melbournebudgies

Mine eat dry lorie mix so it doesn't need to be replaced quite as often. They had a nearly full bowl of dry mix when I checked them this evening and they get fruit every morning as well. I can't think of anything that would have caused this, just bad luck I think, maybe they picked up something from a wild bird, it's the only thing I can think of...

I went to check on my birds this evening and give them their supper(apples) before shutting the garage doors for the night and found three of my lorikeets dead in their cage and the rest looking not good at all. I have no idea what has happened, they were alive this morning and there is no evidence of injury so I can only imagine that it is some sort of disease. Luckily these birds are kept seperately to the rest of my birds so they can't have passed it on but one of the ones sick is my baby girl tame one who I have had for over seven years! I have checked them and they feel a little skinny so I think maybe it has been brewing for a little while and the cold weather the last couple of days has brought it out I have brought the remaining four inside in two cages and turned my second bathroom into a sick room, which has the advantage of having one of those heat lights in the cieling so the room is now nice and warm and thy are chomping on half an apple each for short term energy and have some medicine in their water. PLease cross your fingers for me that the rest will pull through, most especially miss Fruit Tingle as I will be an absolute mess if something happens to her :sad:

I got dirty normals...

Opalines hey... I avoided them today as I thought that I would want colour on as much of the bird as possible and since opalines don't have the colour on their head... What is your theory behind opaline? I am interested to get as manytheories as possible.

Fantastic, and grey too

no they are straight albino. Lutino is green series and a blue series bird can't be split for green If you put the chicks to a grey bird you will get grey birds, males will be split for albino

Both birds are split for blue meaning you have got the blue version of a lutino - an albino

Hey Liv if you pm me your email I"ll send you the taxiride song that I have, it's nearly impossible to track down and I have actually had to contact the band directly to find out where to get it as it wasn't officially released in Aus. But I think it is a really moving song, with a great sound.

The lovely secretary from the Eastern Districts budgie club is on the case for me She's going to look into the breeder of my flecked birds and also ask around for other birds with black flecks and grey birds with heaps of forehead flecking and big splashy cheek spots

They should be atleast a year old before you try and breed them.

If you do need to ad flavour to the water, there is a powdered cordial(like Tang) which comes in sachets and has a colour free form

I had a feeling that was the case so I grabbed the grey male today that had the most flecking on his forehead and big splashy cheek spots. The cheek spots most breeders would probably think look ghastly but they are exactly what I want

All four of the budgies in my first generation are club rung from a local club so I am going to try and track down the breeder of the hens and see if he has any others floating around. Oh I do have a question though. What is the reason for large amounts of spotting on the head? I am trying to work out if it is worth selecting birds with lots of spot- I wondered if it was something to do with lots of melanin...

At this stage can you keep an eye out for any budgies that have black feathers anywhere they shouldn't(any colour budgie). It could all be a complete flop and I may end up with nothing to show for my hard work but if I'm gonna give it a go I might as well do it right. Just cross your fingers that miss grey is capable, since she is my ricketts girl. If she was a boy I would consider AI if they couldn't mate but if she can't mate she is going to struggle t get in a nest box and sit too so I don't think its worth pushing the issue if she can't do it. Thanks SW, might be a year or two before I have anything real to suss out but I'll update this post if I get anything promising and then we'll look at genetics.

Hey AV, that 'six weeks without water' is based on a bird consuming watery vegetable matter like grasses, etc. They may not 'drink' but they will get their water from other sources. It is highly unlikely you will see her drink, they rarely do while someone is in the room. The reason you shouldn't feed them water based vegies whil they are on the meds is because aving no water available in vegie form forces them to drink. I think you'll find she is drinking

Hi all I have decided to follow through with the breeding of these two hens displaying black on their body feathers with hopefully the future aim of reproducing that colour in chicks in increasing amounts. It will be a long process of course, but it will be an interesting challenge to work on 'on the side'. I intend to use this thread for my own progress records but also would love any comments/recommendations. I have decided to use the grey body colour as my base, since this seems a sensible colour to use when working towards black. So today I got two nice biggish grey normal english cocks to put to the two hens I have, one is a 'rescue' which the bloke gave me but was also my preferred cock so I decided to take him anyway (he got in a fight last night and got a chunk taken off his scone). At this stage I am not too fussed on increasing body size, etc it will have to be more about using birds that display the best colouring and then when possible selecting for the best body type of those. So my first generation will be: Grey normal cock X green opaline hen(black marks) Grey normal cock X grey opaline hen (black marks) Photos will come later of all the parent generation birds

Thanks Kaz, I figured it would have to look right. It's interesting to hear that they are testing you on it though

Hey NickNack you know birds are just trouble :budgiedance: You have the recipe now so you can make it yourself

The first one is normal mud cake if you make it without the added bits in the middle, you can substitute other things for the choc chunks, try chopped snickers bars or cherry ripes or even some nuts.

choccy mud cake: http://www.taste.com.au/recipes/546/melt+a...+chunk+mud+cake white choccy mud cake: http://www.exclusivelyfood.com.au/2006/07/...ake-recipe.html

Sounds like maybe you do have that recessive grey thing goin' on then

I'm a sucker for the weird ones as well Libby, looking forward to trying to breed some more black feathers into my birds at the moment and to be honest at this stage I will have to take anything I can get as far as body type, etc if it happens to be lucky enough to have the feather 'faults' I need. BUT once I have some chicks from these birds I will then have to be very careful who I breed them with to try and bring back that colouration so there are times when it pays to stick to the script and times where it is worth experimenting.

If you weren't all the way in Canada I would post you a little sample NickNack As a consolation prize I will provide photos when they are completed, but it will only be internet cake though Besides NN I would need to see some pretty good evidence that marrying one man who loves me for my cake is preferable to marrying a different man who loves me for my cake :hap: The current man lives interstate and sends me all his money

Did I mention there will be sauce The muffin cases are ceramic and in the bottom of each one there will be a little hidden reservoir of choccy sauce so when they put their muffin in the microwave for 20 seconds they will get drippy, choccy yumminess with their cake. Spoon DEFINATELY required

Throwback it sounds like that made your night It will be interesting to see what he is hiding but I have no plans to show breed at this stage so it doesn't really matter anyway. I would imagine the same goes for Sunnie at the moment, but he is startig to sound a little more serious than me Hey just out of curiosity if that suffusion continued all the way across the body so that there was really no way to tell him from a clearwing he would look like a ripper clear wing wouldn't he? Do breeders do that sort of thing sometimes on the hush? Show a bird as one thing even though they know genetically that it is something else? Not condoning, just curious