Dave_McMinn

Well done Robyn. You ahve achieved a great outcome. The most impressive part is that you had a problem, sought help, received a solution, followed advice, improved upon the solution to meet your needs, and achieved an excellent outcome. If everyone applied this process to every problem they had, we would have a lot less problems in the world. Well done!!!

School had been busy - tough being a teacher - hours are not 9-3 like people think - and being in charge of a year - I am Year 7 Coordinator is time consuming (Although i secretly love it - don't tell anyone!!!). This means that I am only heading to the shops this morning to get the ionic silver. We will see how it goes over the weekend and I will give you updates.

Thanks. I was surprised how fast Icarus went down, and then by how fast he has since regained his strength. Definitely a heat thing. I am investigating ways to make the breeding room cooler. I am going to remove a section of the wall at one end, add a ventilation panel, so allow more air movement and assist with ventillation. It will be near the top, so hot air will escape, not cool air. I also had a sheet of plastic - thick plastic - that is dark and will not allow too much light through. I stood that next to the kindy cage, between the window and the kindy cage, on the side that gets to the most sun. This should mean that the birds can stilla get a small amount of direct sun, but not too much, thus meaning they will not get as hot. I am going to start show cage training today - that will be interesting. I have 5 show cages so I am going to go get some table tennis balls to start with, then I will put pairs in show cages whilst I do a complete clean out of their cages.

I have paper on the bottom of my cage. I leave the box where it is, so as not to upset the parents. If she jumps out, put her back. She is too young to be out at this stage. When she is a little older, cut a curve in one side of a 2litre ice cream container, put some nesting material in it, and put it on the cage floor. She has a safehouse, plus dad should still come down and feed her.

Guy's is this a TCB?? Yes - it is a TCB, an opaline Texas Clearbody to be more precise.

Another quick update DF widow - 4 chicks, 3 rung so far - all good and waddling around, even the youngest - 1 DF, 1 SF - will be a bright blue, 2 unknown Earl and Latte - 5 chicks, 4 rung so far - 2 fosters, maybe 3, hard to tell yet - 1 DF, 1 SF ( colour unknown) - rest unknown Kiwi and Twitch - 7 eggs that may start to hatch any day now. Green Pair - 5 eggs so far Icarus has recovered beautifully and looks great after his bout of heat stroke All the others are going great.

Could I not be proud of ALL of the outcomes? I am!!!!

Where do I get ionic silver? Does it have any other name?

Since it is only one bird per location, I find it strange, especially since the one in the photos has stopped now the nestbox is gone.

I have one or two birds, one is a breeding cage and one in the aviary, who seem to have been rubbing their heads against a perch and have removed feathers around their ears, often leaving the rubbed skin underneath a bit red. The boy in the breeding cage has stopped this since I removed the nestbox remarkably. Here are some shots from today. The boy in the aviary is not as bad, but still.... I thought I might to a spot of Ivermectin on Saturday, just in case. Any thoughts on possible causes? Environment, infection, just a crazy bird?

I tried to take some more pics, but i had mixed success. It is hard with the new nestboxes. I am always scared that the mum will seek to do the bolt. Anyway, here we go DF widow in her nestbox with her 4 young. One confirmed SF spangle, 1 DF spangle, 2 unkknown - will be either single or double factor Earl and Latte's nestbox - two fosters - one DF spangle, one sf spangle - and 3 of their own, with more eggs remaining. Twitch and Kiwi's 2nd clutch of eggs Some of Twitch and Kiwi's young from first clutch Dumb and Kestral's DF from 2nd clutch Caesar's young from earlier clutch - both going through 1st moult Earl and Latte's 2 greys, plus a little dom pied, all hanging around

i am so sorry that you lost them all Ross. I am very pleased now that I look back on it that you have those cabinets. How did that one go with the scaley face? All cleared up?

very cute Kaz. This is my favourite

How many chicks had splayed legs overall? How many survived? So the pipe cleaner worked?

you have had a mixed bag so far - some pleasing features, some disappointments. Hopefully things will be on the up and up from here.

great photos and great birds Shannon

Nice to see a budgie getting out and about - When you upload your pics to photobucket, you can set the size at 640 x 480. This is the size that we use on this forum for pics. This means you can put the pics in your threads, not just links to the pics.

It is very important to be prepared. Some of us were a little under prepared the first time around and it casued some problems. We do not want that to happen to others. Some threads you can read that would be useful are: How To Breed Budgies Correctly, How to set up a breeding cage and manage the breeding of budgies and Points to Consider?: Are you really ready to breed budgies

I am sorry Dek21 if I am "butting in" on your post, but Dave can you please explain what you mean by plucking....?? Can this effect the eggs? How do you know if a bird needs this? - Thanks :emoticon112: No problem. With bush bidgies and evern pet budgies, we have smaller birds who tend to have thinner feathers, that naturally lay close against their bodies. In the development of show budgies, one of the features that has been sen as admiral is thick, long feathers. Many good show budgies have thick long feathers, and some people even say that judges today prefer a "shaggy" looking bird compared to a bird that pulls its feather in tight. Anyway, thicker feathers has meant mroe difficulties for the budgie breeding. It has meant that the act of budgies actually mating may not always be successful. To overcome this, breeders may pluck or trim the feathers aroudn the vents of their budgies to enable the mating of the birds to be more successful. When plucking, a bird is held in one hand, turned so their vent is facing skywards, and the fluffy down feathers are gently pulled out from the birds. Some people say it is better to trim as this has the same desired effect of reducing the amount of feather around the vent, whilst at the same time, leaving soem feather for warmth, as well as some feathers that act as a guide (not entirely sure on this bit myself). I had 2 birds - Dumb and Kestral - that mated, produced 5 egs, and all were infertile. I was woried there was something wrong with the birds. I plucked them and let them have another go. They produced 3 wonderful chicks. Point being, if they were not plucked, it might not have occurred. These are the only two I have plucked, but it seems they needed it. Plucking can help improve fertility for some show birds it seems. The plucking comentary and the pile of feathers can be seen in my breeding hread on page 4 by clicking here

I will play devil's advocate here and say: Just because you have 2 birds that want to breed does mean that you should let them. Over her life time, Gypsy will come in and out of season. If she does not have a nest, she will not lay eggs - generally. If you are going to breed them, please read up in advance. What are you going to do with the young? Are you prepared for anything that might go wrong?

Well, after spending the day inside, Icarus - that is what I am naming the little guy (Icarus is a character from legend that built wings and decided to fly - they worked but when he flew too close to the sun, his wings melted and he plunged to his death - moral of this story - beware the power of the sun) - is all better, eating well, droppings are normal again, chirping away, so he has been returned to the kindy cage with the others. All new hatchings survived the heat. Dumber(RIP) and the DF widow look to have produced 2 spangles, 2 DF spangles so far, and it is too early to tell on the others. Earl and Latte are raising their 2 fosters and their two little ones well No hatching yet for Kiwi and twitch in Rd 2 4 eggs for my green pair.

There are 9 in there and a kindy cage. I am not sure how much i paid, abut $77 for a stand with the 3 cages on it - it was a good deal, very good. I put some plastic up, but it was stopping too much air circulation, so I bought another blind, like on my aviary. This one is one wired side, not the one near the fence. This means I can put it up and down without having to worry about air circulation or rain.

backing up what she has written here, this is what RIPBudgies sent me when I enquired about them Main differences are the wing markings in Brownwings tend to be more of a grey brown colour. Brownwings are born with red eyes like Inos and they do darken but if you look into their eyes when an adult you will see a dark reddish colour. The iris ring never fully developes instead although there is more a pale browish colour. They have pink feet and body colour from memory is reduced. Thanks again for the info RIPBudgies.

Dean is right - white pepper is best, but flour is a good alternative. I have had birds lose toes and they are fine. Make sure you work out how she got caught and fix that up so it cannot happen again.

It is always tough losing the ones we love. I like to think that they have gone to a better place, where the water is always spring fresh, and seed supply is bountiful.