Norm

Kate the only bird that can carry Opaline is the father, the Lacewing could also be Opaline, can you tell whether her wing pattern is Normal or Opaline? Both Opaline & Lacewing are sex-linked colours, if a female has a sex linked colour it shows, she can’t be split for it. But a male can be either a sex-linked colour or mask it, as in being split. If the chick in cabinet 1 is an INO the eyes will be real light pink, if they are only Plum type colour they could either be Recessive Pieds or Cinnamons.

I always have some young chicks out of the nest long before time, as my nest boxes are low, I think it must be just over excited chicks trying to get extra food at the door & fall out. I just return them, some are out again later. It will be good when the cameras fixed Nerwen, I like seeing pictures of Melanistic chicks.

If what you want to know is what is the colour of the last chick, it’s an Opaline Cinnamon & maybe YF2 as we can’t see much of it’s breast. It has the Green bleed through it's wings of the Opaline. I wonder what you mean in the description of the mother, Princess, by DF if it was a DF Spangle it would be pure white, but from that picture all I can see is it’s a Blue Pied of some type. Dad Sinbad, I would call YF2 Cinnamon Violet, with Normal wing pattern & he must be split for Opaline, to produce that chick & as said it will be female. I hope that’s what you wanted to know.

Look at articles on the site about colony versus Cabinet breeding. Breeding in cabinets isn’t cruel, if you breed colony as your suggesting, it may work for some time, but as you say you are already having fighting over one female. If later you start getting problems you will probably see that colony breeding is the cruel way. You could easily end up with dead hens, chicks & even males. Having an uneven number of hens is a recipe for trouble. For it to work you must have quite a lot of spare nests, so that hopefully hens wont fight for nest boxes. Budgies are social birds & love living in groups & flocks, but when it comes to breeding it’s survival of the fittest, as well as deaths you can have birds minus beaks, legs & maybe more. My advice is if you haven’t time to supervise birds in cabinets, you will need more time to prevent trouble with colony breeding. If you don’t want to spend time on your birds & just want pretty birds flying in an aviary just keep a small number & don’t provide nests, otherwise eventually you will have problems.

More nice birds Paul…I especially like the Fallow I bought one similar the other week, which I will pair with my split, Fallows that I produced from my one & only Fallow cock. I’m really partial to Yellow coloured birds, especially with Cinnamon type coloured wing patterns, that’s why I like TCB’s Darkwings, BES’s & Fallows.

Yes Lady is right, there is that possability.

It may be an attempt to breed using her food dish as a nest as Canaries will do that if not provided with a nest, but as others have said it may be just play. I use some small plastic dishes in my aviary & yesterday I saw from outside the aviary that one bird was running around with the dish on it’s back like a tortoise, I have seen birds trap themselves under dishes, but before I got inside to do anything it was out from under it & I think it had just decided that it was a good game. Budgies are quite intelligent & will fill their life with activity wherever possible. If it’s an attempt to breed there is little you can do, except change things around as others have already suggested, if it lays eggs I doubt under the circumstance they will be incubated successfully. Any way you can just remove them, don’t let it worry you too much. It’s in there nature to breed under good conditions so it’s hard to stop them if they want to, I have had Cockatiels lay & raise Babies in the corner of the aviary, on the floor if not given nest boxes.

Congratulations Zebra...I hope the sickness part soon passes & you can enjoy the time. Those dogs & Budgies will be taking "second fiddle" as we say soon.

Zebra your YF & mine are both examples of the YF2 where the Green bleeds into the Blue chest…YF1 I think seem to be more rare.

Right Macka...you watch your TV too...in the past anyway, here's not around any more. Yes Elly he has good colour doesn't he...the others have a bit of green suffusion hopefully with getting young I will get some variation & then I can select for better colour & other points. Thanks Buuzbee. Thanks Birdluv...

I would think that one of the most important things is to look for healthy birds, so you must first off have an idea what a healthy bird looks like. Always look out for active birds & don’t pick out any that are fluffed up & quite. Then it depends what mutations you like, pick birds that interest you, whether colours or markings. Then you have to take into consideration what you want to do with your birds, if later you want to show birds, you would be looking out for birds that have good type for showing. If only for pets or pleasure, healthy is the main requirement.

Yes as Kaz says the older the chick gets the more chance of problems of not being accepted, espeacially after feathers, but if the foster mother has chicks with just pin feathers as well it can be successful, I just always watch or listern for screams for a short while.

Daz’s advice is sound, do your best by your birds & things sound great as your doing, like he said they have lived in nature for eons without our help. Even in nature there are some losses, only those fit for life survive, so if you breed expect some losses, in my opinion it’s best to not let them get you down, as you will breed plenty if you are doing the right thing, those that don’t make it we are often better off without, as nature knew they weren’t fit for life…some times us humans think we know better, sadly I don’t think this is true…good luck.

Mine have Silverbeet every day, they especially love the stalk.

KBJ…She’s a very nice bird, from that picture I could only guess she may be what we call Clearwing…a picture of her front [breast] could help, as I can see no sign of Pied from those pictures. What confuses things is that some mutations are called by different names in different countries. It’s true what you say, that two Light Green birds can’t produce an Olive. Libby just looking at your birds pictures again, I see the red in the eyes, redish eyes like that can mean Recessive Pied, but I just had another though, maybe she could be a Fallow Pied.

Zebra, the true Rainbow Budgie is an YF2 Blue Opaline Clearwing. To get from him to a Clearwing, with Clearwing being Recessive would take some time, but if you wanted to mate him with a Blue series Spangle hen, you could get some birds that look very similar to Rainbows. Here is a picture of one of my birds that looks pretty much like a Rainbow. Spangle being Dominant you could get one in the first batch if your lucky. If the hen was a YF2 Spangle the chances would be even higher...this bird is a YF2 Sky Blue Spangle. http://i151.photobucket.com/albums/s133/gr...66/Rainbow1.jpg image changed to link due to excessive size. Feathers

As Elly has advised you Lettuce is not a recommended green food for birds. What is that fruit stick you mentioned also? If it were some confectionary thing for humans I wouldn’t be using that also. It could have excessive sugar & other things that humans could tolerate but could be fatal to a bird.

Welcome Tash & Adam, your Budgie looks great & as you’ve been told, is a male, which is good for a pet Budgie & being young he should tame very easily. I think the best you can do is, as you are, let him settle into his environment, before you push him too much, as stress is not good for birds. Then being by him self they will naturally come to you, as they need company. Then you can start your training…Yes watch your cat, that could be a problem for some time, they can’t help themselves where birds are concerned, but others on here have cats & dogs live safely with their Budgies, so it can be done. Good luck.

If I have a sick hen that is breeding, the first thing I would do would be to remove the cock, as as others have stated, the cocks don't understand things & think it's a good time to get romantic with the hen & can cause her lots of stress which is the last thing she needs untill she recovers. So if you have a bird that is sick the first thing you should do is remove the cock or any other bird that will trouble her. Something I think should be basic common sense.

A double factor Spangle of the Blue series remains pure white all its life, a Double Factor of the Green series remains pure Yellow all its life. Single factor Spangles are Green or Blue but have Spangle wing markings all their life. The background colour of their wing is either White or Yellow depending if they are Green or Blue series. I hope that’s clear; you will find pictures of both here on the forum.

My first one pictured the TCB mated to an Opaline hen, had two chicks hatch yesterday, the first of 8 eggs, most of the eggs look good to. My other pair on their first batch also hatched another so they have 4 chicks I thought I was only going to get 3 so that’s a bonus, the rest of the two eggs are not good. So that’s six all up, hopefully at least I will get my first TCB a hen from this lot. OH I’m excited….I shouldn’t say that he’s dead now…Aussie joke. Only Aussies will know what I mean & maybe not even all them.

Wow. Havent seen them that price in forever. Makes you think how much the petshops pay for them then to still make a profit Mostly they pay about half...you pay double what they give...as always the producer takes all the risks & then the middle man/women makes the killing. I have had some petshop owner cry to me how much it costs her to feed them before she sells them. What do they think it costs us to keep the pair for at least a year. They only sometime have the bird a few minutes, as I have sold birds & they were sold already before I left the shop.

Yes Buuzbee the thought has crossed my mind, I hope I can keep up with them all...(Laughing out loud). Thanks Kaz, you & I know they are not anything like show quality, but that gives me something to aim for.

Black Eyed Self...it's a Yellow bird with Black eyes [actually a Dilute Green] they normally have faint wing markings. There are some posts on the forum showing pictures, try a search. Search didn't work for me...so I got you a picture of my new BES. Then here are some pictures of the actual Dark Wing Yellow...sorry about the mix up.

Great clear pictures Lady…I agree I’m thinking of keeping Pied out of my Spangles, as I love the wing pattern & it’s a pity to loose it under Pied feathers.