Java News!
Today we both had a massive clean out of the bird rooms.

Photo of the month : There was a big bike gathering on Paignton sea front the 5th biggest in the UK me and Tom had to go and have a look, it was a good afternoon in the sunshine.

Now the java's have finished breeding this is a good time to scrub out their cages after four months of breeding, this time I don't need to re-paint the cages as they are all still in good condition, I use a product called (aviary scrub) I have mentioned this before (see January 10th )

I like to replace all the parches at this time, also the punch bar cage fronts are also scrubbed using a stiff brush.

Here they are all looking as good as new! ready for the next lot of breeding, it's nice to be able to bring all the cages outside for cleaning, it makes life much easer, I have always used built in cages in the past, with all the cages out I have scrubbed the bird room from top to bottom, plus all the nest boxes, tomorrow I will clean the internal flights, time just run out today!

Budgie News!

This week has been one of my busy weeks in the month, I feel it is good practice and essential for the health of the birds to keep them clean, every week I give the walls a good wash and clean the drinkers (I do this in the week as well) but at the weekends they get a good soak, I also do the same to all food containers and this regime I do every week however one in every four weeks I do what I call a big clean, which involves all of the above but I also remove all the old dry bird on the floor and replace with new, I also give a thorough clean to all perches, ladders and swings

All of these chores take time and effort, and I have found a way to make this easier there is a product called aviary scrub you buy it in a concentrated strength and dilute it to a spray container, I spray this stuff on anything that needs a clean and I use it to wash all drinkers and feeding pots, then leave it for five minuets and that’s it all done it de-grimes and protects against many infections.
This is good stuff and saves time on cleaning which is a good thing on any account and not only which it has a nice smell that lasts a day or two also a good thing in my opinion, details of where to get this are on my website have ago you will notice a big difference.

Java News!

With all the Java's together the small drinking vessels are emptying to quickly so I got a bigger one as you can see in the photo, the only trouble was hanging it on the wire with out it falling off, I gave up in the end and built a platform to hold it, just to bits of wood in an L shape and an extension off this to hold a parch, the ring holder which came with the drinker I drilled a hole in the back and screwed it to the wood, now I found a good places in the flight and screwed the whole thing to the framework, to change the water I only need to pull the drinker out of the ring and replace when replenished.

Budgie News!

This week I thought I would show you what food I use for the adult parents to feed their chicks, the base is any basic dried egg food I add one table spoon per cage, to this I add two handfuls of groats half a teaspoon of powdered seaweed and one measure of baby milk.

then I add about 2-3 tablespoons of water and again give a good mix, the birds love this and often the male bird waits by the cage door to get this food. I also give this to the babies have fledged the nest and are in holding cages and as they have been feed this mixture as babies they also enjoy this mix. This is given one a day to all parents and babies.

This week I have updated my own website go have a look at my new index page, also have a look at my clubs website they have a nest feather young bird and rare variety show coming up.

Java News!

Off Topic this week: I was walking down to the bird room today and this little bird was sitting on the garden fence chirping away, I could not resist getting the camera out with in seconds of getting the camera the parent bird landed next to the baby to feed it.

I had a 16 year old lad e-mail today asking me to put a link on my website for him, he breeds Zebra finches and has built him self a website on his hobby, it's always nice to here from young up and coming bird keepers, after visiting his well made website I put a link on my site, give his site a visit | LINK |

Sitting on our neighbors roof watching down on me was this seagull.

Budgie News!
Tom as been out most of the day with Jeff Attwood and a few of our club members, they all went to Truro in Cornwall to a budgie seminar and meal to hear the guest speaker Mick Freakley the winner of best in show at the B.S in Doncaster 2008.

Here we go again building part 2 of Tom's bird room, the out door flight.

This week we are starting to make the base for the flight to stand on, firstly we needed to buy some 40mm x 40mm angle iron to make the stakes, each stake is cut to 12" lengths and two holes drilled at one end to enable us to bolt them to the 3" x 2" base wood.