melbournebudgies

She certainly doesn't have that messy moulting look. I pick her up in a coupld of hours so I'll post some photos as soon as I can.

I candled some eggs tonight, four fertile but the coolest thing was that in the second youngest of the eggs I could see a strong pulsating heart beat! It was amazing, this is the first time I have seen this. In the others lots of veins of course and the oldest is starting to become more opaque now as the baby is developing.

Not mottled as the feathers aren't growing clear they are two different coloured varieties... Also not rainbow as rainbow includes a combination of clearwing and opaline I think and she is essentially normal, just in strange colours. I will be picking her up in about 10 hours so count down to photos!

I thought that too, but it s the mottled wing feathers that are really confusing, they are a mix of dark brown/black and lighter-mid brown. Unlike other YF2s that I have had the feathers are interspersed rather than going from top to bottom. If you have seen the kids book rainbowfish, a bit like the rainbow scales - just here and there, no real pattern

She is strange! Like half way between a fallow and a yellow face blue I will post a photo of my newby after I pick her up tomorrow.

There is a brand new pet shop just opened near me, they have their birds in lovely big cages and they are trying really hard to get it right. I visited for the first time today and had a lovely chat to them, they were very receptive to my advice regarding cage sizes for budgies, etc (they had been selling cages which were too small). They had the most lovely little budgie there and I will be picking her up tomorow. She is a very strange colour. A skyblue yellow face type 2. However this is where it gets strange. The green and blue is mottled all over her body as single feathers rather than fading from top to bottom and her wings are mottled standard black/brown and cinnamon! Has anyone seen one like this before? She is only youngish so time will tell whether it moults out at her next moult but I am prepared to take a chance and see how she develops.

Mine like that too, feels like they're flying

What a horrible stressful time for you Daz. Very sad to hear about your losses. This is definately the worst way to learn a lesson like this, I am so pleases that you have shared this info with us so that it may prevent other unnecessary deaths. Good luck getting the rest of your birds back into shape.

Is this the one that we thought was cremino? Was she tricking?

How sad She probably isn't very strong yet so she might not have gone far, I would quickly write up some fliers and stick them up on the light posts, etc around your area incase someone finds her. Just a thought too incase you need to do a quick transport like that again. I have an old pillowcase that I put them in for quick moves between the aviary and the house, that way you hold the case tightly at the top and there is no way they can get out.

He helps feed the babies and in some cases also feeds the hen

I have moved to three different locations in the past 6 years. First from Melbourne to Wagga, then from Wagga to Nowra, then from Nowra back to Melbourne. On all these occasions I had to transport a car full of animals including birds with me. I have never had a single bird get stressed by the travel. Melbourne to wagga is about 500km, Wagga to Nowra about 500km and Nowra to Melbourne about 1000km. In the car I had dogs, cats, birds, lizards, rats and fish! It was chaotic but we coped

I have about 30 birds in my aviary Steve so it is much easier to remove a single pair than the rest of the birds

I believe there are a few in Aus from way back which are still bred. I think they are EXTREMELY expensive. They are definately in the list of species which the department of Environment believes are in Australia in the pet trade.

Most members will tell you that they bhandle their chicks in the nest, it's necessary for checking their health/cleaning and makes life easier if you want to tame them too. It shouldn't bother the parents at all, you can even add a baby from adifferent nest and most of the time you won't have an issue!

Jealous! I adore Keas, we hiked in NZ and they followed us all the way along the tracks, they are jut beautiful. They are like an NZ version of an African Grey parrot, I believe you can actually keep them as pets in Aus and if I ever got the chance I'd have one in a snap.

Wow Raven, that's incredible. This is dad, I'll have to take a photo of mum, she was sitting when I took my flock photos a few weeks ago. Not a great photo, he wouldn't sit still !

I have a pair on eggs at the moment. They are a skyblue opaline spangle COCK and a cobalt spangle HEN. Both carry violet. So does that mean chicks should be: hens all opaline spangles cocks all standard spangles split for opaline how does violet come into this?

liked bad boys

It's a bad photo, I thought it was quite small and then when I picked it up I almost fell over! I had planned to put it in the back of may hatchback and in the end it barely fit in the front passenger seat! This is the one that I recently had a nestbox inside and the budgies still had heaps of space. I have just moved the nest box to hang off the outside of the cage with the entrance through the side sliding door, they love it.

I thought about doing somthing like that but I reckon the tree would get all poopy and gross. I'm thinking about having concrete 'planters' in the ground so that I can sit large potted shrub size gums in them and swap them over once amonth or so.

I had to remove a pair with eggs from my aviary recently. I moved them and their nest box with eggs in it into a smaller cage inside and they are very happy. If he wants to try moving them I would say it is best if he does it now. If he can send you a photo of the log to post we can maybe advise if it's suitable. There is nothing essentially wrong with a log, it just has to be the right log. If there are only a few other birds in the aviary and he intends to leave the hen with the eggs it would be better if he can move the other hens for the time being until the chicks fledge and the log can be removed.

okay, well I might try taking them out atleast a day before they are due to hatch and see how I go with that. I haven't got any eggs to put under her yet but I wanted to be ready to do it once the quails start laying again. By the time they get close to hatching I will be finished classes and I'll be home alot so I'll be able to keep a close eye on how things go.

If you could start from scratch and build the aviary of your dreams what would it be like? We are buying a property at the end of the year (we are talking around 10 acres) and my other half has told me to design my aviary and he will build it! I want to have an area set aside for my birds in a large semi circle with a gravel/sand area in the centre and 4-5 aviaries around the edge. The aviaries can be large single aviaries or divided, I am even thinking about making removable internal dividers with doors so that I can change the way birds are distributed any time I like. I'd like to know the big mistakes that others have made and the things you love about your current aviary.

Good point, in the wild a bird would have lots of nest options available, in captivity they'll try and use a seed bowl if they are desperate enough! Just because she is nesting in it doesn't mean it's suitable.