tends to get more attention when I‘m interacting with it…)


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## StarlingWings

I think Luxie likes the food service


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## Aozane

I am very stressed and tired and maybe sick, but Luxie seems to be okay. She graciously consented to playing with a toy in my hand that she has yet to touch hanging up by her playground. I graciously consented to playing with her instead of doing my homework. We both win (sort of).


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## StarlingWings

She is so cute. I’m in a similar situation as you are and I wish I had my little one here with me!! I hope she made you feel better.
So glad she’s doing well and I hope you hang in there too!!


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## Aozane

Luxie has found a science-y post about an experiement in which scientists observed birds climbing to test whether they were using their heads as a “third limb” or not. There is a little video from their high-speed camera; looks like the star performer is a lovebird


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## srirachaseahawk

Aozane said:


> View attachment 265447
> 
> 
> 
> Luxie has found a science-y post about an experiement in which scientists observed birds climbing to test whether they were using their heads as a “third limb” or not. There is a little video from their high-speed camera; looks like the star performer is a lovebird


They should have included a Linnie


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## Aozane

srirachaseahawk said:


> They should have included a Linnie


Thought of Hemi and Kingston when I saw this:


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## srirachaseahawk

Aozane said:


> Thought of Hemi and Kingston when I saw this:
> View attachment 265450


100%
And it doesn’t help that they molt so slowly. Kingston is a year old now and still working on growing his feathers back from his baby clip…


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## Aozane

srirachaseahawk said:


> 100%
> And it doesn’t help that they molt so slowly. Kingston is a year old now and still working on growing his feathers back from his baby clip…


Wow, that is slow! Luxie is on her third molt in her life already and she’s only a little older than Kingston, if I recall. Though, do your potats seem more consistent in mood and energy level instead of swinging back and forth through molts?


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## srirachaseahawk

Aozane said:


> Wow, that is slow! Luxie is on her third molt in her life already and she’s only a little older than Kingston, if I recall. Though, do your potats seem more consistent in mood and energy level instead of swinging back and forth through molts?


They are pretty consistent, yes. Kingston took a while to get over his bluffing stage, but now it’s all good. 
Hemi is still very chill, Kingston is a bit more high strung. But, they are consistently that way, so I know what to expect.


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## FaeryBee

*I sure hope you're feeling better now!
Luxie was very kind to ensure you weren't bored. *


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## Aozane

Luxie, I think you might—there’s something on your—you’ve got a—never mind.


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## FaeryBee

*Aww, the feather looks like a little “fascinator hat” ! 
So cute. *


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## Aozane

“Dadther is cleaning and rearranging my cage HOW DARE HE WORST CHRISTMAS EVER”
















“_chirp-grumble_”


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## srirachaseahawk

She looks so grumbly! 🤣


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## Aozane

CHOP.



















I’m on winter break right now, and I’ve finally gotten enough energy together to make a proper chop—and even so, I did it in stages over three four+ days.

Day 1: roasted sweet potatoes. Chopped up two kinds of kale. (Washed thoroughly and) cooked quinoa. Added some frozen corn.

Day 2: steamed radishes and green beans and I think broccoli. Food-processed them and added to the mix. Also added some bits of brussel sprout.

Day 3: microwaved some frozen butternut squash, as well as a package of riced sweet potato + cauliflower. Added the rest of the old package of frozen corn.

Day 4: began the process of freezing it, because I put all this work into making it, I’m going to try and make it last.



















…I originally got these little trays to make A.) round ice cubes and B.) round gelatin/desserty things, but I decided to try and freeze the chop in them for “bird serving sizes.”



















(…yes there are also seeds on it, which Luxie was more interested in eating than the chop. I’ve since modified my approach to serving chop “on its own” so she doesn’t just pick out the seeds and leave it.)

…After all this, here are my thoughts as I continue to work on getting Luxie to eat her vegetables:

1.) She LOVED being involved in the making process (as you probably can see from the pictures). Me letting her explore the chop as it was being made seemed to create a positive experience with it. (I wonder too if there is a kind of flock mentality here too, of her wanting to be involved with what she sees the rest of the flock ”playing” with in the kitchen?)

2.) She loved the giant bowl of chop far more than she seems interested in her little scoops of it. I wonder if this is part of why some aviary rescues I see with flocks of budgies and other small birds—places that make a giant pile of chop daily for these birds—seem to have a lot of success at encouraging veggie consumption? She hopped right into the bowl and foraged around in the giant pile of chop very happily. I don’t really have the resources (energy-wise or financially) to make big bowls of chop daily, so I’m trying to figure out how to make the smaller portions more appealing.

3.) I initially offered only one scoop, but I might have to offer two or three at a time to approximate the “large bowl” feel without having to make the whole bowl. The only downside of this is that it depletes my store of it far more quickly. …Though I suppose that does better ensure no freezer-burn-type damage to the frozen chop.

4.) I might try sprinkling some mash on the chop scoop too when I serve it.

5.) I do try to spend time poking at the chop scoop with my “hand budgies” once it has defrosted to encourage her to interact with it. Eating together is a flock/bonding activity, so my understanding is that it increases chances of success when I spend the time poking at the chop with her instead of just plunking it in the cage and leaving. Mileage for this varies with me, but I’ve seen enough of her digging at the chop due to me poking at it that it seems worth it to continue.

6.) I have noticed that shifting between chop and leaves clipped to the cage or a sweet potato “dig site” seems to encourage Luxie to eat more of what is offered, because birds do enjoy—and are enriched by—variety.

…I found a list of various things to include in the chop, as birds also like lots of things and variety (so that might be some of what will affect my success too, is if Luxie is all “ugh the same frozen chop AGAIN”)—orange veggies, dark green veggies, grains, legumes, etc.—and I suppose in an ideal world win which I have limitless energy (and freezer space) I would make several versions of chop and cycle through them. I did also read that you can “top” the chop with different things to create variety, like a bit of fruit such as pomegranate or mango, spices like basil or garlic or dill (NEVER salt or onion), or something like chia seeds or sprouts.

Winter quarter starts soon, so hopefully this freezing effort will mean I can still work on getting Luxie her vegetables even when I am way too busy and completely drained from unreasonable grad school work loads.


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## FaeryBee

*Very well done and your assistant is beautiful!*


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## Cody

Looks good and you can eat the leftovers


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