Dingo

I've given my birds walnuts, brazil nuts, peanuts and almonds, I find budgies like all but almonds, where as my cockatiel loves em all. I can't remember if hazelnuts are safe or not I dont recall ever offering them, if I find out before someone else replies I'll surely get back to you on that. on a side note, dont let your bird play with the shell untill you open it and check it, molds can grow inside the shells that may be harmful to your bird, you will want to open the shell anyway as a budgie isn't going to be able to crack open an almond.

just looks like a poorly marked pied to me..

you forgot yellowface.

(Laughing out loud) poor little one, is he too heavy to right himself?

up to 4, if she's going to have a 5th it'll be due tomorrow night, I'll know by tomorrow afternoon, she usually gets an "egg butt" very easy to tell when she's got an egg in her. she's being a very good momma hen, she only takes a few minutes to break then she shoots right back in the box, the only time she stays out for any real amount of time is when I candle the eggs. #2 is fertile, I'll check #3 tomorrow if I have another egg to mark. so far so good. :budgiedance: one question for those who band, I'm considering getting some for this brood if they arrive on time do I have to register each band or will they automatically be registered? the place I'd be getting them from says they are track-able which is what I prefer. whoops and one more thing, does anyone have the 18 day calendar link, I can't find it and the one in the sticky doesn't work for me. thanks

we're up to 3 eggs, I candled the first two so I could mark them properly and see if the real first egg was developing, it's got a little fetus inside and I watched his little heart beat for a few seconds :glare: , so I marked the egg and put it back so Sweetpea could get back on them. I'm so happy, just hope she doesn't do anything wrong when they hatch. :glare:

okay, that clears that up the way sex linked genes work is for a hen to show it the gene has to come from the father in which case all of the hen offspring would be opaline, it's not a hit or miss and if you know the parentage a really simple and easy way to sex young chicks, for cock offspring to show opaline the hen would have to show opaline or carry the gene(hens cannot be split to sex linked alleles if they have it they show it if they dont you know for a fact they dont), so if you have an opaline hen and a split to opaline cock and you breed them all chicks will be opaline, if you have an opaline cock and a normal hen only the hen off spring will be opaline, the cocks will be split to opaline, make sence? this is why I was saying I dont think the rec. pieds are related.. but I can't see their backs either so.. poorly marked doesn't mean ugly bird, I too think he's a pretty bird, and you can breed him, you just may not get nicely marked opaline(not saying you wont get pretty birds), but it all depends on what you are breeding for. I have a spangle thats on eggs, she's marked like a normal except for a few feathers, Nerwin ID'd her as a spangle due to cheek patch color, if she throws badly marked spangles.. okay so I wont breed for spangle with her, I'm not about to worry about that as I dont know what she'll give me, other than that she's a lovely bird, and the pair should give me some very nice pieds and opalines.

we're up to 2 eggs here, 3rd is due tomorrow, she's keeping them warm and has desided that the concave in the bottom of the nest is a good spot to set instead of along the wall of the box. doesn't sound like she is over rolling them and she lets me check them without too much worry, the only problem is I forgot to mark egg #1, so I dont know which is which

are all the seeds fed to birds safe for them to eat after they've sprouted? mine are fed a pretty good variety, some lettuce seed, hemp, rape, millet(Red and white) canary seed, oat groats, sun flower, among some others that I can't remember right now, are all these safe to sprout for them? and can you use apple cider vinegar to kill/control bacteria? bacteria is the main thing keeping me from sprouting..

my favorites are YFTII, but my most perfectly proportioned bird as far as markings go is my sky blue opaline dominant pied cock, everytime I look at him I have to say "wow what a gorgeous bird" next in line is Rocky my YFTII grey greywing opaline cock, he's getting prettier every day. I also prefer the white bases to the yellows.

okay.. well I said I could be wrong, thats what happens when I post about genetics at 2 o'clock in the morning.. I think everyone is calling Milo an opaline because of the fading around the V area, which does have some color bleed into it but doesn't appear to be any color bleed into the wings, he could be a poorly marked opaline... a better shot of the back may help.. as for greywing I would think that atleast one more out of the clutch would come out greywing.. am I wrong in assuming it would be 50/50..

I dont think they are related.. milo is showing a sex linked gene and by what I can see he is male, now for him to show the gene his mother would have to of been opaline and father atleast split to opaline, this would make all the chicks in the clutch opaline.. or atleast all the hens, but you only appear to have one bird that is and thats milo.. now all the recessive pied birds may be related, but my understanding of greywing is that in order for the GW normal blue to be from the same clutch they would all be grey wing.. I could be wrong though.. but it just doesn't fit to me... unless I read something wrong.

thanks daz, so far so good, she's setting the egg, if she's got another it'll be due in about 8 hours.. I am hoping she's not a one egg per clutch girl.

Sweetpea laid another egg yesterday, I dont think she's cracked it yet so it may just have a chance

well Sweetpea only laid one egg.. I've always been under the impression that a hens first clutch is usually her largest.. I felt her yesterday to make sure she didn't retain an egg, she's still acting normal so.. just one egg and she broke it.. I'm going to leave her in with Boidie and see if they try again.

well I guess all hens are going to make first timer mistakes, I'm not sure how it happened but, there was alot of screeching going on so I went to see what was wrong and some how the egg made its way out of the nest box and onto the cage floor, unfortunatly theres about a 15 inch drop and the egg shell didn't make it, Boidie has experience and wouldn't do that, hopefully she learned from that.. whatever she did. these are older pics, not the best.. Sweetpea; http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v215/rou...littlegirl6.jpg Boidie;

they've got an egg! I never did see them actually breed, 6 days till I know if it's fertile :(Laughing out loud): and 2 days till we hopefully have another egg

Sweetpea has been spending more time in the nest box :hap: not sure if they have bred yet as they usually stop whatever they are doing when I watch them, Sweetpeas cere is getting darker every day, and Boidies so proud, he shows her off to me, he loves hens.. :hap: hopefully by the end of the month I will have eggs! :hap:

a normal blue, a clearflight pied and a YF, can't see the body color to tell you if it's a YF type I or II, am I confused thinking there are only 3 birds or are there 4?

greens, greygreens, spangles and all hens will be opaline greens unless the hen is split to blue, all cocks will be split to opaline greens, greygreens and cinnamon hens, cocks will be split to opaline. blues and blue spangles, is he opaline? oh and cocks will be split to cinnamon. greens greygreens and spangles am I right?

huh, my budgie that talked would talk to his hen all the time, she had no clue as to the words meaning but she listened to him, he'd even do kissy noises while he was preening her.. guess every bird is different though.

some may remember my little YFT2 grey opaline greywing male, rocky, he's been getting darker with age and more green is it possible he has a dark factor in his genes as well? these aren't the pest pics of him he was a little stressed out as I had to catch him to take pics.. in reality he's slightly lighter than he is in this picture; this one is pretty acurate; what do you guys think?

she's over a year old, her cere has turned brown a few times it's just not brown right now.

Boidie and Sweetpea have been together for a while now I've had the nest box on the cage from the start, I peeked inside yesterday and someone has been inside, made a nice little nest in the pine shavings, Sweetpeas cere isn't brown yet, so this behaviour seems weird to me, Jane didn't pay any attention to the nest box before her cere turned brown, I also noticed Boidie also doing courting behaviour, is nest building prior to cere changing a sign of a good hen?

in cockatiels pied is recessive. http://www.kirstenmunson.com/cockatiels/pied.html