Norm

Looking good Aly...

Yeah thanks Kaz, these only cost me $16...we still get birds $15 to $16 in the pet shops here...I saw your comments on another post. Yes Macka the cocks not too bad, it's an 04 ring...hen might be old...looks okay still, but the breeding box will tell.

We are getting close to that with some YF2 Blue Pieds. Daz...but hard to just keep the pied to the wings.

With that mating Sunnie you should get some that look like Harley, but I’m afraid they will all be hens, not cocks like him, as Opaline is sex linked & will show in his daughters. Good luck, I hope he is not too old.

Yes Elly...is it education or ...brainwashing...(Laughing out loud).

Yes Kaz most of my smaller Australian type Opalines have pretty clear V's but the British types seem to carry lots of barring & fleck don't they. Thanks guys for your nice comments. By the way the Opaline has a local club ring so I will be able to find out his breeder, but the Green hen doesn't, maybe it's been removed, wish me luck most of the best birds I have been able to get hold of...the real good looking ones have been bad luck so far with infertile egg etc...I guess there's always a reason why a good looking bird ends up in a pet shop...sob.

I know that on here advice has to be given for a whole range of different “types” of people & it can be difficult. Also some don’t take good advice even when it’s given. And I don’t think that the advice to get the advice of a vet or avian vet is wrong, just that on some occasions it seems to get a little out of hand, at least in my opinion & often it’s against young people that are not that confident maybe in life & to have things get so aggressive in some instants is what upsets me. I have seen some get quite upset, which I think is unfair, even if in others opinion what they choose to do wasn’t right. As I think that’s unfair. We all have different financial situations & differing outlooks on life, I think after advice is given it still needs to be up to the person themselves what choice they make. After all it’s them that must wear the results of their action, whether that is seen by others in their opinion to be “right”. Some seem to take the position of the birds as against the person & I know they are caring about the bird, but some time the feelings of the person seems to be forgotten. I know that often the bird has little say & some do wrong by them. Not everyone makes the right decisions, either through lack of understanding, abilities or just their lot in life.

Yes she is sort of fluffy Libby & I myself aren’t too taken by too much feather, but I’m sort of getting sucked in a little by mixing with show type breeders & their desires for long feathered birds…she is a little more fluffy, as the poor thing was I think trying to get some sleep when I hit them with the flash…(Laughing out loud)… I think she has pretty long, what they call directional feathers especially on the head, something I’m hoping to breed into my birds without going too far I hope.

I think if birds are let pair with a partner of their choice, the union can be long lasting, but as some have said if a partner is lost for any reason, Budgies will soon seek another, I think some of the larger parrots are different & can suffer if their partner is lost. They do seem to have good long memories though, as often I have paired up Budgies in the cabinet in a way that I wish myself to achieve some breeding aim, but have often noticed that when they are put back into the aviary, they will often go back to the partner of their choice. Even though some time has passed.

I was just checking out one of the local pet shops today, as I always do & got a pleasant surprise, so I ended coming home with yet another two Budgies, this Opaline cock & below a what I think is a nice Light Green normal hen. What do you guys think?

I agree with Pie...I don't see the Greywing...Recessive Pied can do strange things to the wing pattern on Normals.

I remember some post from Joey about an egg bound bird, but not all the details. So I'm not supporting Joey in his methods maybe. But I just would like to make a statement about this guilt trip I keep seeing, especially from certain people, that if you haven't the money for an avian vet & don't take your sick birds to an avian vet you shouldn't breed or attempt breeding budgies. I agree that you should always do the best for your birds & not neglect them…but not being able to breed without an avian vet is pie in the sky to me…off in fairyland. I know I will shock some people on here, but in actual fact things would probably be better for the Budgerigar fancy as a whole, if some people with birds that don't heal with fair treatment, were to "knock them on the head" euthanasia them instead of healing them with drugs often at great expense, as I have said on here before, if it's your one & only bird & you wish to save it's life at any cost, that's your prerogative…but to come down on someone who doesn't want to spend hundreds of dollars or even more on a Budgie worth $15 or $20 to me isn't good logic. Birds that need expensive drugs to keep them alive in my opinion should never be bred from, otherwise at some time in the future, you certainly wont be able to breed from your Budgies with out an AVIAN VET on staff. And the problem is that many that use drugs to save their birds will as sure as anything later breed from them.

You will never get green and white together Buuzbee. If you did they would be worth a small fortune...the hunt for the white faced green budgie continues........ As Kaz says not at the moment...but never say never as they say, maybe one day.

Yes Aly I know & a lot better birds than the ones I have...did you have any luck with breeding yet? I think this Dark Wing is Dominant to BES as they [bES's] are in fact a Dilute. So when a DW is mated to a BES I believe you get DW...whether all or a % I don't know as yet. Guys my apologies I made a mistake, I discovered yesterday that, that bird pictured above is actually the Cinnamon Dark Wing Yellow, not the Dark Winged Yellow, I will post a pictures ASAP.

Thanks for that Kaz, a whole cage of them…I got in contact with some of the big breeders in Sydney, that breed them & they told me they don’t sell many, just keep them to their group, maybe they would be better quality than mine, but then I couldn’t get them so you have to work with what you can get.

I agree with Bubbles, he's from the Newcastle area & probably knows more about them than me. Also from looking at my two birds, the feathers on the breast seem to vary in colour & intensity & see in that second picture, the flash has shown up some almost light green feathers, which are not noticeable in real life & some feathers are so dark green that they are almost black. I read the article that Kaz has & the original breeder says that they maybe Slates or Anthracites. I don’t think they are Anthracites, but maybe Slates, I just read an article on Slates & it say they are like Grey Greens, but with a Violet check patch instead of Grey & looking at my photos, mine have the Blue or Violet check patch. It says that Slates are sex linked, so as soon as I breed them I will find that out, as if it’s true of these birds, they should get hen “Dusks”.

Some recent pictures of my TCB's. http://i151.photobucket.com/albums/s133/greenie6666/TCBc.jpg One of the cock birds, an Opaline TCB, he is mated to an Opaline Olive hen, they have produced two Opaline Dark Green cocks either split for TCB or Lutino, as the cock is split for Lutino & one Lutino hen, they are on their second batch, they have 8 eggs that look fertile due to hatch in the next few days. A normal Texas Clear Body split Lutino cock. An Opaline TCB hen. This cock & hen are mated together & have been going in the nest for more than a month & nothing happened until yesterday, when she laid her first egg. I have high hopes for some pure TCB's from this pair to pair next year with any splits I breed this year. I have another cock TCB paired to a dark green normal hen, they have three chicks hatched so far, two eggs to go, but they have missed one hatching, so maybe the rest are not good. One chick looks light so hopefully my first TCB hen. At least not Lutino as yet, as this cock is split for Lutino too. Norm; your first photo was 450 x 557... changed to a link. Feathers.

Not a great bird type wise, but all I could get at the time, I guess that's the problem with rare mutations. Not that many of them around. Looks a bit like a Cinnamon Yellow, which mutation is bred into them also...Cinnamon Dark Wing Yellow. He will be mated to one of my hen Black Eyed Self, which is compatiable with this mutation. It's a sort of colour adding mutation. I think it's Recessive to Normal, it's shown best in mutations like Cinnamon & Grey wing. I could only get two cocks, one this Dark Wing Yellow & another a Cinnamon Dark Wing Yellow, which is little bit lighter in the wing markings.

Some pictures of my new “Dusk” Budgies I bought recently…they are a new mutation, bred in the Newcastle area of New South Wales by Paul McCusker in 1997. I don’t know much about them as yet. The two I bought are both males whose fathers were brothers. They have a lot of Lutinos in their pedigree. They are said to add a very strong Orange look to Lutinos. The breeder said they might be a colour adding mutation like Violet. The two I bought look similar to Grey Green or dark Olives, but there is a difference, they also seem to have some variation in the feathers on the breast. I have only seen photos of other colours. Once again because of flash the colour is not that true & has an even darker intensity. The bottom one is the nicer looking bird, in my opinion.

At last Elly & others that wanted to see some pictures, I eventually got some time to take some, so here's a few of the hen I bought, who hopefully is going to breed me plenty of Saddle Backs. Note the fade out of colour on saddle area, but some others on the net that I have seen have even less colour in this area, I noticed too, at the breeders where I bought her there was some variation. The split Saddle Back cock one of the two I bought, the one I will mate first to her, when she gets over relocation. He is not a Sky Blue, once again the flash has bled his colour out, he's at least a Cobalt, maybe Violet.

She probably didn’t put your correct address on it & it was RTS [returned to sender] I thought you guys liked Budgies?…flat posting a poor Budgie…sad… Pity you can’t but, I would love to get some of those birds of Kaz’s & others in the west…which probably would be possible but a hassle & expensive.

Your birds are both difficult, as I think they have quite a few different mutations in them. My guess of the first one is Yellow Faced 2 Blue [Cobalt] Dominate or Recessive Pied [if it doesn’t get an iris ring later you will know for sure Recessive] & I would guess Clearwing as there is something affecting it more than just Pied. The second one, Golden face or Yellow Face 2, Blue [Cobalt or Violet] Cinnamon Spangle.

I had a bird that got it’s ring caught on a loose piece of wire, I was out that day, so it could have been hanging for some time. Like others say they are tough, it was worse than what yours sounds like, & I thought for sure it would die, I just took it in a small cage in the warm house, it did almost nothing for about a week, but slowly started eating well again & now is back in the aviary, with it’s ring still on, but only two toes. Good luck, I have tried breeding it a couple of times as it’s a nice bird, but without any fertile eggs, they can get by okay, but sometimes breeding may be out of the question.

You have some lovely birds, Libby, but I think Sunshine is not a Lutino, but a Creamino a Yellow faced bird. If she was Lutino she would be the same Yellow colour all over.

If it is said by the vet that it's "beak & feather disease" I would think it's the more dangerous beak & feather disease, [ciro virus] not French moult that only effects the feathers when young. If it truly is beak & feather I wouldn't mix it with other birds as I think it's very contagious, but if it was only French moult mixing it with another adult pet bird wouldn't be an issue & often many birds later get over French moult [polyoma virus].