Sunnie

Thanks for your reply lonebudgie. I know showing is not for everyone, and who knows, I might even go that road one day! I had a budgie when I was a teenager and not a very responsible teenager and my bird interest stopped there. Recently, my fiance has gotten me into the world of birds and I adore them and Im having so much fun, learning and loving. I also have a pair of sun conures (aviary birds), an indoor hand reared young quaker and a pair of turquosine parrots. I love all birds, but at the moment, its the budgies that are taking most of my time with the excitement of learning and breeding for the first time. I have two budgie aviaries, one for my "favourite" 2 pair, and the other has about 27 budgies in it that came with the aviary when we bought it. I have eggs and babies hatching in there too, but most of them will probably stay aviary babies, while I am hand taming as many as I can manage without stressing me or them. I like being interactive as much as I can be with the birds, so I guess hand taming gives me a lot of pleasure (so far)

Not that I am interested in showing budgies and this is my first time breeding, but I found your tips very intereseting and helpful. I am going to start by putting in a bit of millet in both my almost fledged babies boxes tomorrow. Thanks again for the great ideas

Is that why I am cleaning so much seed out of the box now?

All I can say is.............CRIKEY!!!

Cute baby sammy......I am sure he will bring you lots of love and good times

Thanks guys........I am lucky to have good mamas and daddies. They boys are feeding the babies as much as the hens, even getting in the box with them to feed. Is this a common thing? I mean, I think its fantastic the boys help out so much, but didnt actually realise they did. After taking the babies away for handling, when I put them back, Cloudy gets frustrated with Smudges if she is sitting on the perch, cause he wants to jump in and feed his hungry babies! Like I said.....good mummies and daddies

Thanks for confirming my thoughts I think next time around, I will be using woodshavings hehe

Hi guys I notice in a lot of your baby pics in boxes, there is wood shavings (?). Being new at this, I didnt put anything in my boxes as I know you dont HAVE to, but do the woodshavings help with keeping the box clean? I literally scrape out my boxes to keep them clean every day at the moment, to save me the problem of having to clean the babies feet and legs, which I have had to do just a couple of times and its hard work!

Your babies look gorgeous splat. I wish you and all your fids good luck and hope something works out for you. I know I dont know you, but I really feel for you, I dont know how I would part with my beloveds.

Hi guys You may or may not have read and seen pics of my favourite breeding budgies, Smudges and Cloudy and Gypsy and Tommy in "Introduce your flock". (I think that is where I posted). I thought I would show off my very first babies. Smudges had 5 babies and Gypsy had four. The oldest is just over four weeks old. I am hand taming them and it is going really well I think, they are great therapy I will be selling them privately as pets and am already having dilemmas as to whether I will keep any or not! They are all so darling, especially the older ones who are already showing off their little personalities. I hope you like my pics.......it's hard to get good ones of them now they are so active, it was much easier when they were younger! Smudges and Cloudy's babies Gypsy and TommyBoy's babies

We put native tree branches in our aviaries too. I think one of my hens was actually craving eucalyptus the other day, as she was foraging dried leaves, so we put some fresh eucalypt in there and they love it. The oil in eucalypt is very beneficial too.

Thanks Nerwen and thanks for pointing me in the direction of the mutation area, I missed that topic and will post further questions on my birds' colouring there as I have them. It was interesting to know the colouring of these four. Smudges and Cloudy were originally in with a few other pairs, and they chose each other for partners, which I thought was pretty cool, but Smudges was being harassed by a particular hen and in the interest of making life happy for her, I ended up with only her and the other pair in that aviary. Apart from being a bit of a messy mum, her and Gypsy have been great mummies and Cloudy and Tommy are very attentive daddies. I started handling their babies when the oldest was about 2 and a half weeks. I was quite worried at fist the mums might get upset and have worked my time up with them and Smudges seems very relaxed about it all. Gypsy is the "tidy" mum, and has been a fussier mum too, which I have admired, but she has become used to me handling her babies as well and for my first time, I think I am really lucky as it is all going really well. Gypsy and Tommy also chose each other as partners, and I plan on keeping these four as they are and not introducing any others in with them.

Yes, she is opaline cobalt apparently. That's okay Phoebe, I have no idea of what the mutations are either (other people let me know haha). The two pair have had some really lovely babies, though I dont know what their full colours are yet, but it looks like Gypsy, the opaline has two just like her and two like Tommy the blue and white one. Smudges and Cloudy's babies are white with blue and one at least has little brown "smudges" on its wings like its mama

Yes she is a mature hen, it is just her markings. I was advised by the people I bought her from she is mature and also other people have told me she is old enough. I was concerned also by the "bar" markings that she might be young, but apparently not. And the blue bird is the hen.

Hi guys I have had budgies for about 6 months now, starting with two from a pet store which we keep as indoor pets, then expanding to aviary budgies, first 10 and then we bought another aviary which had 22 budgies attached. My partner has bred and owned budgies when he was younger and has been helping me with a lot of my questions, but I decided to look in here and have been lurking and reading for a little while. We are colony breeding our budgies, I have my favourite four in the smaller aviary and the rest in the large aviary. I have spent time watching my budgies to make sure they are all happy and have had to remove a couple of trouble makers and it all seems happy with lots of eggs and babies starting to happen. I am hand training as many babies as I can manage, at the moment, I am juggling my first nine from my fav two pair and it seems to be going well. I wont make this post too much longer and bore you all with newbie stuff but I thought I would post a couple of pics of my first parents (who are doing a great job!) Tommy and Gypsy http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r85/Sun...sandDaddies.jpg Smudges and Cloudy http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r85/Sun...esandCloudy.jpg Tommy and Gypsy have had four babies and Cloudy and Smudges have had five. All are doing really well and the oldest is now four weeks.