Norm

Thanks for sharing your team with us, you have done a great job with those photos, I like Turk he’s a really good Clear wing Violet, really nice Clear wings.

It’s hard for us in Australia to advise you Karthik, as most of the plants available here wont be available in India. You may have some gum trees growing there {Eucalypts] but they may not be easy for you to find. Some people give them Hibiscus which you may be able to find.

Go to the persons profile [click on their name] & send them a message [PM] personal message.

I think it certainly is a better idea to have your birds outside, both for their healthy & yours Sailorwolf, but it's a pity you didn't do it in the warmer weather, as it's already cold enough here, so I don't know what it will be like at your place in NZ. Will be a bit of a shock to them. I'd watch the weather & move them when you have a few milder days soming up & of course move them early after it warms up a little so they have most of the day to acclimatise. I can see them all now…pick me Sailorwolf…pick me I’m your sweetest Budgie keep me inside please…

I agree with Elly...Looks like now that Neat is back with us she intends to make it hard, first off we have to guess the parents mutation, then what colours she expects...none of the easy stuff...I'm glad she wasn't my school teacher come to think of it, I think one of my schooll teachers was BLONDE...LOL...

I haven’t got a picture of that age Neat, what are the parents of the chick you suspect might be TCB? The only TCB you have is a hen isn’t it? If my memory is any good. It would have to be paired with a split TCB to give you any TCB chicks, or maybe come from a split cock that you didn’t even know you had. I can’t tell chicks till they get some body feathers on their breast, sometimes you may see some feathers just on the rump near the tail, if it’s Green series they will be pale Yellow, I haven’t had a Blue one yet but guess they would be almost White.

I think cutting a door in the side wood would be easier than trying to make one in that wire.

It could be Neat, but I'm not sure, looks like a Clearwing to me.

With birds there’s a lot of difference between different ones, some aren’t exactly like the perfect bird, I just think that yours are more like the top two on that site that you are showing, granted yours have some body colour through their wings, but if you look at the bottom two the Opaline Spangles you will notice that they have more of the body colour that carries up through the wings & into the triangle above the wing butts, whereas yours has some of the White of the wing carried through this area, more like the Normal.

Misslu, hens Ceres can change colour at various times of the year depending on their condition. Often hens that are not in condition will go almost white on the Cere with a Bluish tinge around the edges. Hopefully this only what you are seeing & nothing is wrong. Some photos will give us a better chance to advise you.

I used to live at Richmond & catch the train from Blacktown to work in Sydney & I know your area can get pretty cold at night. Good luck you don’t have any more problems. I’m sure everyone on here would be happy to see some pictures of your aviaries the new & the old if you can post some pics.

I agree with Elly, the small spot indicates that your bird is split for [carrying the Recessive Pied gene].

So where's the chicks MB...I know what you mean I have some pairs that even look in condition & have been in the cabinets for ages, but they just wont do the deed. Bit frustrating some times, but as they say "you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink" [unless it's thirsty] maybe our birds aren't thirsty enough as yet...we need patience.

What makes you think fallow? I thought fallow had a patch across the rump. Do you mean a suffusion of colour on the rump? Sometimes but not necessary. The defining factor of whether your bird is a Cinnamon Opaline grey Green or Green Fallow is whether it has Red yes, are they definitely Black or Pinkish Red? Look at the Olive German Fallow in Ravengypsy’s web page under mutations, don’t you think she looks like that?

I have some birds MB, that sound similar to yours, I thought they were YF2 as I bred them from two YF2 birds a Grey hen & Violet cock. They have a lot of Yellow in the areas that should be White, but in the Blue areas [Cobalt] there doesn’t seem to be any bleed of the Yellow. Even though they are small birds I’m keeping them to breed from to get further birds similar but improved in type. I consider them YF2 but for some reason the Yellow isn't bleeding through the Blue, even though it is through the rest of the body.

I agree with Lady & others, your cock bird isn't an Opaline Spangle; if it were an Opaline you would have Blue in the triangle area between the wing butts. I have quite a few Spangles like that, it's a Normal Spangle, I think often the Spangle when the wing pattern isn't that definite [black] turns Blue, but as someone also suggested the fact it's quite possible, that maybe it's Split for Opaline. When you get some young it will confirm the fact…if it is Opaline all it's daughters will be Opaline, if only split only a few will be, & if only a Normal none will be Opaline. .

Hopefully it was just the weather, we had that unusual long period of rain, then straight after it we got that sudden cold snap, which they said was the coldest April day for years, also often this time of year when it suddenly gets cold it sorts out any birds that already had a problem. Especially at this time of year see that they don’t run out of seed, as that can be fatal. They can’t maintain their body temperature with out food.

I guess the idea of not having the nest box in is to prevent them breeding before time. I had the same problem that you are having where the hens had pale Ceres, so I put a couple of pairs in the breeding cabinets & within two weeks the Ceres had darkened up & they went down on eggs. I still had the nest boxes in & in most cases they didn’t enter the boxes until they went into condition.

I’m not so sure on YF1’s as they are not common, maybe they are YF2 but differ in the amount of bleed, as Sailorwolf said a lot could be done with selection of your breeding stock, when you get young select the ones closest to what you want to achieve. Like you say they are both Dominant so if they are different Mutations it’s best I think to keep them separate, so would be good to mate each of them with a white faced Blue. If they are Recessive Pied it’s often better to mate them with an improved Normal that’s split for Recessive if you can get one, to improve their type [body etc] as Recessive to Recessive often gives you smaller birds.

Sorry to hear that Dave, never a dull moment something always happening. This is not always a good time of year at the best of time, with winter coming on, the cold weather often causes some fatalities, especially after all that rain we had, I’ve lost a few. I hope things pick up for you.

I told MB that I thought her bird might be a Fallow, but it’s not a TCB as you found out, as they have pale wing flights. To me it’s eyes still look more like a Fallows, but if they are not red I guess the judge is right, I often have trouble with some of my Cinnamon Opaline Grey Greens in the aviary with TCB often the light flight feathers is the only difference that you can see in them.

Yes as we expected he is just going through his first moult, something like 4 to 5 months old. With Cinnamons you often get that contrast when the new feathers come through, because the juvenile feathers were pale, the new ones will fade a little & look more normal soon. So I think he is Yellow Face2 Cinnamon Violet. So you have plenty of choices of what colour he is. Yf Cinnamons are nice looking birds I think.

Yes looks really good.

Yes I notice after that you said it was a YF I should read better,,,sorry.

Feeding Cod Liver oil like you did Daz, used to be what you did when I was young, but maybe that’s because most of the books were from British breeders. Those oil soluble vitamins can become toxic in excess, as they are stored in the fats. Were you also feeding some vitamin supplements as well?