renee

But Pearce, you don't even know what 'average' is! Where you live determines the PH value of your water. Some people have 'soft'water ie., alcaline. some people have 'hard' water ie., aciddy. The geographical location and where your water comes from are the deciding factors. You NEED to check your own water yourself to know the answer. 1ml is 14 drops.

Yes, I see that indeed you have been recommended this dosage. Personally I think it is WAY TOO aciddy. If it is considered "yucky" to drink, how do you think your budgies feel about this? Remember that budgies are desert birds and can easily go for a week without drinking ... by providing such accidy water you have NO guarentee that they are actually Drinking this bile. Again Pearce, CHECK your water with a Fresh water tester from an aquarium and then determine how much ACV you really need to add. I recommend you set your acid content at SLIGHTLY acid.

You may very well have been told that but I'd recommend you check your water first and then determine how much you need to add.

Very Good post Splat! I don't think this subject has been covered before.

You want it to be slightly acid but here's the thing- everybody's water is different. So for my budgies FIRST of all I tested my tap water and found out it was only slightly alcaline (I have Goldfish as well and used the water tester to determine the nature of my water). Then I added drops of apple cider until the test came back slightly acid. In my case it is 2-4 drops/L.Regarding the water tester, you can pick these up at Aquariums for about $15. Make sure you get the tester for FRESH Water as they often sell the SALT water testers side-by-side. Pearce, ARE you SURE about the apple cider dosage????? Have you tested your water? Is it THAT alcaline? If it was me, I'd be adding - at most- 1ml/L.

I'll put her down again in August .... hopefully I'll get a couple more chicks out of her

Normally I'd agree, but her partner's really looking after her and the 'schedule' is taking precedence. I feel guilty about it. There's no way she's going back into the aviary, probably I should put her into a holding cage with her partner .... we'll see. Again Renee, forget the schedule. You only breed with those in OPTIMUM condition. This hen isnt and she cannot heal while under the stress of breeding. She has to come first, not the breeding schedule. Yeah, yeah, yeah. She's going into a holding cage, I made up my mind about that when her foot swelled up yesterday - her partner has a new girlfriend to play with. It wasn't a completely wasted trip as they cleaned her up ... but they did prescribe Baytril again - I thought they would. I had stopped putting it into the water on Sunday: too early according to the vet. The dosage IS 1ml/1L, I made a point to check that. But instead of putting it into the water they've recommended giving her a drop per day. I'm going to mix it in 3mls of water and crop feed her to make sure. She needs to be on this regime for 2 weeks. Fingers crossed she makes a full recovery. Good news is she's put on weight since I had her in the hospital cage and the vet complimented me on her condition- minus the foot of course.

Fussy choock's foot swelled up again yesterday so she's off to the vet. Update this arvo when I pick her up.

Any suggestions for the specific type of repellent? Renee - I just use Dettol cream, works a treat!!! thanks for the tip.

Any suggestions for the specific type of repellent?

Renee - I wouldnt dream of moving chicks until at least 4-5 days old. From my experience they rarely survive and in actually fact i have probably killed them, just by handling them!!!! Generally the first time i TOUCH a chick is when ringing them, and only after using hand sanitiser. I see lots of posts with pictures of babies being handled at a very young age and cant help but think is it really NOT necessary. Well thanks for the Heath. I'm always very careful about washing my hands before handling my budgies. Any way your advice confirms what I'm leaning towards. :glare:

Well chickies are hatching out nicely .... yes, photos coming soon. But time for a serious discussion. Over the past 3 days I have lost 3 chicks and I've decided to change the way I intervene. You may recall that my first chick hatched out a week ago and today I ringed it. However, there was a 4 day gap before anymore hatched out so I transferred her over to the Greywing nest so the maiden mum could get the hang of feeding and transferred her 2 newly hatched chicks to the original nest. Another chickie had hatched out to Magic's Mum (where the rung chick came from) so I figured she could raise these three- no probs, right? WRONG! To my amazement she refused to feed all 3 newly hatched chicks. So I started feeding them top ups with protein powder and Calcivet every few hours but after 36hrs they were looking very weak so I transferred them to other nests- but they didn't make it. I cannot tell you how pissed off I am. So I have started to rethink.... All that intervention, and lets face it, disturbance to the hen, obviously didn't work. Time to change tactics. So from now on I am NOT going to intervene but let nature take it's course. I'll still consider transfering/fostering chicks after 24 hrs, if they're still alive, but no more stressing.

Just for the benefit of anyone who is asking Why On Earth would I give Liv such a cutie - Well here's the thing: she has bred me 1 fantastic chick and maybe another, not enough by my standards ..... and at the time that I was overcome with generosity the DF Yellow chick had not attained anywhere near his final potential!

I am SO Glad that Renee and Robbie are working out for you! Last year Renee bred me a DF Yellow Spangle that has won Best Novice twice! Here's hoping this pairing brings you success too!

Who said Recessives and DECs are small birds???? I have recessives the size of my normals and dominants. I am trying to get the DECs up to that size as well but pairing back to large Normal/Recessive Pieds. Not like those Clearwings(sparrows). He, he, well they are small over her in the West! I look forward to seeing your monster DEC's at Nationals anytime soon! :star:

Good on You for doing it all yourself!!!!

Looks like a Recessive Pied cock to me, yellow and dark green for his body colour.

I've heard Cobalt x Cobalt decreases size! But not Cobalt x Sky .... The thing about the Rec Pieds is that they generally are smaller birds and they're not renowned for their feather quality either. Same could be said for Clearwings .... and Dark Eyed Clears ..... Rec Pied hens have a lot of melanine and a breeder I know puts them to his Spangle cocks to improve the Spangle markings. Cinnnamon does improve feather quality and suffusion however, it also dilutes the full body colour. Another breeder I knows runs Cinnamon through the cock line of his Lutinos to improve feather quality and colour. I think the Violet question raised earlier is a bit of a myth, I bred a fantastic, big Violet hen a couple of years ago and at last year's Nationals selections a member put in a number of maginificent Violet cocks.

Normally I'd agree, but her partner's really looking after her and the 'schedule' is taking precedence. I feel guilty about it. There's no way she's going back into the aviary, probably I should put her into a holding cage with her partner .... we'll see.

Sounds like good advice, pity you didn't post on MondayI am sorry but I did not look at the date of the post. I have been extremely busy of late and my connection speed is shaped till the 28th making it a damn pain to get pages to load quickly thereby taking longer to do things. I don't always look at the dates of thread postings. Renee, you could look at it as a reference for the future. Some postings are always gonna be late, not everybody is on the same timetable. Just had another thought. You could get on the phone to Kaz, Gina or even myself. I am sure anyone of us could have help far quicker than waiting for a reply on the forum.No worries Sharon. Actually I did get a pretty instantaneous reply from Kaz .... She's in the nest box a fair bit with her partner but no eggs as yet.She's not a big layer - last year she raised 2 chicks from 2 nests (4 in total) and she tends to be very fussy about her partners, I had to wait 6 weeks last year for her to go down.Just a bit of an update on this hen. You may ask why I bother with her when her 'output' is so low. Well, here's the thing: she was given to me by a breeder 'cause she hadn't shown any interest in breeding despite his best efforts. She's always been fussy and taken much longer than any other hen to go down, but this I tolerate as I know she's got a history. More to the point she always throws MUCH better than herself so while her chicks may be few in number, they are of excellent quality.

She's in the nest box a fair bit with her partner but no eggs as yet.She's not a big layer - last year she raised 2 chicks from 2 nests (4 in total) and she tends to be very fussy about her partners, I had to wait 6 weeks last year for her to go down.

Little bit of swelling still but she's not limping at all, in fact she's very active.The cut is smaller than it looks as there's blood over the wound from when I last squeezed it on Tuesday.

Sounds like good advice, pity you didn't post on Monday. It was yellow.

The last time I took a hen to the vet with a bunged foot her prescribed Baytril at 1ml per litre. :rofl: Of course if you have any other suggestions SW, feel free to post.Renee are you sure about the 1 ml to 1 litre ? because a bird we have on baytril right now is on on 1ml to 100 mls water. Perhaps different situation though. :rofl: Yes, quite sure - I just checked again to be certain. I got the Baytril from Rob Marshall and the indications on the bottle is 1ml per litre and the strength is 2.5% Well I'm not too stressed about her at this stage. She spent 36hs in the hospital cage, I crop fed her a couple of times, the swelling went down, she wasn't eating so I popped her back with her partner and he is feeding her now. I'm just going to monitor her from now on.

The last time I took a hen to the vet with a bunged foot her prescribed Baytril at 1ml per litre. :rofl: Of course if you have any other suggestions SW, feel free to post.