Rainbow

Bubbles, will you add me to the list? I don't recall hearing of a "dusk" budgie before. Thanks.

Shant, do you mean their spots? That is normal. If they are going through a full molt, they will eventually replace all their feathers. The spots will grow back in a few weeks.

Bea, if you can, try to get a small bag of Harrison's SuperFine (not the regular Fine - it's small but my budgies won't eat it unless I crush it because they think it is too big. The SuperFine they eat no probs. :rip: ) and also a small bag of the Mash. Then you can see which size crumble they like best. Don't get the 5 lb. size right away unless you are going to feed it to your aviary birds as well, because it will go bad before your 2 indoor birds will put a dent in it. Riebie, another diet you might look into is Goldenfeast. I bought some of that the other day, and it contains high-quality ingredients as well. Not sure if you can get it there or not though. As far as seeds go, I feed mine Volkman parakeet mix because there are no preservatives in it at all, just seeds you can pronounce. It smells so good when you open the bag.

I fixed your pictures. :rip: In your first one, the bird with her back to the camera on the left is a skyblue clearflight pied hen. The other bird is a normal skyblue male. The bird in the last picture is a type 2 yellowface skyblue hen. And I am sorry about the death of your yellow budgie. :ausb:

Are the two longest tail feathers actually yellow, or are they missing and we are seeing the secondaries?

I voted for Beak Appetit although my birds eat Harrison's too. I feed them because there are no unnatural additives, and also because they are made from human-grade foods so I could eat it too if I wanted. (And I have eaten both. ) If I wouldn't eat it myself because I think it contains questionable additives or ingredients I can't pronounce, I don't feel comfortable feeding it to the birds either.

OOOOHHHHHH!!!!!!! Maybe is double factor dominant pied???? Very, very pretty, both of them. Pied babies are so lovely.......

LOL. Yellow head spot. Shellball, I can't see any pictures still. Do you need any additional help in posting up photos? If so, you can pm me and we will get it figured out for you.

What beautiful birds!!! Cloud is a gorgeous hen. As for Beau, don't rule out DF Dominant Pied. Does he have normal iris rings?

If she has the head spot, she is dominant pied. I'm not sure what you mean about the black spots under her tailfeathers. If they are symmetrical it is likely that is just how the feathers are marked, but even if on the same side if the spots are part of the feather's color it probably is normal too. It's hard for me to tell without seeing her. And the blue feet are normal, some birds have pinkish feet and others have bluish-grey feet. Same with beaks. I'll bet the cobalt's beak is a darker color also.

I'm not talking about the one on the tree limb ( the grey pied) I'm meaning the one in the box with the babies. You can't really see the head but the bit you can looks yellowish. That's the one I was talking about, the one in the nest box. I couldn't see any yellow. I thought it was food stains because it looks green to me.

I think that is part of the reason they do it.

Mum reminds me of one of mine - Sky. She is top center in my signature. I don't see the yellowface though, nerwen. Just looks like green veggie stains to me. To get one like Rainbow (that you posted above) I think must take some luck because I've never seen another like him. He was a dilute goldenface type 2 opaline clearflight pied, color either cobalt or mauve - it was hard to tell. His backside was a seafoam green across the shoulders and wings with a bright slatey-blue patch of feathers on the rump. His tail and flights were pure white, and the shell markings on his wings were a faint grey. I miss him. There is a color mutation called rainbow, technically it is a type 2 yellowface opaline whitewing blue. Here is a link to a site from a breeder of rainbows. As far as what you will likely get from your type 2 yellowface pairing, it depends in part on what color face blue daughter has. If both birds are yellowfaces, you should get yellowfaces, normal whitefaces, and double factor yellowfaces - which appear to have whitefaces. If only dad is yellowface and mom is normal whiteface, all babies should have yellow faces, as that is dominant over normal whiteface in blue series birds.

Skittles ate all of hers.

Rainbow used to make this clucking sound when breeding that he never made at any other time. When you heard it you knew exactly what was going on... It's hard to describe the noise, other than it started with his regular warbling then the pitch would go a little lower and it sounded more like clucking.

Mine rarely go to the floor. The few times they did, I think it was because the carpet has different colors in it, and some probably look like seeds LOL. They would go down and peck at the dark colored places on the carpet, then get mad because it wasn't food. Do you have carpet on the floor or is it hardwood? If you have multicolored carpet, they might be down there for the same reason mine were. If they are truly forgaging for food on your floor, I'd make sure they don't find any there and maybe they will lose interest. Let them forage like bluey2 suggested on a towel higher up, or on a plate on top of their cage.

The glowing feathers around the face are important somehow in budgies' natural mate selection. There was an article somewhere I saw that stated something to the effect that budgies can see light from the ultraviolet spectrum and the amount that is reflected lets them know something about the health and suitablility of a potential mate. Birds with a lot of UV reflection are much preferred over those with little reflection, and the yellowfaces reflect more than whitefaces. Which would make sense, since the natural color of a budgie's head is yellow that they would instinctively prefer that.

Is Kirby or Belle a visual pied? I don't remember. If so, you will get pieds. All babies should have yellow faces unless Belle is a DF yellowface, then only some will have yellow faces. I can't wait to see them.

Best of luck with your project!!! 4000 words is not a quick paper, is it? I can help with pictures of pieds, expected pairings from 2 SF dom pieds (for your breeding section), and greywings. Feel free to have a look around the forum for my pictures, or if you want something specific PM me and I will see if I can find what you need.

It is normal for budgies to begin laying a second clutch before the first one is gone. If conditions are good they may even try for three, although if that happens you really need to remove the nest box and possibly seperate the parents. If you do that, leave any babies over 3 weeks old with dad. So the fact that the second clutch is hatching is a normal event. Exactly how many eggs are there in the second clutch? Is it 9, or is 9 the total for both clutches? If they are fertile and incubated properly, there is no reason the second clutch won't hatch. Did you not know your hen would continue to lay? :wine

How old is she? If she is just out of condition, the male will be able to bring her in condition by his breeding behavior. But if when you say her cere hasn't turned brown yet you mean she is not over a year old, then please take the nest box out as she is much too young to breed. You really won't know if she is a good mom until eggs are laid, incubated, and hatched, unfortunately.

I see, thanks Nerwen. But is it usual for DF spangles to have white flights and tails? I thought that was just the clearflight gene in pieds.

That's what I thought lovey, that he was a violet skyblue. The cheek patches are very dark, the tail should also be very dark, and the tail feathers next to the two long ones probably will be purple also. I have a hen that is violet skyblue, but she is two-toned - violet across the shoulders and a cobalt blue color elsewhere.

Unless they are split to blue, all offspring will be green. I can't quite put my finger on it, but I feel strongly the first bird is dominant pied, possibly DF dominant. Maybe it is the appearance of having the clearflight gene - it looks like his tail is white also, is it? The bird you say is the hen looks male to me...

No, I can't speak French at all! I have an interest in genetics too, I find it fascinating.