**KAZ**

I once had a pair who developed scalyface while raising chicks and feeding their chicks. Of course I was worried thinking it was highly contagious. But I treated them and allowed them to continue feeding their babies. One of their babies got scalyface................. Three years later. I am of the opinion ( right or wrong ) birds can carry things........even scalyface and it only takes hold once their immune system is down.

I dont think the flock is at risk and I applaude you for close observation and good choices made to remedy the whole situation. Well done

Hope I breed some BIG ONES Splat

Thats really sad People should think first.......not everything GREEN is safe food or safe enough to be in a budgies cage. A hard lesson to learn.

Temperature of an empty box and temperature of a box with chicks in is entirely different JB. If the weather is hot enough in the birdroom to make you sweat it is likely too hot for bird breeding BUT if you can get a couple of the old bonaire water coolers and afford to run them it all helps too.

Thanks everyone. So, Kax, how do you know it's not blue and what's with the white down = opaline? As I asked previously, is there anywhere I can find out what I need to look for (i.e. colour of down, pin feathers etc.) in order to work out what colour and variety my chicks are? Tip of tailfeathers poking out of the feather shaft look dark green to me. White down on a chick is an early sign of opaline. Mostly you can tell a chick will be spangle by the middle two tailpins being clear in comparison to the others. With some other mutations the colour of the tailpins also shows before anything else what the chick will be.

There's differing ideas of how hot is hot. If your breeding room has a fairly high height to the roof it will keep cooler. The average shed of around 1800 high will be too hot, where a height of around 2400 to 2700 will be better. If you have a skylight thats where the heat comes in in summer. My skylight to my birdroom lets heat in through summer. I put a large sheet of lattice covered with shadecloth up there in summer to shade the skylight. It makes a huge difference. Is there trees for shade over the birdroom ? It helps. Airflow and cooling draughts and breezes are also important in cooling down a birdroom or shed. Being able to open doors at the right time of day and still have mesh inner doors for safety is good. February gets way too hot. If its too hot for parents to stay in the nestboxes and the chicks are laying prostrate and breathing hard it s a sign you should have stopped breeding weeks ago. If there isnt enough light in the shed your breeding results will suffer too. If you want to breed through summer and your conditions arent quite right look for alternatives.....like garage or spare room in the house with airconditioning.

Not blue But hen chick

Thanks heaps Rob You are a star

Here's some ( not all ) of my new birds..............photos taken in holding cage before leaving for W.A. I collect them tomorrow from the airport. Click on picture for slideshow The Chidel grey spangle cock I bought is your hens cousin

a bird split for recessive will get a blue cere if male. Its only a visual recessive males that dont when we are discussing recessives and ceres.

Lentradirect you meant

My favourite best purchase at the auction is an opaline green spangle of Allan Reids. Really long mask and feather to die for

I wouldnt worry too much at this stage, hormones are at play and the cere will colour up soon enough.

Pictures will have to wait ( at least mine anyway ) till I get back to W.A. Having a laugh here with GB.......she's one really funny gal. What a sense of humour. We led each other astray with the birds and meeting the bigwigs of the breeding fraternity.

I think the dearest bird was $3100 lot 65 gazzard. lot 37 clint ault went for $2750 Fellows birds went pretty high in price too. There were bargains to be had as well even in the top breeders birds. i got a chidel grey spangle lot 16 for $320 (pictured in catalogue ) My favourite would be a light green op spangle cock of Allan Reid I bought ...lot 142 and Rob bought a relative of it. Both great birds. I bought two clearwings for Ron Minn and a fallow split for Gina. We have all the prices recorded. 15 birds for me

You are so right JB.....I believe I got some very very nice birds and very nice to meet you too JB

The morning of the day I left for Melbourne one of the best chicks that fledged was attacked and killed by its mother. Best blue chick I had seen come through for quite some time. Left the other blue chick alone which isnt a patch on the one she killed.

Latest news is our offer on this house has been accepted so we will be moving. If anyone wants to buy a house in Perth with great purpose built birdroom and aviaries our house in Beechboro is for sale

Nice wet and cold weather. Not like Perth right now. Looking forward to the auction. Staying with budgie friends, the Dunstans. Hoping to see and meet up with some people at the auction too.

I am in Melbourne ready for the auction on Saturday

Hi Erin and welcome You say the mum is doing a great job. How is the Dad ? Also ...not sure if you are aware or not but the presence of a nestbox will make the budgies breed themselves to death literally, so as soon as the babies leave the nest you may want to remove all nestboxes so they get a little holiday. Also, any nestboxes in a colony breeding aviary will force the babies to breed too early, so sometimes you have to have somewhere for the babies to grow up and away from nestboxes. Best and safest breeding ages are between 1 and 4 yrs of age. There's a few of us on bbc forum who are in Perth

They are pretty ugly Getting huge real fast too.

More than any other birds...............babies have very little immune system. They must NEVER be put with new incoming birds. More Parents getting blame again

What are the other ones in the cage ? Did you put them in with your babies ?