**KAZ**

A lot of this has been discussed in the rabbit pellet topic and also in other places My thoughts as already discussed in the rabbit pellet topic are.... At the moment I feed mine chicken carcasses on occasion. I use whey protein ...the kind I put you onto. My chicks at 5 months on having been brought up on the whey protein are far exceeding their predecessors. Not change of breeding, change of feeding. The chicks to my eyes, are starting to look like heavyweight wrestlers with shoulder and substance. I believe in meat protein. I am about to embark upon a regular serving of chicken to all birds under strict guidelines re timeframe left out for them to consume thus keeping it safe. "Protein - What Is It?" Proteins are essentially compositions of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, traces of other elements and differing combinations of amino acids, which are linked together into a long chain by peptide bonds. There are 22 different amino acids of which 12 can be made inside a Budgerigar's cells. Every body tissue and fluid with the exception of bile and urine contain proteins. However, because of the differing combinations of amino acids within a protein, those found in one tissue may vary greatly from those found in other tissues or fluids. A protein that contains adequate levels of all the amino acids are referred to as "complete" or "high quality" proteins, whereas those proteins which are deficient in one or more amino acids are termed "incomplete", "low quality" or "limiting" proteins. In other words, the protein quality describes the amount and proportion of essential amino acids in relation to a Budgerigars requirement for these amino acids. Why is this important? Proteins in the body are constantly being made and broken down. As mentioned, a Budgerigar can synthesise some amino acids from other amino acids but in order to do this, several "essential" amino acids, namely arginine, lysine, methionine, tryptophan, histidine, leucine, phenylalanine, treonine, valine and glycene must be present. The only source of these ten essential amino acids, is through the diet. As the body does not store these amino acids for later use, (they are passed through the kidney as waste within several hours) they must be present at the time other non-essential amino acids are introduced into the system in order for synthesis to occur. Additionally, if there is not enough energy supplied by the diet, these essential amino acids are then utilised for energy requirements instead of synthesis. In general, animal proteins are considered to be "high quality" proteins, while proteins from vegetable sources are felt to be "incomplete" or low quality (lacking one or more of the needed amino acids). For example, the amino acid strength of legumes are lysine and isoleucine while their weakness is limiting tryptophan and methionine. Of the other vegetables, tryptophan and lysine are strengths while weaknesses are isoleucine and methionine. Although we don't know all of the specific amino acid requirements for our birds, we do know that serious amino acid deficiencies and/or borderline amino acid deficiencies cause: Poor growth. Poor feather growth. Reduced egg size. Lack of melanin pigment in black-coloured feathers. Increased susceptibility to bacterial, viral and fungal disease. Decreased reproductive success. Increased body fat. High mortality. We are additionally aware that during certain life cycle processes there are increased requirements for intake of "high quality" protein. "Critical Nutritional Periods In Breeding Hens And Chicks" Unlike mammals, which continuously pass nutrients through the placenta to the developing foetus, the Budgerigar must create an egg, which contains everything that the single celled ovum needs to develop through its embryonic stage. In addition to its mineral content of 3% Calcium, 6% Phosphorus, 0.15% Sodium, 0.16% Potassium, 33 mg/kg of Manganese, 0.3 mg/kg Iodine, 0.35 mg/kg Zinc and a few less important minerals in minute quantities, the production of this egg also requires a tremendous amount of protein. Unless this supply of high quality protein is supplemented in the diet, the hen is forced to draw upon all of her available protein reserves; even that which is necessary for her own maintenance. Those who wish to breed Budgerigars cannot overlook the significance of this. Research has demonstrated that control parent pairs fed only basic seed diets without supplementing, produced poorer quality, smaller, brittle feathered hatchlings in the third nest and thereafter smashed their fertile eggs prior to hatching. Control pairs from similar genetic breeding stock were able to produce and feed well grown, well feathered, vigorous fledglings for as many as 5 to 7 consecutive nests on protein supplemented diets. It is also not surprising that the hens increased requirement for high quality protein supplementing and production of high quality protein crop milk corresponds with a hatchlings critical weight gain period, During the period of egg incubation, protein rich cells begin to break away from the lining of the proventriculus of the breeding hen to form crop milk. This milk on analysis, shows very high levels of protein, fatty acids, lecithin, Vitamins A and B, riboflavin, niacin, phosphorous, calcium, sodium and manganese. Unless otherwise supplemented, these nutrients are again drawn exclusively from the hens body and tissue reserves to support the growing hatchlings needs. The First 28 Days During the first 28 days of life, a chick's weight increases from 25 to 35 times its hatching weight of 1.2 to 1.5 grams. At this time, the forces of a developing blood system, nervous system, organ system, skin and feather system are competing within the chick for whatever protein resources are available from the crop milk and other foods offered. The overall affect of protein and amino acid deficiency during this time is sub-normal growth and development. As feather protein contains a higher amount of cystine than other body proteins, it is also during this time of maximum feather growth in a nestling that the relative requirement for cystine may also increase. There are additionally some conditions that are directly related to specific amino acid deficiencies throughout these critical times. In studies of fowl, leaving out just one of the essential amino acids in the diet of a laying hen led to a decrease in her food consumption as well as an immediate decrease in egg laying. The production of keratin, which forms the nails and beaks of developing embryos, is dependent upon sufficient methionine, cysline and cysteine. Deformity of the tongue is linked to insufficient lencine, isolensine and phenylaline. A lack of tyrosine leads to thyroid hormone deficiency, which is evidenced by poor feathers, no feathers, and dark pigment melanin missing in feathers. Convulsions can be caused by inadequate amounts of pyridoxine. Incompletely formed feathers can be caused by deficiencies in arginine and glycine while food lacking arginine, methionine and glycine, from which the body synthesises creatine for normal muscle, produces poor muscle tone. Of all the essential amino acids, however, lysine is maybe the single most important when it comes to growth, feather production and mortality. This is true not only during the initial growth period, but during the next critical nutritional period as the chick emerges from the nest box and begins the process of weaning. It is during this time, as a result of increased activity, continued feather growth and diminished intake of food that growth curves show a decided drop off. Nearenberg et al., showed that food efficiency and body weight gain improved in 4 day old Cockatiel chicks fed 25% to 28% of their body weights per day. As the chicks grew, food intake decreased to about 15% of their body weight while food efficiency declined slightly. From 12 days to 3½ weeks when adequately fed, Cockatiel chicks reach peak body weight, there is a slight decline in food intake from 15% of body weight. As the crop capacity relative to body size decreases and passage of food into the gut is reduced there is a dramatic reduction in food intake to a level that is maintained until weaning. From the point that peak body weight occurs at 3 to 3½ weeks through weaning, when begging behaviour diminishes and less food is accepted, a number of chicks lose weight. Countering this period of diminished food intake and decreased food efficiency with an increase in the nutrient value of that food which is taken in, is extremely important. In a Grau and Roudybush study designed to determine the quantitative lysine requirements of young Cockatiel chicks based primarily on growth, newly hatched chicks were fed diets in which the pure amino acids were mixed in place of protein. The lysine content of this mix was then varied from 0.1% to 2.0%. Extract from The Master breeder by James Bratt.

Name wouldnt have been Rob by any chance

Cull the greywing cock to my place

Hang onto those hens........its Murphys Law that if anything is going to go wrong or any birds get sick and die it will be with the hens............you need spare hens and those hens are worth keeping.

It depends..............if the time you are looking at it is just after its been fed ( parents feed them on their backs ) its normal. If you notice any displacement of legs or hips and any redness on the limbs then it has an issue. Might be too soon to be anticipating a problem.

Love the colour on that baby.......sky violet perhaps ? wings look brown in this photo, but they arent.

Some growing babies in the Junior flights in the aviary 8 weeks old 8 weeks old

Looking better now in the junior flight in the aviary

I have taken their ground feeder away....hope they know how to find the food now

Full to empty in half a day

Make a beautiful feeding platform for the birds and what do they do ?! prefer to eat from the ground.

If a blackeye is carrying cinnamon, would the colour of its feet be the tell tale sign......pink feet for instance ?

Photos ?

PT where might a person get fresh lucerne ?

These two have a lot of attitude and sass going on Whats with all those spots ?! they quack a lot

NO Fallows have red eyes amongst other differing features.

Don't think much of Mum, can't you do better? That photo taken the second they were out of their transport boxes Renee Better than most of your furry fuzzy photos. I assure you the Mum is better than her photo Is this better ?

Second round of greywing breeding dad and here is Mum Previous baby Four babies( 2 greywings ) ....2nd and 3rd chicks are greywings and other two are fosters as these are really good parents Another second clutch to these two Dad Mum Previous babies Fingers crossed for at least another 7 or 8 greywing babies 7 eggs and 5/6 showing fertile so far.

Yes....its the best kind

Excellent news! I had some concerns about this point and am so glad the Muscle XL formula that I add to my soft food is whey protein based will not put an extra strain on my birds kidneys. There is a difference between whey protein and whey protein isolate.

LACTOSE INTOLERANCE I cannot for the life of me find any documentary evidence of this. We hear it all the time, repeated like one of those urban legends. Maybe there is truth to it maybe not. But I did find this Milk. Many experts claim you should not allow your bird to have milk or dairy products. They seem to believe that birds are like people who suffer from lactose intolerance. While birds do not have an enzyme for digesting lactose, this does not mean they have the same adverse reaction seen when lactose-intolerant people drink it. Indeed, milk is rich in protein and calcium. Because of this, many respected, mostly early, aviculturalists offered it to their birds. Bechstein found milk very beneficial for birds in the early nineteenth century; Low believed it was important to provide it to birds when they are rearing their young; while Stoodley advocated providing skim milk as a source of essential amino acids. Lee, one of the first to hand rear parrots, included dilute raw cow or goat milk in the formula he fed every few hours to African gray chicks . The argument against milk is that certain bacteria, if present in the bird’s gut in the bird’s gut, will ferment the lactose and cause diarrhea. It is true that the presence of lactose in a chicken’s diet does yield less “compact” excreta , but it is hard tell if a bird has diarrhea since both urine and fecal matter collect in the cloaca and are expelled together . Thus, this may only be a problem for maintaining cleanliness. Of course, one should not allow one’s bird to overindulge, and in the case of caiques this is very unlikely. Avian nutritionist Tom Roudybush (87) did not see any problem with providing parrots with milk, especially low fat milk, as long as the bird’s total diet contained less than 10 percent lactose. Several studies indicate that lactose can comprise up to 20 percent of the diet without adversely affecting the growth of young chickens. While another study indicated that feeding lactose to young chickens actually accelerated their growth. Some recent studies suggest that lactose can serve as a “prebiotic” that helps fend off some bacterial infections in chickens. I agree with Roudybush that feeding milk in small amounts is not harmful, and my pets often share my breakfast of milk and cereal even though I do not offer it as a regular menu item. If you remain concerned about lactose, you can still feed your bird a dairy product. One of these is the whey protein isolated as a byproduct of cheese making. Modern production methods now render this quite pure and free of lactose. You can buy whey in health food stores catering to the body builders. The other lactose free dairy products are those that are fermented in their production, i.e. yogurt and cheese. While young cheeses still contain some lactose, the general rule is the older the cheese the less lactose. Both yogurt and cheese are excellent sources of calcium and amino acids that parrots need, especially when they are breeding. The chief problem with these is that they usually contain high levels of saturated fats. I provide my caiques with a small half-inch cube or smaller of cheddar cheese daily. They tend to prefer yellow cheese to white cheese. http://caiquesite.com/Foods/dangerous_human_foods.htm

Is there evidence to support this statement such as a vet diagnosis or is it heresay ? Reason I ask is that the airtravel alone involved in getting birds to the nationals, ( in some cases two plane trips for some of these birds going to Tassie ) added to the fact all birds are in together with other team birds they have never lived with ( NO quarantine as is the normal practice ) and the known fact that a lot of birds that go to the Nationals get sick either there or on their return.STRESS, TRAVEL, CONFINEMENT, OTHER BIRDS POSSIBLY CARRIERS OF ILLNESS, NO QUARANTINE, CHANGE OF FOOD.....Tell me these things arent a part of a bird getting sick going to the Nationals.You're quite right in that it could have been any of those factors involved. I only have the information second hand as it was passed on at a club presentation night on the Tassie Nats. If Daz is around he may be able to add to this as he was there and I think he may have mentioned something about it once before. If the lucerne was truly the culprit for sick birds then wouldnt all the Nationals birds get sick not just ones from one team in one holding cage ?

Same place we get our Muscle XL from $2.70 for 2 kgs Is there evidence to support this statement such as a vet diagnosis or is it heresay ? Reason I ask is that the airtravel alone involved in getting birds to the nationals, ( in some cases two plane trips for some of these birds going to Tassie ) added to the fact all birds are in together with other team birds they have never lived with ( NO quarantine as is the normal practice ) and the known fact that a lot of birds that go to the Nationals get sick either there or on their return.STRESS, TRAVEL, CONFINEMENT, OTHER BIRDS POSSIBLY CARRIERS OF ILLNESS, NO QUARANTINE, CHANGE OF FOOD.....Tell me these things arent a part of a bird getting sick going to the Nationals.

Ingredients of the rabbit pellets the birds like so much Crude protein 18% Crude fibre 22% salt 1% Calcium .06% Phosphorous .2% Actual ingredients:- Barley Oats Triticale cereal byproducts lucerne http://www.budgerigars.co.uk/general/tonkbfl.html cereal straw powdered limestone ( calcium) dicalcium phosphate ( mainly used as a dietary supplement in prepared breakfast cereals, dog treats, enriched flour, and noodle products. ) salt methionine http://www.vitaminstuff.com/methionine.html choline http://www.enc-online.org/factsheet/Choline.pdf vitamins trace minerals NO MOLASSES http://www.birdhealth.com.au/bird/budgie/feeding.html bird pellet ingredients http://www.artemisaviary.com/pellet.html PS I didrnt read the side of a packet.....I went straight to the detailed ingredient source material on file from the manufacturer.