Sailorwolf

The only way we can describe it is if you tell us which pied types you are talking about as the different pied types work in different ways.

I have never specialised in Goldenfaces. I was going on what I had learned from the forum, which as the current yellowface vs goldenface topic has thrown up, is that, none of us are very clear on it. My statement was not an insult to your intelligence, so I am confused as to why you took it that way. You did not specify that you were a goldenface specialist. How am I supposed to know? Personally, I don't yet have time to breed any birds, due to my studies, but would like to, sometime in the future.

Normal skyblue hen with a tendency towards scones.

I wouldn't really want to breed brother and sister together. Budgies as a rule are quite fairly inbred. By further inbreeding them you are more likely to get problems and undesirable mutations appearing. Genetically it is not good for the babies.

Well, either way, I think that the person you got them off of should know that their flock is carrying the disease. As in, I think it would be a good idea to inform them.

I seem to have all goldenfaces, possibly yellow faces. What do you think of these ones Dean? (Apologies to people who have seen these pictures about a million times before) I will leave out the goldenface and yellowface descriptions in their description, because I'm not really sure. This one is mother (with a normal blue cock) to the following (there was also a cobalt whitefaced clearwing/fullbody colour greywing spangle in the clutch too (I can't tell if they are clearwings or fullbody colour greywings)) DF spangle, clearwing/greywing fullbody colour, possibly mauve. (known from breeding) Cobalt spangle Cinnamon cobalt spangle Cobalt opaline spangle Violet opaline cinnamon spangle The following are mum and dad of the following Mauve clearwing/grey wing fullbody colour spangle Mum Skyblue normal Dad Clearwing/fullbody colour greywing cobalt spangle Their offspring This pair also had a whiteface violet opaline. They've all had flash used on them, as they appear much more vibrant in real life.

He probably has Psitticine Beak and Feather disease, which is more likely than French moult by your description. Unfortunately it is untreatable. Take him to your avian vet and get him checked out. It might also be a good Idea to tell the guy that you bought him off of that this is happening too.

I hope you have fun! It is actually quite satisfying knowing that you haven't been on the internet for 1 day, let alone a week. (I didn't even go on the internet yesterday, I was amazed at myself)

The boys can be infertile and still have a blue cere. A lack of testosterone or an increased amount of oestrogen is what causes their cere to go brown. Infertility can be caused by decreased sperm count, damaged germ cells etc etc. Also if his butt is too fluffy, the feathers will get in the way when he mates. You can clip his feathers around the vent or pluck them.

I wonder if New Zealand has all three varieties

Arora Phyllis Phoebe Vittoria (not victoria) Stella Nereid Scylla Sprite Aquila (eagle in spanish) Oceana Athena Adelaide Artemis Juno Hera Calliope Cassiopiea Venus Aphrodite Freya

Hopefully it is a benign tumour and won't trouble her.

Sorry to hear about your losses Dodger and you too Kaz.

I'm sorry to hear about Tilly. Did they say what kind of tumour it was?

Hi and welcome to the forum. I'm sorry to hear your hen is sick. I hope she pulls through okay.

I cannot agree with treating birds with antibiotic when it has not been prescribed for a sickness. Many on the forum know how I feel about the use of antibiotics and they are probably rolling their eyes as they read this, but I do not agree with using antibiotics as a 'preventative' especially on such a large scale. The reason why so many birds probably have chlamydia now is because of the overuse of doxycycline (and other anitbiotics and other bacteria) in breeding programs. An overuse of antibiotics leads to resistance in the targeted bacteria and other bacteria affected by the drug. If the bacteria are not completely wiped out then the ones that survive are resistant to the antibiotic and they reproduce to create more and more resistant bacteria. If you do not believe resistance occurs then look at some of our hospitals, many have been colonised by resistant bacteria that arose from people being prescribed antibiotics for colds or other silly things, or people who did not finish their course of antibiotics or did not take them as they were instructed. What people need to understand is that abuse of antibiotics leads to resistance which means that that drug will no longer work any more and we have to find new drugs. No new drugs have been discovered for a while. I think the figures were something like: two thirds of the antibiotics that we used to use can no longer be used today. There is no need to fix something that isn't broken. Plus if you have already treated your birds last year for it and introduced no new birds (unlikely I know, but even then if all birds came out of quarantine healthy), you do not need to do it again. Also putting them through antibiotic treatment kills many of their internal flora, giving them gut ache, diarrhoea and a chance for more pathogenic bacteria to colonise the recently empty spot, and can even encourage some fungal diseases. Any resistant bacteria that you create are likely to colonise you as well (they often like to live up your nose), this will mean that you can spread it around to other people's aviaries, make their birds sick with a resistant bacteria . Then what happens if you become sick with the resistant chlamydia? Luckily for us doctors have some potent back up antibiotics, but the question remains: How long will these back up antibiotics work for? I just don't believe in doing that.

I know this is a bit late and I am sorry for your loss, but: He is not a dark green he is a bright green.

Woohoo, that's awesome.

Even if she did eat it, she wouldn't be able to fit a whole cuttlefish shell in her crop and gizzard

Yes there is such a thing as calcium overdose. I would doubt she actually ate all of the cuttlefish though, rather shredding it instead. I also do not think that the cuttlefish shell would have enough calcium in it to cause that. If you are at all worried about her and she begins to look ill then take her to a vet. But I don't think the cuttlefish is enough to cause that. I've had birds almost completely destroy the cuttlefish shell in one day. You'll probably find most of it on the bottom of the cage all shredded up into little pieces.

Interesting, so if that is the case, a Yf2 is not a fault of Yf1, it is an entirely different gene. Wouldn't it make more sense if the different yellowface types would be different alleles of the same gene. (I have no idea how they work, just theorising here), or at least on the same chromosome? It is hard to tell without actually writing up the genome for a white face, a YF1, YF2 and a GF as phenotypically they overlap each other. Which we all know hasn't happened yet. They probably haven't even got the genome of a budgie yet.

If the mice pee and poop on your hand then it is a good idea to wash your hands before feeding your birds. Yes I agree with Dave. That way you can let both out without worrying about who's attacking who. My chinchilla lives in the same room as my budgies currently (soon she will not, I'm staying with family currently), but I take her out of the room when I let my budgies out. Because even though she is a herbivore, if something lands on her cage she goes to inspect it and will bite it to see if it is edible.

When they are older it can mean they have a tumour in the testes.

I know this because Bacardi, the hen in question, has only 1 Xchromosome, the other is a Y, this is what makes her a female bird. She got the Y from her mother and the X from her father. So on her one X chromosome she has both cinnamon and opaline, because the Y chromosome is too short and does not contain all the genes that the X chromosome contains and thus many genes on the X chromosome go unchallenged and present as dominant. Her father is Izzy, a normal blue. He is carrying opaline and cinnamon, but only one copy of each gene, because he is a normal. It could be possible for him to have both cinnamon and opaline on only one of his X chromosomes, but that would mean that the other two hens he produced would be ether normal or cinnamon opaline. They were not. One hen was cinnamon and the other was opaline, indicating that these two hens received different X chromosomes from their father. One carried only the opaline and one carried only the cinnamon. Bacardi was a product of crossover whereby Izzy's two X chromosomes must have switched parts of themselves and one of those parts contained either the opaline or cinnamon gene. Effectively taking the gene from one X chromosme and putting it on the other, leaving one chromosome with 2 genes and one with none. This would occur in meiosis, thereby not affecting Izzy's genome at all, but occurring in the duplicate sets of chromosomes created when gametes are created, in Izzy's case; his sperm. If I were to breed Bacardi, one of her granddaughters will be cinnamon opaline, because the genes are unlikely to become unlinked.

So therefore Neville the big question is: Are yellow face type 1 and type 2 on the same chromosome or are they separate?