renee

Just done an egg check and it's all okay. 15 nests no eggs 4 nests with fertile eggs Mostly 1-2 eggs I have fostered out Medusa's eggs.

Aha!!!!! Well lucky you Maddy to have Matt close by!!! I'll leave you in his capable hands

Yes, precisely! Good luck with that, I think you're definitely on the right track. I have recently bought a bank of 9 cabinets with the nest boxes inside .... the only problem is that when you slide it out there is a big hole through which the birds can fly out .... next year I will modify them to prevent it. The Fussy Cat Litter brand IS Attapulgite. You can get it from the City Farmers chain .... or why not ask your local Pet Store to ship it in? He, he, he! I have tried that but this year, due to numbers - I have close to 80 birds down - I let their own little chatterings do the magic! However, I AM keeping an oil burner going with Eucalyptus essential oil .... very bush smelling!!!!

But Matt she's a beginner!!!! French Moult is depressing and taxing even for the most seasoned breeder. Once it spreads (and it always does) you get nest after nest of flightless, bald chickies that need to be sent to God .... it's a heartbreak and a half. Look Maddy, in all fairness Matt makes a valuable case about the weather and what you can do to try and mitigate the effects of French Moult. Plus it is true that invariably it is imported through a carrier and even after shutting the breeding down for 6 months that same bird (in my case it was a hen) can spark another outbreak. The second year it hit me I did contain it in the way Matt has described. But I culled all birds associated with the outbreak and once again did an extensive clean out out/disinfectant and waited another 6 months before breeding again. If you possess remarkable fortitude then give it a go at containing French Moult. But I were in your shoes I wouldn't.

I hear you. I have 2 wire cages I keep for temporary holdings. The poo drips down on the wires and sticks like cement. As you said, not only do you have all the seed flying everywhere but cleaning these cages is a pain. Also you make the valid point about little chickies hobbling around on the wire base. By putting the paper in you mitigate this but then you have to change that newspaper more often. Also I can't remember whether you mentioned it or Matt but I DO think that Air Bourne diseases such as French Moult is more of a danger with the wire cages. I have read somewhere that one breeder likes the Wire cabinets 'cause the budgies can see eachother and that stimulates their breeding behaviour .... Well all my birds face eachother so that behaviour can be seen by them ...

Mine are all melamine or painted wood cabinets. They ARE easier to clean .... have you ever tried cleaning the wires? I don't use the trays and all mine have a 10cm lip at the front. I do the deep litter ... even easier. Just scoop up the poops and replenish with attapulgite. I keep the seed deispenser towards the back of the cabinet so very little seed makes it out of the front. Most of my nest boxes are external. The hens lay on a bed of attapulgite within a plastic ice cream container. Again very quick and easy to clean with minimum disruption to chickies and hen.

Good idea Maddy. Pull your birds, sanitize your cabinets and Breeding Room and consider giving breeding a break for 6 months. Don't give up!!!! Just have a break for a while

Well the logistics of what I am undertaking are starting to weigh on me .... this year I am doing it all on my own. This week end I have been busy cleaning the cabinets (poopy scooping), providing fresh greenery, wiping up feather dust, topping up the Finger Dishes with Murphy's Minerals and filling up the Seed dispensers. On the subject of Murphy's Minerals, I am being very vigilent this year as I have noticed that most of my birds are taking a nibble and I am hoping that it will help with Feather Plucking. I know that there are many theories as to why hens do this and boredom is a much quoted reason (so every nest has a little cuttle fish for this) but I have also read that it may be due to a mineral defficiency ... I don't know about that but just incase I am making sure that if the hens do need a something extra they can get it from the Murphy's Minerals. The seed my Breeders' are getting right now is a 2:1 Budgie Breeder and Finch Mix but I may be switching them to Golden Cob soon. Every day I provide fresh soft food and hoover up. Every second day I do a water change. On that subject, at this stage I am providing a mix of Calcium supplement and acqueous Iodine for 2 days and then a mixture of Soluvet (liquid vitamins) and Calcium supplement. This year I am using the brand Calcivet. As the weather warms up I will look around for another brand that doesn't have quite as much sugary content, I find that Calcivet at full strength (20mls per Liter) goes off after 30 hours approx. After about 10 days of this regime I will mix it up and do 2 days of Probiotics, or 2 days of Megamix (a Rob Marshall's product that has Citric acid at 1g/L) and once a month all birds get S76 (another Rob Marshall's product that is very effective for Lice, Mites, etc) Tomorrow I am going to start the twice daily routine of checking nest boxes and candling eggs. I am not too fussed about recording when eggs are lain, hatching date is more important and there is always a few days give or take with incubation because hens don't always start incubating as soon as they lay the first egg.

Oh fordmob:blush: Praise indeed .... that is very kind of you to say so. Thank you Pride. But as you will learn too, luck plays a part in actually producing the super birds but mainly it is all about nutrition and health and good environment. It is a journey, a never-ending learning curve ... and that's what I really enjoy. In fact to a degree I believe I have a responsibility to my birds to give them the best of all 3 and I hope they will reward my with lovely, healthy chickies.

Wecome to the fourum fordmob! I look forward to reading your posts - may they be many and full of useful tips so we can all learn!!!

Yes it was a horrible start to my day Pride. But since then things have improved and I have successfully removed one of Medusa's eggs. I will mark each one with a M and find appropriate nests for them.

Well considering you only posted 3 weeks or so ago you have really done extremely well. Congratulations!!! Don't forget that M Chidel is selling out too. PS Welcome to the Good Birds **** Photos Club

Oh Amy that is simply terrible I am so sorry for your loss. HUGS. I know there are bird thieves in Perth, we've all heard the stories and know at least someone who has had the misfortune but it hurts every time I hear of another incident. From what you have described I'm afraid you may need to look closer to home ..... neighbours, friends of neighbours, friends of friends and family. How about contacting your local Pet Shops and giving them a description of the stolen birds? I hope against hope they are returned to you.

aghhhh, it hasn't taken long and DISASTER has struck ! Or should I say the first disaster of my Breeding Season .... no, that would be tempting Fate. The hen to my super Albino (ie another top pairing) has prolapsed with her first egg. I first saw the blood on the perch and then quickly realised she was bleeding and needed immediate assistance. So I brought her indoors and held her abdomen/rear end under running warm water. Th egg itself was not hard to ease out and I gently massaged her tummy so poop came out too. Something is definitely not right with the egg. It is like it has an extra coarse layer of calcium on it and it has a pitted surface. I gave the hen a dose of Spark and popped her into a warm hospital cage with seed and water. I think her breeding years are over before they began. Now here's the thing. It may well be all my fault. The hen in question I bought a few years ago from a Breeder who was selling out under the premise that she came from maginificent stock and was going to be a ripper when she matured. Well that never eventuated and simply put she got lost in the crowd and has been overlooked several times at breeding selection time. This year I decided to finally give her a go - but she is 2009 rung. Maybe I left it too late and the effort of popping out her first egg now was just too much for her. I dunno. You be the judge.

Well I'm not sure if that is possible Pride. All evidence suggests she is not a good mother hen at all. For example, when I tap on the nest box she bolts out into the cabinet in a panic. GOOD mother hens don't move an inch and give you the dopey placid look. I have had a little think about the Medusa situation overnight and decided that I am just not going to risk it. So as soon as she lays an egg I am going to remove it and pop it into a container. I have quite a few seasoned non-Recessive Pied mother hens down so when they lay their second egg I am going to pop one of Medusa's in that nest. Just one per nest. I am thinking I am going to let Medusa lay approx 6 eggs and then let her go back into the aviary. I have a Spangle girl with nice backskull who I'll pop in with the cock instead.

My worst fears have been realised ... my best Recessive Pied Hen, the one I lent out last year as a maiden and who reportedly never fed a single chick is A MONSTER. On the floor of the cabinet, an egg - not just tossed out of the nest box but with a gaping hole. I have given her a false one. And named her MEDUSA.

Just checked up on my Blue rung pair of Brother and Sister Recessive Pieds who I lent out last year and it is not good news I'm afraid .... The Hen never did get the hang of feeding her chicks, not a problem I'll be extra vigilent with her and maybe foster her eggs out But there's no confirmation that Tailess Wonder ever produced a chick .... sigh. Not surprising as I already had my doubts about him. I don't know if this has been anyone else's experience but I am extremely suspicious of over solicitous cocks, I'm sure you've seen them: the ones that spend all their time preening their hens, kissing and feeding them, jump into the nest box with them: THE SWEET TALKERS!!!! I have had a couple and they never got round to jumping on the hen and making chickies. I am quite patient with my budgies but these are the ones I could quite easily strangle. I have determined to give him a month to give me fertile eggs, not a day longer. Then I'll see what next.

and Finally the Lutinos - another seed paying variety This is the variety that I am very close to culling, but the trouble is I really like Lutes .... the real issue is that I have been breeding them but not really paying attention to this line, ie. setting out a breeding plan to improve them. There you go, it is all my fault! LOL I have bred some very nice hens but they need a bit of size and the truth of the matter is I am waiting on my Green line to chuck me some cock numbers in order to start playing around with the them. Or else I may try to get a Foundation cock bird at next month's SWBC auction .... dunno, I guess it boils down to what is available and from whom, my Lutes are 100% Cec Gearing blood lines. Here is an aviary snap of the girl who missed out on this year's breeding ... she's young, so she can wait If I could have figured out Photobucket before the week end I would've posted pics of the hens but I don't want to disturb them as 90% of them went straight into the nestboxes and started checking them out and mating. So to recap, the biggest change I made this year was gathering up every single bird and judging them in classes to determine my top birds and popping them into Holding cabinets per class/variety for 2 weeks. Previously I just gathered the hens up and kept them isolated for 2 weeks. The idea behind that being that budgie sperm, I have been told, can survive for 10 days within the hen. But I found that the hens got bored sitting on their own and went out of condition .... So this year I popped the cock birds in with them and kept an eagle eye on the bondings. I must admit I did get lucky and 95% of my ideal pairings decided they liked eachother and bonded, with the exception of one brother & sister bonding that I quickly separated. I do keep my lines separate and almost entirely confined to Families or Breeder specific bloodlines. So that that the Albinos are all Cec Gearing and now I'm introducing John Kobilanski Greys as outcross. The Lutes again are Cec Gearing. My Greens/Blues are basically Jeff Lloyd/John Kobilanski. My Recessive Pieds are all Dom Manno/Gary Armstrong although I'm starting to introduce my Greens. The Dommie Pieds are all John Kobilanski. With time every bird will become more closely related and I anticipate that will come through my Green line .... though you never know those Blues may surprise me

okay I have had a re-read and realised that I have messed up!!!!! The Recessive Pied boy that went to Nationals as Reserve Bird is the Red rung Manno line Cock bird !!!! This one: NOT this guy, who is Blue rung : So sorry for that.

okay now for the Normals Green and Blue lines. These are actually quite related as I hit the jackpot with a John Kobilanski Blue hen and Neville Schoemaker Green cock bird pairing in 2009 who both were carrying Jeff Lloyd bloodlines. They produced I think 4 lovely chicks of which I only have 2 left (a cock and a hen) .... I also lost the Green cock Dad to cysts growth at the age of 2 so was never able to repeat the pairing. Anyway, here is the Blue rung cock And here is his son bred last year, he has a beak issue .... What causes that??? Believe it or not all the other offspring of last year's pairings are all hens!!! I am hoping for a number of good Green birds this year in order to put back some into my Lutes and possibly Recessive Pieds. Then the Blue line, or what I refer to as the seed paying birds. I really do need to focus a bit more on these birds but I am not really motivated as I don't need them for my specialist varieties. Blue rung Cock His Magenta rung son Wayne Retzcalf purchase from a couple of years ago at the SWBC auction

Every day my birds get a soft food mix of Carrots, Beetroot and Hulled Oats. Fresh carrots and beetroot stain the masks Thank you so much moglet Yes, I do have very nice birds (she says throwing modesty to the wind) but as you know you have to breed them and then improve on them some ..... now there's the rub. Without exception, all my birds have faults and alas some even have more than one!!!! But slowly but surely I am breeding towards a bird I find appealing. I haven't really shown since the SWBC Show in March 2010 and don't really intend on doing so this year. Currently I am in the Never-Never Land of Intermediate, which I consider to be a complete nothing of a grade and in which so many breeders become stuck for years on end. However, I am still intent on making it to Open and of course to do so I will have to show next year .... I doubt I'll get there by 2013 - but I'd like to. And of course once I start showing next year I will have to reconcile myself with the reality that maybe what I like doesn't cut it on the show bench. Such is Life.

Next my Albinos, a line I am very hopeful about .... and hope to see results in a couple of years time Here is the foundation cock bird, a Cec Gearing 2008 bred He was reserve bird at Nationals He produced a number of nondescript crosses the first year I put him down (I am using one this year as a bit of a curiosity) but last year I got a better hen for him and he pumped out 9 chicks - 6 hens and 3 cock birds, a number of the hens are particularly nice. So now I have the numbers I can start playing around a bit and introduce some outcrosses, 2 of the hens have gone down to a pair of DF Grey brothers I bred back in 2008, they 100% John Kobilanski to add a bit of length Once again I stress, my photos do not do my birds justice ... LOL

and now for the Double Factor Spangles The DF Yellow line is something I have been playing around with for for a number of years, sadly I lost 2 of my best Spangle hens last year .... these things happen. But anyway here are some photos of the boys First of all a bit of background. To date all my best cocks and hens come from a Barry White? SA cock bird I bought from Fran McLoughlan about 4-5 years ago R&T Red rung He is paired to his R&T Blue rung cousin, who looks just like him This is her brother Then this year I have been extremely fortunate to purchase an outcross for this line, an 07 Gary Armstrong cock He came second at the 2008 Nationals And this is the foundation bird for my DF White line, I purchased him at last year's SWBC Auction He gave me 5 chicks late last year, 2 hens and 3 cock birds. The hens are down but the cock birds are in the aviary, I think they are still a bit immature for this year's breeding. This is a line I need to play around a bit with. and I almost forgot .... Here is another one of mine bred from Carl Alder Spangles who is down to one of the daughters

OMG I've so enjoyed reading your blog. Thank you GB for taking the time to share your story

I decided today that I haven't quite finished with the Recessive Pieds yet ... Here's a not particularly flattering photo of the boy who went to Nationals, he had a tail then ... alas no more! He is a much better looking bird now than he was back then, and althought you can't see it in this photo, he has a magnificent blow He is the best cock bird of the Armstrong line He is paired to my best Green hen and I sincerely hope that tail or no tail he does the business - she is quite in awe of him so it bodes well Now here is a photo of a cock I bred last year, evidently from the Manno line - he is longer than his Dad, featured in the earlier post, and happily I managed to get rid of the heavy flights .... I have not shown any magenta rung birds and this is the first time he has been in a show cage (yes, a feeble excuse for my photography skills and lack of patience) Here's a better photo of Dad - note the heavy flights ... And changing the subject, here is a typical breeder's cabinet that I use All mine are second hand and have the usual bits and pieces : round and square perches, feeder, soft food dish, finger tray with Murphy's Minerals, Calcium Block, greenery, drinker and nest box.