Do you put Calciboost in their water or their food? Does 'diluted' work well? Is this as critical for males? Should the water be changed every day? I have a variety of water places for my birds that are changed almost every day .

I haven't seen Calciboost around & am quite ignorant about this product.

I've read this from a number of budgie breeders. I don't know why cuttlebone seems to be different from other calcium sources. But I used to have a female budgie once that was eggbound and at that time I still feeded cuttlebone. The female did eat huge amounts of it just before she got eggbound (there are no breeding-boxes in my aviary, but she wanted to lay eggs anyway).
And my birds have an ultraviolet lamp so that they do get at least some artificial daylight.
After that I removed the cuttlebone and did not have that problem any more.

As far as I know, Calciboost can only be acquired over the net, I've never seen it in any petstore but there are million of websites that carry it.

And yes, diluted works just fine. It's made to go in the water and the directions tell you the proportions. It's sweet, transparent and odorless so the birds drink it without a problem.

And yes, both males and females need calcium. Females need more when laying, obviously! but males need it, too. Calcium is the largest concentrated mineral in any living body. And it's not just used to make bones, it supports the nervo-vegetative system, it gives elasticity to muscles, it's needed for normal blood clotting, it controls the passage of fluid through cells, it allows for proper vit B12 absorption, it's involved in fat and protein digestion, it mediates the synthesis and production of enzymes and hormones and even regulates heart beat! Bodies cannot live without enough calcium BUT an excess of it is also dangerous so one needs to be very careful as to how much and how often Calciboost is given and a very thorough evaluation of the diet and environment needs to be made before deciding on the proper dosage. I give mine very little during the warm weather months because all the windows in the birdroom are open and, as it has exposure to the east and the west, there is always sunshine shining in and birds do love to bask in it and actually look for it. It's rare the day that I walk in and don't find a number of them sitting or laying on the windowsills just chilling under the sunshine but I do give laying females some extra for good measure. In the winter, I usually give them some once every other week but my birds do not eat any animal products with the exception of hard boiled egg for the female canaries during breeding time and the very seldom treat for the parrots so, if your birds get animal products on a regular basis, they are already getting vit D3 from it (no vegetal contains any vit D3, only animals produce it). And, if they are exposed to direct sunlight, cuttlebone or any other external source is more than enough.

Please don't use UV lamps on birds. Contrary to what the petstore employees and manufacturers tell you, they are not meant for birds but for reptiles. Avian vision is completely different from reptilian and the UV lamps can and have burned birds' corneas. As a matter of fact, somebody I know just had a real bad experience with a cockatiel precisely because of exposure to an UV lamp. The bird went blind and would not eat because of the terrible pain he was suffering. She almost lost him.

Hmm, but the daylight lamp I have was made especially for birds, not for reptiles. It is a self-ballasted lamp so that it is adapted to the fast bird's vision. I never heard that these lamps could be dangerous to birds? And I know quite some people who use them. Maybe it's really a difference if the lamp was made for birds or for reptiles?
I only heard of birds that went blind after being exposed to an infrared lamp because some birds tend to stare right into the light.

There are no lamps created for birds except for Spectra lights. All other claims are false advertising.

You can check out the SpectraBird lights here:

LINK: SpectraBird Lights

I use them and highly recommend them. If you do a search on the board for SpectraBird lighting, we have had quite a few threads about them and their creator Patrick Thrush has given us a lot of good information to learn from.

I have one of these:

Arcadia - Bird Lamp

and those were especially made for birds, but I'm not sure if these are available in the US. These are full spectrum lights, it's probably about the same as the SpectraBird lamp I'd say.

I don't use lighting, not even available in sunny South Africa, we have single glazing thin glass over the windows. Mostly my birds spend days outside so they get natural sunlight. Calcium supplement here is a mix of phosphorus and calcium since the sun readily provides D3.

I gave Pogo & Ziggy a chance to each some grit tonight. It's been a few months since I offered it to them. The go for it like it's sugar coated millet or something ... I mean they were about fighting over the grit. There is no doubt that their brains are programmed to require this grit. I plan on offering it to them once every couple of months so they get some, but at a limited amount.

Anyone else decide to give a little grit now and then who didn't before?