Norm

The breeder rang again last night he has sorted out another Texas Clear Body cock for me & maybe some more birds if I like...Normals & Lutino. I'm going on Thursday to see him, I will try to get some good photos of the other Clear Bodies. Three TCB cock & 1 hen, I think that's a good basis for my TCB stud. Pity I have so many cock birds that I've bred myself, a few hens wouldn't go astray...I seem to breed so many males & just a few females...with my own children I had three daughters & no boys...strange stuff...(Laughing out loud).

I haven't noticed in real life, but you have to remember that that photo is much larger than real life & I've noticed that often photos pick up so much more than you get time to see in normal day viewing.

We can’t advise you what killed your bird; there are many things they can die of & often real sudden like, as in your case. The fact that the bird was acting strange & bit you was just a normal symptom, showing that something was wrong. If the bird is sick or close to death as happened, it wouldn’t be happy to be handled at that time.

In which way do you mean...I saw that picture before, it's just such a beautiful clear picture. If you mean that it shows the gut of the bird through the skin, I think that's just because of the quality of the picture & because it's so close up.

A picture of my soft food most days. A picture mixed with corn two or three days a week.

I agree with Lonebudgie, wet, droppings & seed are bad combinations with birds. I have built all my aviaries so that there is no possibility of access from rain. I know the birds like to get wet in the rain, but I deprive mine of this pleasure, because of the danger of wetness in the aviary. Wetness equals trouble.

Changed it to links Elly, if someone knows what I did wrong, I would be grateful if they advise me.

Good nutritious food will help bring birds into condition for breeding. Green food every day, small amounts, but as fresh as possible, corn, carrot, green peas, leafy green vegetables & seeding grasses, if they can be obtained from safe areas. As well as their seed diet you can hard boil eggs [10 minutes] & chop up very small & mix with other ingredients, there are formulas used by other on this site, under feeding.

If you right click on IPB image & select view image it seems to open up, but I wanted them to open like normal, the only thing different I did was resize the photos myself to 450 pixels & didn’t use the Photo Bucket resize to email, could this be the problem? As I was trying to get a little bit more detail in the photos.

This first photo is of a young January 2007 born, Lutino cock, with a Cobalt Opaline hen he sold me to go with the Spangle Violet Cock. This is the Violet Spangle cock that he suggested to mate with the Opaline Cobalt hen to breed Violets. The hen & cock don’t look as dark as in reality, as I had to use flash. This is one of the three Texas Clear Body’s, an Opaline Yellow [i think]… I was mostly interested in getting this mutation. He is young Feb 2007 born, just getting his adult feathers. He’s a bit light in colour & not very heavy wing markings, I think because he has been bred from Lutinos; I have a nice “show type” Normal Grey Green hen I will mate him with. I also got an older TCB cock, 2006 born, nice colour, type not so good [not pictured]. I will mate him to a normal Grey Green hen I have. And a young hen Feb/March born 2007, I need to buy a good Luntino cock for her as the Lutino cock I bought is her brother…all similar colour, photos of the two later ones didn’t turn out. So all photos are of the one young male. This is the same TCB young cock & an Opaline Dark Green cock born Dec 2006…[he called it Violet Green] I will use it to try to breed Violets The Opaline is a much darker green than the flash shows also. I tried something different but my pictures are not showing, is that because the size is too big for the site? PS. At last I got it ...if at first you don't succeed.

Yes I agree it’s a form of art, as everything that we do is an expression of ourselves. But it wasn’t about just looks with me, I was talking about the actual birds condition & it’s ability to live well. I read in the Hills District sale post, about how some of the birds are kept in air condition comfort & sterile conditions & I guess laced with medications. I wouldn’t like buying birds from such conditions, as I don’t think they would last long in the “real world”. I started off a couple of years ago, with just birds from pets shops, that I judged were “good looking” birds, I started off with quarantining them, in small cages in the house away from the other birds, but soon thought that, that was causing too much stress in my thinking, so then I started just treating them with Ivermectin, to clean out worms & lice, as I had a bad experience with scaly mite. Then just put them in the aviary with the other birds, I bought in more than 30 birds without much trouble, just a couple never looked that great, so I got rid of them. Since coming here to this site I have leant lots of things, but in lots of cases I do what are considered on here ‘crimes’…buying from pets shops, not quarantining my birds etc. I must say I have seen the pet shops that many complain about & I know what goes on in the real world out there, but I am lucky the pets shops here are good ones & I have had lots of experience & know what a healthy bird looks like, so I think I can avoid many of the pit falls. You guys on here have got me interested in going into show type birds now, so the last two purchases I made, came from “breeders” I have had more problems with those birds, granted the one bird I lost from my first purchase, I knew was sick & normally I wouldn’t have bought, except that he made me an offer on the last three birds he had & I had to take it with the lot on the understanding that I might loose that bird. Last week I bought some rarer mutations, from a breeder, some are not that good “type” wise, but at least I have the mutations that I wanted. I have had some worries a couple of days, as some looked off some days, but seem to be getting over it. I know there are breeders & then there are “breeders” just like with the pet shops. With my first batch I don’t think they had ever seen soft food before, as at first they wouldn’t touch it. The second batch, know soft food, but looks like they have never seen green food, a I gave them a leaf of silver beet, which they hardly touched, my birds would have shredded it in moments. His water was yellow with some vitamin additive; maybe he thought they didn’t need green food, because they got all the “vitamins’ they needed from that. To me it’s more important to have healthy birds that can make it in life by themselves, I know lots of you say how nice & decent people some show breeders are & I’m sure that is true of many, but I have had experience of showing birds & in my experience I saw some nasty things & fighting. It was for some, winning at all costs & of course the judges were useless & their birds were the ones that should have got the prizes. A scene I thought it was better to be well away from, enjoying my birds. My theory is that you should let nature help you in the selection of your birds, as it probably know lots more than us, even though lots are so egotistical enough to think different. Select birds as you would like them to be, but don’t prop up birds as soon as they seem unwell with drugs. As in the long run it will come back to bite you, as birds held up by drugs will breed such birds & when they no longer have the drug back up, like if they are sold to someone else, they will collapse. I don’t like loosing any bird the same as everyone, especially if it’s a special bird to you, but I don’t see every bird that dies as a loss of one of my family, some losses are necessary to weed out the ones that can’t make it, it’s a part of life…I heard on TV the other night…”If you want life, you must accept death”.

If the flower pot eggs hatch you will have to give them flower names. Things don't get that desperate at my place, as I'm still building breeding cabinets, but it will have to stop soon. Running out of room. Got about 30 pairs down.

I saw recently that Darman’s live near to where my daughter lives & had some mutations that I’m interested in & was going to contact them when I was going down. Looks like they might be too expensive for me.

I agree with Kaz, I find that if the baby is fully feathered, after a short struggle they feed themselves without much trouble, I have had to remove chicks from parents for lots of reasons, even before it was the desirable time & so far haven’t lost one. Have the feeders & plenty of seed on the floor, they will start to nibble at stuff on the ground first, but soon find the seed bowl, where the food is better. I find that Dad’s often don’t seem to feed them that much once they leave the nest. As with everything, just watch their progress & if either parent attacks them, don’t be hesitant at removing them to a safer cage, set up like I suggest, it’s better to have them in a safe cage by themselves once they have been attacked, than to leave them in danger.

You are really lucky Birdluv, but sad that someone that has looked after his birds so well has got to give them away. They are really beautiful & healthy. Guys what do you think Sweety is, Is she a Texas Clearbody Pied or Lacewing Pied? I just zoomed in on the photo, maybe she is just a full bodied Cinnamon Pied. Both are birds I wouldn’t mind having in my collection.

Are we allowed to know who HG is or are we supposed to know?

The old saying where there’s a will there’s a way. That’s their survival mechanism…breed…Breed & BREED!!! If the condition are good…Breed.

BEAUTY… is in the eye of the beholder…I AGREE Daz I thought that to myself after writing that this morning.

Crazy stuff…to me…my idea is that you get yourself some birds & work on them for years & feel proud that you have done something. Not just write out a cheque & hope to breed top show birds the next year. But I guess if you have so much money that spending that much for a bird mean nothing to you…it’s just a different world. Saying that I hope that some day someone might pay me that for one of my birds…(Laughing out loud). I don't think we will get a picture Nerwen, if you paid that much for a bird you wouldn't want to risk that the flash might blind the poor thing.

I’m afraid I don’t agree with you Daz, it depends on which eyes you look at those birds, if you’re a show breeder & your aim is to breed a bird that will win you fame at a show, of course you will see the latest birds as “improvements”. If you look at those pictures objectively, you will see something different, the older style bird to me looks much more vigorous, the bright eyes, granted in the “improved bird” the eye is covered with feathers, the sleek toned body, the “improved one” to me looks like a heap of feathers, Zombie like. Scientists & geneticists agree most if not all mutations are faults on the original wild type, Sailorwolf who is doing a vet course explained some of this the other day, in much more detail than most of us know, about different elements in the cells being in a way faulty, which produces some of the different colour mutations. Sickle cell anaemia in some Africans, is the case of a faulty mutation that has turned out sort of an advantage, even though it effects the owner with some problems, it has allowed them to survive Malaria, as the malaria parasite can’t attack the red blood cell because it is different from the normal round cell. The different colour mutations have come about, because of loss in most cases of Melanin, the black colour matter, which is one of the things that protect most forms of life from ultra violet rays of the sun. I now have some of the different type Budgies & can see the differences, granted some show types are quite vigorous & even some young I have already bred that come from birds that had trouble flying well are an improvement, some of this could be because I mated them to unrelated birds & possibly their improved diet. Some have said that the show type is much more tame, this would appear to be true, in some sense, but maybe the truth is that they have just lost the ability to sense danger. I noticed my non-show types fly at being startled, but the show types remain eating. I guess this has come about because of selection, because “tame birds” are desirable for showing. The reality is that if the bird had to rely on its own resources it would be fatal for it. Then there is the Buff factor, man has seen this as desirable, to complete his desire to have the “perfect” show bird, aimed at the ideal bird, which if anyone achieves it, the hurdle will be lifted & another “perfect” bird will be created. I agree man must have his “something to do” & some of these things are needed by us to achieve our aims, but Buff mustn’t be let go too far, they should always be mated with non buff to keep it under control…otherwise “feather Dusters”. Let us have our fun & interest breeding bird, as healthy as possible, but if you want, also for show, but don’t let us get carried away, with our ego, just look at how our ego & the thinking brain has got us in the real world. There is a little old man in Japan named Masanobu Fukuoka, [one of my heroes] who was a microbiologist, but at 25 he had a revelation & left his trade to become a farmer, he is unknown by many in the world, those who know him, know him as the natural farmer. He calls his methods “do Nothing” farming. He is now 95 I met him while I was in Japan in 1984, he calls man’s ideas & technology “when smart becomes foolish” he did a drawing for me then, of man digging a hole, he said man gets his smart ideas [technology] but instead of thinking I’ve made a mistake & leaving things alone, he designs another technology to correct the mistake he has already made & with each technology he digs mankind a deeper hole, which one day we wont be able to climb out of. Look where we are now with all our smart ideas, on the dawn of “global warming”. If you are interested further you can search on line for sites. Lets keep things in perspective if we enjoy Budgies, lets do the best by the Budgie while we are about it & whatever Budgie we breed wont bring us down I guess…but improvement, sorry I think that is just our ego talking to us. I hope I haven’t gone too far & stirred up things, I thought this subject would be a bit controversial, but so far nothing much happened…(Laughing out loud).

I was given a Budgie from a friend that had him given to him, because the original owners had got “sick” of him. He was a pet bird, but I don’t like Budgies in the house myself, too much mess to keep cleaning up. So I put him with my normal outside Budgies & he seems to really enjoy it, mixing with the mob. So I wouldn’t worry, I used to think that they would be too fixed on humans to mix & even breed with Budgies, but plenty on here seem to have tame Budgies breeding even.

It’s hard to tell from those pictures, the last one is the clearest, but because of the flash you don’t know if that white look is real or just because of the flash. It’s good to take a picture in good natural light where the flash won’t come on. If that white look is true I would lean towards it being a female.

If you have a digital camera & can post a picture on here, showing a close up of it's cere, some of us can give you some idea. Some are difficult till they get older, but sometimes you can tell, even when quite young. If you don't have a camera look for photos on here of other peoples birds & see what others have told them & maybe you can work it out for yourself.

Welcome to the forum 3-birds-2-luv, if you look at lots of the information on this site it will give you lots of knowledge if you want to breed your Budgies, then you can do what you enjoy with knowledge & hopefully you will get lots of enjoyment from it. With a minimum of problems. Good luck.

If you start to keep birds & look after them well, feeding them lots of variety of seed, greens etc you still might have some problems, but mostly they are pretty tough birds. If you stopped doing something because of the chance of something going wrong, there’s not much you would do in life. Just getting out of bed in the morning, could be considered risky. You can’t hide completely from problems, just do things that you like & do the best you can, then if things go wrong, don’t let it get you down, just know you did your best.