Norm

Will be looking forward to seeing the picture, lets hope it’s some rare mutation.

And if your Lutino is not split for Blue, even with a split Albino or Albino you will only get Lutinos.

My thoughts too Elly, some have very pale feathers when they are young maybe depending on how they were fed, which darken up later, will be good to see the picture that will help us.

Welcome to the forum Emilyette, I hope you enjoy it here?

MB are you sure that that bird hasn’t got red eyes, looks a bit like an Green Opaline Fallow to me?

She looks like some kind of Yellow Face, don’t you think? Not much pattern in her wings. I think the flash is too much for her red yes.

Maybe it's a yellow Faced 2 going through it's first moult & the Greener feathers are coming out...look forward to seeing the photo.

Sorry the hear your news Daz, you must be devastated, thanks for sharing.

If you only have a Lutino you can use it to produce an Albino. The quickest way would be if you had a Lutino male split for Blue & paired it with a Blue hen. If not it’s a pretty long way, as if your Lutino was pure Green series & you paired it with a Blue first generation you would only get Green birds split for Blue. If you had only a hen Lutino, that also would take two generations, as paired to a Blue cock [unless he was split for Ino] you would only get split Ino cocks & Normal coloured hens. These split Ino cocks would then have to be mated to Blue hens to get your Albinos.

You could use an Albion hen is you wanted, but maybe it would be good to use a hen of the Blue series, maybe a nice type Cinnamon Blue hen. Usually Ino’s aren’t that big & Lacewing to Albion may produce smaller birds, depending on the type of each parent. If you want to retain the Yellow Face in your Lacewings stick with Blue series, which of course includes Albion. If you wanted some Green Lacewings you could use a Green hen & if it was Split to Blue get some of each colour. As I think it says in that good article that Elly recommended, it’s good to stick to Dark factor birds, probably to improve the colour of your chicks.

It’s not common that birds get too messy, but I have seen it more in show type Budgies that have a lot of feather. If it were fairly minor I wouldn’t worry, but just keep a watch on her & if it seems to be getting too bad, maybe you will have to resort to removing some, by washing her. Re the cock bird, I have had birds like that that only seem interested in other males & have tried breeding with them, in cabinets, but usually they don’t produce fertile eggs. If it isn’t causing any great problems you could just leave it in the aviary, but if you think it’s causing too much interruption to other birds it might be best removed. I would think it’s safe to introduce another male, just watch what goes on at first…I would never just introduce another female in such a situation, but males are different. When colony breeding in an aviary, as I’m sure you must have read else where on this site, it’s always a risk, so close supervision is always needed.

Love your rat Birluv, it mustn’t be the one Kaz caught, as it was well fed on plump canaries.

I wouldn’t think it’s advisable to remove birds with chicks until the young had quite a lot of feathers, as that could be disastrous & if let go for that time trouble could easily have occurred between some of the hens.

I think the “normal” is 6 when I had Budgies when I was young mostly you got 6, but these days 6 still is about the normal, but also 7 is common, then others regularly get 8 or 9 mostly 9 10 or even 11 is rarer. There is some variation, but I find that mostly birds are fairly regular; I have some pairs that regularly lay 7 or 8 & have from their first batch when they started. But some I have noticed begin to lay more as they age & even strangely, if you let them lay more than two batches later ones often get more eggs rather than less. I agree with Kaz, if you have large batches more than 6 if they all seem like they are going to hatch it’s better if possible to foster them about, as, as she says if large batches are left the eggs get spoiled that much they wont hatch. Depending what age your chicks are in other nests, I often wait till some of the larger chicks are rung, then remove them to a similar size batch; this removes the larger chicks stopping the spoiling of later eggs & also makes it easier to keep track of them once they are rung.. Of course if you have only batches of smaller chicks it’s better to remove the smaller ones.

If he never planned to breed & this accidental nest occurred in the log, jokes aside, it probably would be advisable to remove the log & the eggs, as if it is left to continue, the chances are pretty high that other hens will take the hint & seeing the log is the only hope, there could be fights & by the time anything is observed it could be too late & he could end up with dead hens, or at least damaged birds. If he wants to breed better to make a conscious decision & set things up right from the start.

I think they should take Basil Faulty's advise to Manuel...if they don't want to breed..."Throw it away" & throw them away.

Very good.

Thinking more about it Deb, it looks a bit like he might have bit off the top of some feathers & the base may be left in so it will look rough till they drop out & are completely replaced when he moults again, but as I said before if he could be something like 6 or even more could be connected with getting old.

I agree with you Kaz, there is never one…I wouldn’t let them go to in flick others but…I even feel guilty when I catch Brushtailed Possums & let them go somewhere else, as they can be as big a pest as rats…only just a bit bigger.

It’s hard to say Deb, but could be just that he’s getting on a bit.

The cock is still okay, there has been no more fighting, now things have calmed down, but sadly all the eggs are infertile, but I have given them a couple of fertile eggs. Now I don’t know if it’s worth leaving him with her, as they had been together for quite awhile, but none of the eggs were fertile, I would like to get some young from these two, which have both proven they can do it with other birds. I wonder if they raise a batch together whether that will make them bond better.

As Libby told you & you already really knew, it’s a Blue series bird & it really can’t be masking Green as Green is dominant to Blue. The suffusion looks a GreenieBlue… I think why the flash picks up certain colours, is as I read once, lots of the colours in Budgies are in the Ultra Violet range, which human eyes cant perceive, but in some way the camera picks them up differently & then we can see traces of them. Whether you can tell what an Albino or Lutino are masking is difficult, mostly I don’t think you can & it would need test mating to bring them out, but possibly you could tell whether it was masking either Normal or Opaline wing pattern if you got them in certain lights that would detect slight patterns in their wings

Yes as Kaz suggests, watch them close, as once they seem to start & they seem to start at a certain stage of feather development, they usually do it to more than one chick & it can progress beyond just feather plucking to actually drawing blood, which means you have to withdraw the chicks to save them. Do you have other nests of similar chicks where you could foster them?

I agree with all your colours Karen & agree with DrNat that 13 is probably split for Recessive Pied. Beautiful birds & the pictures are great too. MB number two is Opaline Lacewing White [Opaline wing pattern] whereas as number one is Lacewing Yellow Normal [normal wing pattern] it would be good to see a picture of your Cinnamon Opaline Yellow. I think I may have seen a Cinnamon Yellow with black eyes, but mostly they are either Lacewing or Fallow, which both have red eyes.

Even my most conscientious males seem only to spend time in the nest feeding babies & with the hen for short periods, some are keener than the hen about starting off going into the nest & try & encourage her, but I have never had one that stays in there by themselves. Someone suggested on here once that male Budgies will help with incubation, but in my experience that never happens. Cockatiels share incubation, but none of my Budgies have ever done that. PS. come on you girls you expect us males to do all the hard work. I think I would prefer to lay the eggs & just sit in the warm nest for a few weeks, instead of constantly eating & bring it up again to feed that lazy layabout in the box, then doing the same with those lazy chicks later on, some girls don’t even expect to eat themselves, want it all handed to them. No wonder some boys get confused as you call it, he's probably just dreaming about how it could be...sigh!