deb

Her cere is dark brown but it always that colour, i have a couple of hens who i have noticed that they are always in breeding condition. she had a male partner in the aviary who was preening her and feeding her and she was attacking any other hens that came near him. He is too young yet to breed with so i cannot put him into the cabinet with her.

Last week i put my hens into the breeding cabinets and this morning i introduce the males but one hen is getting cranky with the male and attacking him if he goes near her. Should i remove him and try another male, she is a very cranky hen normally. Or do i give them a few hours to get used to each other. The male came out of a different aviary to the one she was in.

That is really great looking, i will have to check out spotlight when it is my kids birthdays

Great photos Dave, it must be so quiet in your house now the budgies are moving out. I have had to move my inside budgies to the dining room, hubby complained that they are too noisy in the loungeroom and he could not hear the telly.

Jadon is having problems at school with not been able to concentrate and very fidgety. His teacher is struggling to get him to stay in his seat and he keeps talking when he is not supposed to be. I had a appointment yesterday with his Pedatrician who diagnosed him with ADD as well as Aspergers. He also did a whisper hearing test and noticed that he has marginal hearing in both ears and also has scarring in his left ear drum from the many middle ear infections he had as a baby. I have to get a hearing test done on him now to see if it could be causing some on his problems. The poor boy had to get alot of blood test done yesterday as well to check if there might be anything going on. I think we have along road ahead of us till we get all the answers.

Harvey is so cute, Kacey is 5 1/2 months old.

Kacey is growing up very quickly so decided to show some recent pics. He is a very placid puppy and loves just being in the house with the family. Kacey and Jadon enjoying a cuddle. Loves digging in the sandpit The kids like to give him a swing Keeping a guard on the chickens. Recovering from a big night out.

i woke up this morning to finding Henry had died during the night. I have lost my special first budgie.

Thanks i have moulting aid so i will give him some. Henry is my first budgie i owned so he is very special.i think while he is moulting he will be living in the house so he can get extra attention. We are also having weird weather at the moment where is is 33 degrees one day and then 20 degrees the next, he does not seem to be coping with that either.

i was wondering when budgies are getting older, like over 10 years should they be having any extra supplements. i have a older budgie who is going through a moult and it seems to be making him very lethargic. i have brought him into the house and he is eating fine but very quiet.

Congratulations on the new pet, she is very cute.

Your birds and aviary look great Dave. You have got yourself a nice lot of show budgies.

Thanks for explaining it to me, photos would be appreciated as well.

I have been reading the forum and books i have on budgies and there seems to be different ideas of when to put a hen into the breeding cabinet. Some information i read says when their cere is crusty brown and some information says when it is tan and starting to go brown. I know what a hens cere looks like in condition but i do not know when the cere is tan if it is coming out of condition or going into condition? When is the ideal time to put a hen into the cabinet?

Thanks for everyones advice, i will give her another try then and hope she goes better this time. i am a stay at home mum so i have plenty of time to monitor her. i am only breeding pet types at the moment while i am learning more about mutations so she is not a high standard hen but she is the only spangle hen i have to breed with.

Thanks Liv, the hen i am talking about is Roxy,s mum and i would love to get another chick the same colour as Roxy so that is why i wanted to try her again. I am putting 5 pairs together but they are all first time breeders so i am a bit apprehensive about using a hen that might need the chicks fostered out when i do not know if the other hens would accept the chicks.

I have a hen that the first time i used her for breeding she plucked the babies but the breeding cabinet was in my back room where she got disturbed alot. I now have a breeding room away from the house and she is always laying eggs from the perches. Could i try her again to breed with or because she has plucked her chicks will she always do it no matter about the environment? I would really appreciated some advice because i am wanting to put some pairs together .

i have 8 females and 4 males in the aviary so should you have the same number of each sex to stop the fighting. The problem is that it is the hens that have partners that are doing the fighting.

thanks for answering my question Dave. It was not Laverne this time, it is Gwenieve i have had to remove because she is picking on Laverne and couple of my hens and caused an all out brawl.Laverne has come out of the fight missing one of her claws but she has also got blood on her beak so she put up a good fight.There is nothing i can think of they could use as breeding area, i have a little bit of hay on the ground for the quails but the budgies do not go to ground that much.

My hens in the aviary who all about 18 months old have started fighting, there is 4 that are the main culprits and it is used to be just getting cranky with each other but today i have 3 with injuries from fighting. The aviary is not overcrowded, there is plenty of perches and food dishes and water, no nestboxs. Why would they be carrying on like this and any ideas to stop them. i have put the worst offender in a cage by herself.

i will probably not be going to pick them up, Mike will go and get them by himself if the weekend turns out as hot as they predict. We have no aircon in our car so i think the kids would not handle the trip.

At Penrith, Dave. i am waiting for the seller to get back to me to organise a time to pick them up.

I just won on ebay 8 breeding cabinets for $51.00, they are the wooden ones with the nestboxs inside one end. They are 2 cabinets of 4. I think i got a good bargain. They are in sydney so i will have to drive a couple of hours to get them but for the price it is worth it. When i am ready to start breeding i will have some cabinets.

That is good news MB, hope you can get everything organised so you can go away in Feb

So sorry for your loss of Tilly.