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The Critter Digest

Care guides, health deep dives, pet laws, wild animal features and more.

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A budgerigar chick still in the nest box beside an adult budgie, the vulnerable unweaned stage when avian polyomavirus is most dangerous

Birds

Avian Polyomavirus: Budgerigar Fledgling Disease and French Molt

A virus that can kill an unweaned budgie chick in days and leave the survivors with feathers that never grow back right. Here's what avian polyomavirus actually does, and how to tell it apart from PBFD.

Sep 4, 202611 min

A cockatiel perched on one foot with feathers loosely fluffed and eyes bright, beside an illustration of a sick bird huddled low on both feet with feathers puffed tight and eyes half closed

Birds

Reading Bird Body Language: Fluffed Content vs. Fluffed Sick

A fluffed-up bird can be a content bird settling in for a nap, or a sick bird losing body heat it can't spare. Here's how to tell the two apart, plus beak grinding, eye pinning, one-foot sleep, tail fanning, and crest position.

Sep 4, 202610 min

An avian veterinarian gently palpating a small parrot's abdomen to check for a bound egg

Birds

Chronic Egg Laying and Egg Binding in Budgies, Cockatiels, and Lovebirds

A single hen with no mate in sight will still lay, and lay, and lay again. It is not a curiosity, it is a slow drain on her calcium and body reserves that ends, for some birds, in an egg that will not come out.

Sep 4, 20269 min

A mixed group of budgies perched at spaced-out intervals along several different perches inside a large flight aviary, with multiple food and water stations visible

Birds

Colony and Aviary Keeping: Budgies, Canaries, and Finches in Groups

Budgies, canaries, and finches are the small birds people actually keep in groups, and a group is not a bigger version of a single-bird cage. Space, feeding stations, sex ratios, and nest sites all change once a third bird joins.

Sep 4, 202610 min

A small parrot in a soft-sided travel carrier with a perch, sitting next to a flashlight and a covered cage during a power outage

Birds

Bird Emergency Plan: Power Outages, Travel, and Transport

For a reptile, a power outage means stop feeding and find heat. For a bird, it is almost the opposite, and the real danger isn't the cold, it's what people burn trying to fix it.

Sep 4, 20269 min

A HEPA air purifier running on a hard floor beside a cockatoo's cage in a well-ventilated living room

Birds

Feather Dust, Air Quality, and Bird Fancier's Lung

Cockatoos, African greys, and cockatiels shed keratin dust every day of the year. For a small number of owners, breathing it in for years causes a real lung disease, called bird fancier's lung, and almost nobody connects the cough to the parrot until a doctor is told about it.

Sep 4, 202610 min

Close-up of a cockatiel's wing showing several white pin feathers still in their keratin sheaths alongside mature feathers

Birds

Why Is My Bird Losing Feathers? Molt vs. Plucking vs. PBFD vs. Giardia

A normal molt, a plucking habit, PBFD, and a cockatiel-specific parasite can all look like the same bald patch. Here's how to tell them apart before you rearrange the cage.

Sep 4, 202610 min

A cockatiel perched beside a small first aid kit with styptic powder, nail clippers, and a folded hand towel laid out on a table

Birds

Bird First Aid Kit and Grooming: Nails, Beak, and Blood Feathers

A cockatiel-sized bird first aid kit and grooming basics: the nail trim technique, the towel restraint you teach rather than impose, blood feather first aid, and the overgrown beak sign that isn't actually a grooming problem.

Sep 4, 20269 min

A budgie standing between a dish of seed mix and a dish of pelleted bird food, mid-conversion between the two diets

Birds

Converting a Seed-Eating Bird to Pellets Without Starving It

An all-seed diet is missing enough that it can swell a bird's thyroid until it wheezes, and the fix, switching to pellets, has to be done slowly enough that the bird never stops eating.

Sep 4, 202610 min

A gray cockatiel standing on a perch mounted to a digital gram scale, with a hand gently checking the keel bone along its breastbone

Birds

Sexing, Weight, and Body Condition in Pet Birds: What Actually Works

Most parrots can't be sexed by looking at them, and most bird owners never weigh their bird at all. Here's what actually works for both, in grams, not guesswork.

Sep 4, 202610 min

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The Critter Digest

Avian Polyomavirus: Budgerigar Fledgling Disease and French Molt

Reading Bird Body Language: Fluffed Content vs. Fluffed Sick

Chronic Egg Laying and Egg Binding in Budgies, Cockatiels, and Lovebirds

Colony and Aviary Keeping: Budgies, Canaries, and Finches in Groups

Bird Emergency Plan: Power Outages, Travel, and Transport

Feather Dust, Air Quality, and Bird Fancier's Lung

Why Is My Bird Losing Feathers? Molt vs. Plucking vs. PBFD vs. Giardia

Bird First Aid Kit and Grooming: Nails, Beak, and Blood Feathers

Converting a Seed-Eating Bird to Pellets Without Starving It

Sexing, Weight, and Body Condition in Pet Birds: What Actually Works

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