great pictures as usual!!! (and yeah, the YouTube videos are pretty cool, some quite educational as well for health and other bird subjects) For egg laying, candling, and hatching issues, the backyard and commercial chicken sites are a great source of info, they have all the developement stages mapped out.
Single parrots, and parakeets too, will adopt their human owner as their flock, lots of mimicry and human words.
As you get more and more birds:eek: they tend to relate more to each other and less to humans unless you handle them daily. They mimic each others calls.
Birds which dont even like each other at all, will call and call if one them gets left behind during bedtime putaways… let alone bonded ones…they just have insane separation anxiety(outside aviary to inside safe cages)
A good way to retrieve a bird who has escaped, is to wander around with another bird in a cage, who will call for them, and then you can try and coax them home…or get the ladders out…I learned the hard way that the little wing trimming is really a life saver for everyone…(keeps me from falling out of the trees too)
Early events seem to imprint them for life, I have some birds that just hate fingers, but will “step up” onto ladders quite easily.
New people into the aviary, new hats, new sunglasses etc…then the little dinosaur comes out:D Even the budgies can chomp pretty hard. I’ll try and post some pics/vids when I get a some tech issues figured out.
Merry Christmas from Otca and Aqua, who fledged today!:
Bonus video of Christmas Budgies! (sorry for the fan in the background):
They fell asleep while playing yesterday:
Everybody is doing great and today is the first day since they arrived that I didn’t feel they were going to die! Mom is feeding them like crazy and I’ve got the cage all set up with various ladders and perches so they can go up when they want to. They haven’t figured that part out, yet.
They’re like weird little puppies, especially Otca. They love being petted and skritched all over and will roll over onto their sides for tummy rubs - it’s the cutest thing I’ve ever seen. They’re just adorable. Otca is turning into a bit of a clown, he’s all goofy and loves to wrestle with my fingers. Aqua is a bit more dignified and calm but loves attention just as much.
I’m so pleased with them. 
Totally squeeable birdies!
What does “fledged today” mean? Does it mean they’ve left the nest? made their first flight? I always thought it meant “grew feathers” but I guess that isn’t it.
Well I don’t know if they have to have completely abandoned the nest to be considered fledged but they’ve both successfully left the box, explored and then crawled back in.
Mom wants them up in the cage full-time though and is strongly encouraging them with super loud calls. I’ve been holding them up for her to feed which is nice because I can tell exactly how much each of them has eaten. They’re both taking teeny tiny bits of egg from my finger, drinking water from their favourite red, plastic spoon, eating some seeds and mouthing the ones that they can’t figure out.
I’ve been spending a lot of time with them because I don’t know how long this adorable phase will last so I’m taking advantage of it.
They loved the felt stocking yesterday! What a Merry Christmas with these lovely little babies
Please keep posting pictures of these adorable babies–it keeps my mind off politics 
I keep reading that as Octa and Eosa. Wouldn’t you rather name them after Saxon warlords ;)?
Oops, I spelled his name wrong, it’s Octa! But yes, he is very warlord like. Well that or a squeaky baby bird 
Aren’t you turning them into cannibals by feeding them … egg?? 
I’m back at my computer for the first time since Xmas Eve and this has been a delight to catch up on. Thank you! I especially liked the video and their darling moments of confusion! You can tell they’re learning more about what their wings do and what they can expect from their nest-mates.
Green, Octa and Aqua (can you tell who is who??):
Climbing and exploring and learning about their world:
But they still love their box:
They had a jacuzzi in the sink last night and just loved it. Especially the warm running water that made a lovely noise. I didn’t have my phone with me so no pictures but I’ll do it again tonight and make sure to take a video.
Momma doesn’t seem to quite get the whole weaning thing and is feeding them like crazy. I thought she’d feed them slightly less to encourage them to eat on their own but they are still progressing well with mouthing seeds and eating the ones they can.
I showed them a little silver, jingly bell and they promptly attacked it and then starting biting each other! I broke up the little brawl and put the bell away. I also clipped their wings so that they can learn about their environment a bit more safely than flying into things. Nobody has taken off yet though. I don’t normally keep my budgies wings clipped because I think it’s good for them to fly around but it just seems safer for the babies right now.
They love crawling into anything warm and soft and earlier I had them both up the sleeve of the flannel pajama top I was wearing. I had to lay on the bed to carefully take it off so they didn’t get smushed.
Oh geez, cuddling with baby budgies. What a cute mental image. ::melts::
Sounds like you’ve raised 'em up pretty good!!
Sweet mama, wanting them to be fat and happy. I look greatly forward to the budgie Jacuzzi footage!
Budgie bath time! They weren’t into it today so it’s very short. They are also 1 month old today - we made it!!
Because they are so tame, they’ve actually taught their mom that I’m not scary at all. She sees them crawling all over me and comes and pecks at me. They’ve also taught her to try different foods. They’ve been munching on broccoli and she tried it too. They’re still far from weaned though and she seems happy to keep on feeding them but that also means I have to keep hand-feeding her :smack:
They have a serious hate-on for bells. If I hold a bell in front of them, or they find one of the many various bells in the cages, they turn into hooligans. They have me wrapped around their little feathery toes though and last night they both squeaked when I put them to bed in their box so I found myself, at 9:30, standing in the dark with a sleeping budgie in each hand.
I probably won’t give too many more updates. While adorable to me, the pictures are all starting to look the same - two or three green budgies doing stuff
The pictures are adorable to me too! Little chubby baby budgies finding about the world for the first time - I pounce on your thread every time I see it pop back up to the top of the page.
Hey, it sorta fills the hole left by the “We have pigeons” thread going away.
Me too! Can’t get enough of these 2. Plus I felt we lived through the OP’s angst worrying that the little suckers wouldn’t make it.
I can not believe how stressful it has been raising these two. :eek:
Here are some more pictures because I can’t help myself!
Miss Aqua, rolling over on her side so that I can give her belly rubs:
This one is special to me. During the sleepless nights, power outages, beak trapped shut, 4 am feedings and days of wondering if they’d live, I’d thinking to myself that if they make it, I’ll one day be able to have two budgies sitting on my finger:
You did an amazing job, and I’m so pleased we got to follow along!