renee

I like her very much Dave, I hope you breed something like her again Time for update photos?

Well hello nice little grey! I am really looking forward to seeing how your little ones moult out. Please do updates.

I am going to get real excited when I see one with my own eyes Who is getting all the glory for "discovering" it? or is it more than one person ... I couldn't work that one out.

No worries, I am happy if she didn't Maybe I'll get some chicks out of her yet ... or else she will be a valuable foster mum.

Yes I did! The Grey hen that was Red rung. She prolapsed when she was in with my Super Albino ... well I believe she did - there was blood all over the perch. She went into a hospital cage and made a remarkable recovery. The egg she popped out was very coarse and pitted and obviously scraped her innards on the way out. I then put her in with Magic and she laid just one egg in the nest box so she ended up raising 3 foster chicks. Then she moved into the Baby aviary with Magic and a week or so afterwards I noted an egg under the perches ... I assume it was hers 'cause th eldest chick was only about 6 weeks old.

Thanks Gina I really enjoy the way you judge with the write up for each bird.

Matt that is a very good result, congratulations. I have heard of this Turbobooster product. I was wondering if you could tell me more. For example do you mix it into the seed? and can you do a big batch and feed to outside aviary birds or not?

Technically today is the last day of my Breeding Journal. Yes I have been a bit slack lately ... you know how it is, when everything is going well there is little to say except "touch wood" and fingers crossed" things stay that way! But any way I am going to endeavor to provide an overview of sorts and this may take a few days as I go reviewing things. So this year I increased the number of Breeding Cabinets to 37 and used Fussy Cat Litter aka Attapulgite in the bottoms and also in the nest boxes although half way through I started adding Flakey Bran to soften the laying surface and hopefully reduce the number of addled eggs. I have decided that from now on I will use both again and the addition of Flakey Bran is a good idea. In August I judged all my birds in Classes and then popped them in-together in Holding Cabinets for almost 2 weeks where they bonded. I still like this way of doing things and will do it again. Although next year I am going to pay more attention to whether they are properly in condition. If there is anything I will take away from this year's failed season is to remember to vent pluck the cocks and hens before putting into the Holding Cabinets and then again before they go into the Breeder Cabinets. I still like using Muscle XL Protein Powder in the Soft Food for breeding pairs, Breeding Aid, Iodine, Calcium Supplements, Murphy's Minerals, Vitamin B12 and a good quality seed and fresh veggies. This year I bred 55 chicks of which 53 have fledged which is a simply dreadful outcome, bearing in mind that from 37 cabinets there were 18 fertile nests - barely 50% I discovered that in spite of my distaste for Opalines a number of my cock birds are split for it as well as most of my Recessive Pieds being actually Cinnamon And while some may mature into nice show budgies most of them will just be okay ...

Another day and all is good in BudgieLand! i have decided not to move the newly fledged chicks from the Cobalt Dommie Pied and Sky hen and just leave the 2 of them in the Breeder Cabinet for now, as the hot weather returns I will put them into the Kindie Cage but for now I am going to leave them there. Same as with all the chickies in the Kindie Cage, I know there are some that are ready for outside but I am going to hold off till I absolutely have to, ie a few days before the next heat wave. In the meantime I managed to get some half decent photos of a few of my Adult birds .... as most of them didn't breed for me this year it is just a sad reminder of what could have been ... No trick photography, they actually look even better most of the time. My Double Factor White Spangle boy ... 5 chicks last year, this year zilch The best of my Armstrong line .... filled a couple of eggs and then addled them Well I can't speak for her but this boy did give me 1 chick to Medusa I reckon this guy has Mega ... moping over the perch NOT a happy Chappy I know it's not a good photo but here is my Violet split Opaline guy ... note he has flights just not much of a tail These are the guys that bother me .... the ones that sit on the aviary floor!!!

Well no photos today I'm afraid and more to the point no real news at all ... Everyone except the Sky hen has had a 2 week break since the last round of meds and we are set to have relatively mild conditions for the next bit so I have decided to give everyone a treatment of Fungilin to combat Megabacteria. This is prompted 'cause I am specifically concerned about a number of Adult birds who are underweight and still hanging around the seeder dish.... which are signs for Mega, at least as I see it. I am skeptical about being able to completely eradicate Mega but I do think you can significantly reduce it with a well timed course of Fungilin and then manage it with apple cider or Megamix/KD Powder in the water. Any way I can't even remember when I last treated my flock for it so now is as good a time as ever.

Oh hmm well that's a tricky one, how about my Albino line, oh yes and Lutes didn't so too well and come to think of it neither did my Double Factor Spangles - White and Yellow nor did the Recessive Pieds either or my Normal Green line .... In fact NONE of my top birds did the business for me this year AT ALL. ps it is a bit young to be developing a cyst don't you think?!

Are you serious! How many have you had that with? Mind you non-layers is totally different to "nest bound hens", the ones who camp out in the nest box .... Gerald Binks has a lot to say about how to fix that in "The Challenge".

Yes it is very unusual to have so many not lay but in my opinion a hen will always lay unless something is stopping her, ie. she is an internal egglayer or has a tumor inside obstructing the egglaying process or alternatively she is an egg eater. I have never heard of any other nutritional reasons or environmental ones either. What does the person you bought these eggless wonders off say? And exactly how old were they when you bought them? I have become highly suspicious of "untried" hens .... I perfer to buy "maidens", ie. no older than 18 months, as I always wonder exactly why someone would not try to breed with a nice looking hen .... or maybe they have and after a little bit put them into the cull cage for someone else to have a go at

Well I haven't really checked on the Breeding Room birds yet today 'cause I have been busy taking more "better" photos of the Young Ones. This is what they get every day - A dish of Budgie Breeder seed, a dish of Hulled Oats, Soft Food and Greens and fresh gum leaves on the week end The broccoli is popular so too the Soft Food they don't really go for the Hulled Oats much ... and I think they just walk around in the Budgie seed but far and away the most sort after item on the menu are MY SHOES

Yes I bred the parents and grandparents and in fact they come out of Dominant Pieds. I understand the Recessive gene and more to the point this is the first year I have bred splits in the Recessive Pied line so there is absolutely NO CHANCE that either parents are carrying the Recessive Pied gene. However, I did consult with a friend of mine who does breed a lot of Dommie Pieds and she has seen this before, ie. the Dommie Pied mark on the back of the head (approximating a 20 cent coin) on a Normal bird. She says it disappears with the first moult so WE SHALL SEE!!!

I have to say that the exhaust fumes is my way of sending my birds to God. Mainly because I just can't do it myself so it falls to my hubby to do it. We have an old sock and the bird goes straight in and then onto the exhaust pipe. Very quick. I killed one of my best chicks a few years ago with the crop needle ... practice is the best way of avoiding repeating that, you do get to know how to feel for the crop opening and not shove the crop needle down into the lungs.

Thanks guys but no. This is the first year I have bred Splits from my Recessive Pied line so there is no chance that either parent is a split and more to the point you tend to get what is called a "tick", ie. small patch of a few feathers on the back of the head. These 2 definitely have a patch of white feathers like that of a Dommie Pied. Oh and I should add that both parents are Normals.

Mmmmm. I'm hoping for a marked improvement once we insulate, hopefully next March. It did reach 37C today and I am happy to say that all birds have survived and look none the worse for wear. Really it wasn't too bad at all and started to cool off after 4pm. Interestingly I didn't turn the sprinklers on, the babies just weren't heat stressed and were all happily on the perches ... next time if they start flopping about on the floor I will. It looks like I will be fledging the next nest soon, maybe by Sunday as the 2 youngest chicks to the Cobalt Dommie Pied and Sky hen keep on jumping out of the nest box. I can't say they are anything to write home about, the little Sky Dommie looks especially Petshoppish ... but then I am hyper-critical of my birds On a more positive note the last nest of 3 siblings to Sooky Blue (who by the way must be out of the woods by now as she hasn't been stalking the cage fronts lately demanding to be fed with those "If you don't, I'll drop off the perch by morning" eyes) are looking okay. There are 2 Sky Normals and a Green split Blue Normal. The eldest of the Skys I already like a lot, not the best photos but maybe you will see its potential the way I do Can anyone tell me why both of the Sky Normals have Dommie Pied Spot markings on the back of their heads? Oh yes and this guy can't perch to save itself!

I just have 2 more nests to fledge over the next 10 days. Why don't you use fans Splat? I was assured that so long as I had air flow all would be well ...

Well Fingers Crossed all is going well but tomorrow is the real test. Only news today was that somehow someone has figured out how to lift the cage door to the Kindie Cage and when I walked in on them for the evening check up almost all inhabitants were out! Now if I had had the presence of mind I should have taken photos of the naughty ones but I was too busy catching them all up again Actually it was quite cute that one of my pairs had escaped, the Normal Grey and Recessive Pied hen and they were perching on their old Breeder Cabinet! I think they want to go back in

Well it was a little bit warmer than I was expecting today and the mercury rose to 34C which actually wasn't too bad. All the Breeder Cabinets with birds in them are close to the floor and therefor cooler than if they were higher up. I set t he fans to go at 11am and turned them off at 4pm. Tomorrow is now going to be 36C and Thursday 37C so I will be putting the sprinklers on but exactly when depends on my temperature readings from a thermometer I have under the back verandah. No real news. The Sky hen I am treating seems to be improving and her crop is not so squidgy as a couple of days ago. But the Normal Cobalt chick that had taken a peck to the outer eye appears to have something else going on so I am treating it with an ointment for now and monitoring.

Female, you think? Well Taylor your guess is as good as mine ... after many botched attempts at sexing young ones I have decided to wait for conclusive evidence before venturing a guess!

I don't know if you've noticed that I am completely obsessed with the temperature Forecast. I think this may be because the very first summer I kept show budgies I lost a number of them due to heat stress, ironic 'cause on the day in question I was visiting a breeder who blithely reassured me that budgies were "desert birds" and therefor quite happy in 40C days ... I was only away a couple of hours but still lost about 5 on that day. Now as soon as the temperature hits 35C I pop on the automatic sprinkler on the Baby aviary till it drops down again and I have gone so far as to obtain a dispensation from the Water Corporation to run the sprinkler. This week is shaping up to be very challenging. Today was 29.5C, tomorrow will be 30C, Wednesday 34C, Thursday 37C and Friday 30C. In itself it doesn't look too bad but because it is the first hot week this summer I have pulled out all the stops in preparation: I have tested the sprinkler system, replaced the timer's battery, sorted out fans for the Breeder Cabinets and fledged all chicks into the bottom tiered Kindie Cage. Here's how I have set up for the Kindie Cage And here's some little one's that have fledged recently Yes, another Normal Cobalt And little Beanbag's sibling In other news I have decided to go ahead and treat the Sky hen for Canker for 5 days. I have put it in the drinker daily and also put it in her crop every evening, about 2 mls.

It is well and truly time for an update on the Breeding Room but no photos today, I'm afraid I can't be assed. Unfortunately not all is going smoothly and on Friday I heard my Sky hen wheezing and on closer inspection she was tail bobbing quite vigorously, though no poopy vent, and her crop was swollen and squishy. So I popped her into a hospital cage overnight and monitored her and she seemed no worse for wear so the next afternoon I popped her in back with her 2 chicks, who I had crop fed in the meantime. I do believe I have seen this before with one of the Cobalt John Kobilanski hens a couple of years ago and if memory serves me correctly I managed to eliminate it with a treatment of Turbosole for low level Canker BUT I only finished giving everybody that 10 days ago! So I am weighing up my options. The fact of the matter is prior to 2010 I did annual preventative treatments for basically everything, but then last year I got ill and all my birds got was little more than water and seed for 18 months. I am also tempted to do a treatment for Mega .... but it is going to be very hot this week with temperatures peaking on Wednesday in the high 30Cs, so I am contemplating next week (it is a 7 day treatment) however, now that the warmer weather is definitely with us it is going to be hot no matter when I decide to do it....

Macro setting?! What are you talking about! I have it ion Macro. You explained that to me last time! ..... erm, how do you adjust the macro setting once it is on macro? FORGET it! Toooooo complicated.