chrissy0705

On the main aviary section ventalation is provided through holes drilled on the sides and the small gap were the litter tray slides in. The other section is all cage or mesh so that is much better ventalated. I will take into consideration the mesh on the upper part of he main aviary. If the plexi is easy to remove I will try to do that today. I didn't think the air flow was an issue but if you think it would be best to add mesh instead on the top I will try to remove the plexi now. Thank you for the advice.

Can you tell me a little about molting? At what age is their first molt? How often if more than once will it happen? Is it the same thing as shedding for cats and dogs as the seasons change?

This is one reason i am looking to rebuild. The entire dresser (besides the platform) is painted with satin finsih non-toxic paint so it has held up well to moisture and cleaning. The plexi makes for easy cean up too. The dept is only 20 inches and I know that is not deep enough, but it has made do while saving money to build one the right way and it was much better than being in 18x18" cages. I know it's not the best and there is much inprovement of even total overhaul that can be done and I am working on that. But as we all know aviary done right can be costly and I'm saving to do so.My previous pics were too large so here they are again....

Before I divided it off, yes they found their way around well. Some prefered the open feel of the cages others like the main aviary, but all of them took advantage of all sections. They all seem to love the seclusion of the upper part of the main aviary. They dont' perch their at night surprisingly. My hopes for a better set up and more OPEN area is in the near future. I think I will hold on to this aviary even after the new aviary is built to either quarentine new birds or use them for breeding or babies once they leave the nest to avoid inbreeding. And thank you for the compliment on the birds. I like them too !!! My green pied is my favorite, she's so pretty and takes a good picture.

Just an FYI in case anyone wonders.... Since these pics have been taken I have removed the nesting boxes from the main aviary where all my girls are kept and have added nesting boxes to the two secontions being used for breeding. I have also put a divider between the top two cages so the breeding pair cannot see the single male next to them. I've added more feeding stations, ladders and toys to the main aviary too.

I have hopes of buidling an entirely new aviary, but this is what I was able to do with some old dressers, mesh, and plexi-glass. This was an unused 4 drawer dresser. We gutted the inside, used the drawer slats to build a platform, added some dowls and feed station, made a door and sealed the front with plexi-glass. This is the top section of another dresser. Took out the drawers, painted, put in some perches, cut a hole in the top of the existing aviary and attached it to the top. I hand painted the "Behold the Birds of Heaven (Matthew 6:26) and hot glued a bird nest and cross and then finished off with another piece of plexi. So then this is how it looked. Then I took the remaining part of the second dresser and did the same as I did before. This time putting mess on the front instead of plexi. I drilled holes in the side of the existing aviary and in the side of the new section so they can go in and out. And then took the two cages I had and attached them to the top of the dresser. I have since divided these sections off with one breeding pair in the top left cage, a single male in the right cage, another breeding pair in the lower cage and three females in the main aviary. I have hopes of building a new one fron scratch not using "furniture" this time, but this did make for an affordable aviary and I can enjoy them fully. Give me your thoughts, good or bad.

Thank you KAZ. That's exactly what I was trying to say. I do care and that's why I'm here and I take all the advise given seriously to do whats best for them. I know sometimes questioning someone's intention or actions makes that person think if they are really doing what's best for their pet or themselves and I understand that, but please know that MY intentions are only focused on my keets and doing what's best for THEM. So thank you again KAZ and thank you Dave and Liv for your advice too.

Thank you for the advise. I don't think it's meant to be insulting when comments are made like "if you care anything about your pets...." but just a suggestion... it's very discouraging to people who are trying to educate themselves to do what's best for their animals and someone replies by saying something like that to make the person feel *********. So, please know I DO care very much about my pets and will do what's best for them and that is why I am on this site. I asked this qestion and many others so I don't mess up and do something that is not good for them. I have received nothing but wondering information here and have followed everything I've been told to do so far. So I will move the cage so that the breeding pair can not see any of my other birds and see how that goes. My biggest lesson I'm learning here is just be patient... and if suffient time passes with no results, try something else. Thank you again ALL of you for your replies.

The hen is a mauve opaline and the cock is an albino.... I know nothing about his backgrouond to know what he may be split for... do you think it would be a good pair? With all the genetic questions I've asked I think the only thing I know is that if they have Albino babies they will be female... I don't know what their chick will be????

Thank you for the advise Neat. I have advised her about getting the nesting boxes being needed and all that but I didn't know what to tell her with the other two males. So thank you for the advise.

This question is for me. From my previous posts you may recall I recently had to seperate a bonded pair because the hen was too young. So I put the hen in the aviary with the other hens I had and put the cock in a cage by himself. That cage is across from my breeding cage i have set up for the one pair I am allowing to breed. The only thing is... the male I have in with her doesn't seem interested in her. She seems to be interested in whoever will pay attention to her. She has been pacing back and forth on the perch, facing the cage of the other male and following the male that is in the cage with her just to get his attention. Based on the question I asked for my mother in law, I was wondering if I can just put both males in with this female? One this male won't have to be alone, and two I don't think the male that is with her is interested. He doesn't come near her, he doesn't prene her, nothing. The male in the cage across from her, paces when she paces, and goes to the bottom of his cage, spreads his wings and flapps over and over again. THe only thing I did notice with the male that is in the cage with her, he has been on the bottom of the cage alot moving all the bedding around. I use environmentally friendly paper byproduct bedding and he is on bottom of the cage alot breaking the beadding into tiny pieces. But so is the other male in his cage...??? Are they both showboating for the females attention? Should I or could I put the three together and see if one of them take interest in her and then go for there??

I've been asking questions regarding pairing, genetics, etc... over the last week or so, but my mother-in-law just called me and I told her about this site and said I would ask. She's not computer savy, but she is also a bird lover. She is expecting to be get two Teils in October from a clutch born just days ago and she is so excited. She hasn't had them one in years. She currently has 4 Keets and raised these two questions to me. I wasn't sure what to tell her so I told her I'd ask here. As I stated she has 4 keets... what she thought to be 2 cocks and 2 hens when she first got them turned out to be 1 hen and 3 cocks (she said they are now about 14 or 15 months old). They are currently all in the same cage and the cocks' ceres are all dark blue and the hen's is dark brown. She is assuming they are in breeding condition and is fine with that. I told her if you have too many hens and not enough cocks that it could be a bad thing, but didn't know what to tell her when she asked "is it okay to have one mature hen with three mature cocks or should two of the males be removed?" The other question she asked was if she doesn't have to seperate them and the hen bonds with one of the males and mates, should the other two males then be removed if eggs show up? okay, I think that's it... if you can let me know so I can get back to her I'd appreciate it.

Thank you for your replies on this. I understand all of what was said now. So at this point, it's just waiting to see what happens with the offspring to find out more about the parents. My male sky-blue greywing yf2 split for recessive is a good bird to use for breeding because there's so many options of what will show up... I guess time will only tell now. ) Although breeding is risky, it can be very informative too... just by viewing the offspring you learn more about the parents then you knew before you bred them. ) One question about sex-linked genes... are sex linked genes only passed on from the cocks Y ? Thank you again for the info. I'm sure I will have alot more questions.

I am learning so much from the people on this site and I am so thankful to have found it. I posted some previous questions regarding the genetic make up of my keets, pairing off, splitting bonded pairs, etc... now that I have been much better educated on what I thought I already knew quite a bit about... I have some more genetic questions regarding offspring. First, please know that I have followed the advice given and have separated Patches and Innocents due to Patches' age being less than 8 months old. For now she is in the main aviary with the other females and Innocents is in a cage alone... ( I don't like that part of it but it's what's best for them. I got Patches in April 08, so I know she will be at least a year old by January or February 09 and will reunite them then. So thank you all for your advice. Secondly, at this time I think the only pair I'm going to allow to mate are my Mauve Hen Opaline and my Green Cock Opaline. I know for sure both of them are old enought and in breeding condition. I'm told that their babies will be 100% Opaline and most likely all will be Green unless Hen is split for Blue. I had one question on that... Why does she have to be split for Blue if she herself is already a shade of blue (mauve)???? The Hen would have to be a a shade of blue and be split for blue in order to have any blue offspring??? Also would it be true to say that if either partent is split for anything that may not be "visible" they could have offspring that "show" that split?? Lastly, I was reading another post where someone asked how to get yellowfaced keets and keep the blue body color.... and I'm wondering the same. As stated before I do have one Sky-blue, Greywing, Yellowface2, split to recessive cock... come January, when I reunite Patches and Innocents, I was thinking of pairing him with my Blue Normal Hen. Can anyone tell me what their babies would be (% if possible, please)? Can you get YF1 (keeping the blue body color) from a YF2 cock ?? If I'm understanding this genetics thing at all I think since they are both blue I will get all blue babies, and I think that since the hen is Normal most babies will be normal, and I think since the cock is split to recessive and YF2 I have a very small chance for a pied or YF2 to pop up, but I don't know %, I don't know for sure if I got it right, and I don't know what my chance of getting a YF1 out of the deal is???? So if you could answer these few questions I would appreciate it. I am not only looking to do what is best for my keets, but if and when I do move forward with pairing and breeding (other than the one pair I'm going to allow to breed) I would like to try to obtain the best color "results" as possible. You have all been so helpful and I am thankful.

Libby - Thank you so much for this info... I now fully understand the YF1 and YF2. You explained it very clear. So when you said "sky" you were speaking of the dark factor that is in "camo" due to the yellowface2 making him look "greenish". So if he wasn't a yellowface2 his body color would be sky blue. I think I got it. Thank you again.

In response to this email, I have had my birds for just under a year now. My first keet, Innocents (Albino, male) was a gift from a close family friend. He has a band on his leg that says 07' so he is any where from 7 months to 19 months old. I did not like him being alone so I got him a friend (Tinker, Opaline, green male). He has a band on his leg that says 00' so he is about 8 years old. Then my husband and I build a home-made aviary for them 62 x 62 x 20. Knowing there was enough room, plenty of toys and feeding stations, we decided to get two more (Angel and Patches). Angel has a band on her leg that says 08' and she is NOT paired with a male right now. Patches on the other hand instantly bonded with Innocents, my Albino male, but she has a band that says 08' so that is were my concern is. They are bonded, but to me, they are both too young to breed, but I don't want to break their bond by separating them. Then I found a women on line who needed to re-home three keets due to the birth of her third child and the inability to care for them. Two of those birds she gave me had one clutch together last year while she still had them and she advised me that the one was 2 years old (Raine, greywing, male) and the other was a recessive pied (without the presents of an iris) but she was sure she was rounding 2 years old. Neither of these birds have bands so I can only go by her word. The third bird she gave me, Jasmine (normal blue female) has a band that says 07' on it but she is NOT paired with a male right now either. As for my mauve opaline female, Pearl, she does not have a band but her iris is developed and cere has crusted over and is dark brown indicating she is breeding condition...... So that being said..... All my birds were in the large avairy together as a flock. Sunny my one female was becoming aggressive toward the other females so I decided to seperate her and her mate, Raine, into a breeding cage by them selves. Once I did that Tinker and Pearl were both in breeding condition and I separated them out into a breeding cage too. So that left Innocents, my only other male in the aviary with three females..... BAD BAD BAD.... too many females and not enough males. I feared fights amoung the females, so I pulled Innocents out into a separate cage, but knowing he was already bonded to Patches, I just paired them off. It wasn't really in the intent of them breeding but now knowing that regardless of age they may mate, I don't feel comfortable with Innocents and Patches together because they are both still too young to breed, but I DO NOT want to break their bond. And that is my concern right now... fear early breeding or fear breaking their bond????? So I don't feel I'm "rushing" anything, especially with my first two pairs.... they are just fine to breed if God wills it. My concern here was that of Patches and Innocents and breaking a bond that was instant, due to them being too young.okay I hope I explained myself enough... so please with all this being said can you please respond? KAZ - To answer your questions - All of my budgies had clipped wings when I first got them and I had continued to do so with them, until I started researching info on breeding, etc... and found it to be best to let them grow in. I have since stopped clipping their wings and those that you see with one side or still clipped have not grown back in yet, especially Patches. She had her wings clipped when I got her and I still to this day have not had to clip her wings at all... I was conerned about this a while back because I feared she was clipped too short previously and didn't know if they damaged her wings and enabled them to grow back correctly, but it is just recently that I see her flight feathers coming back in. As for the rest they are all filling out nicely now and I will not be clipping them anymore. As for the breeding paris, yes I have separated them out. I was originally going to attempt colony breeding, but didn't like the risks. Although you take a chance breeding in general, I didn't like the odds of what females could do to other clutches or their mothers. Sunny my one female was being agressive towards ALL other birds in the aviary and would not allow any of the other females to even check out ANY of the nesting boxes. She had one box that seemed to be to her liking, but she still patroled all the other boxes and would kick the other females out and then go in and see what they did and then go back to her box. So I feared her being destructive to the other nests or birds and seperated her and her mate into a breeding cage. I then separated Pearl and Tinker, my other mature breeding pair into a breeding cage with the hopes they could have a fair chance at mating too. THat left me with one male and three females in the aviary and I didn't want fights among the females. So... I divided a section of they aviary out for him. Since he was bonded to Patches I did not want him to be alone so I put her in with him (but not to encourage breeding, just to keep the bonded pair together) and left the last two females in the main aviary. I wanted to get two more males, but the females I have now are not old enough so I am waitng.So my concern at this point is Patches and Innocents... they are male and female, anywhere from 7 to 19 months old, bonded but not ready for breeding and I don't know the effect of separating them... having three females in one cage, and a male all ALONE.... please tell me what's best to do.

I can see the band on Patches leg in this picture now and I see 08'... that must mean she was just born this year... I'm gonna have to seperate her and Innocents.... she's too young to be paired off.... ( She seems to be bonded to him though, do you think that will cause stress on both of them to take her out and put another more mature female with him? I've been advised that Patches is a Green Dominate Pied Hen, but I was also wondering if she is a Clearwing? Clearwing means that both the tail and flight feathers are pure yellow (green keet) or pure white (blue keet)?

Thank you KAZ... I am learning sooooo much about genetics of budgies on this site and I've never been so fasinated in my life. This is great. So also when you said "sky" did you mean sky-blue? And if that is the case which one of his mutations makes him appear "light green/pale yellow"? That's the one part of genetics that interests me how a blue can appear green, grey, violet, etc....

These are my pairs, what kind of babies should I expect and in your personal opion are they pair nicely to produce unique color? and mutations? Tinker and Peral (Opaline Green Cock and Opaline Mauve Hen) Raine and Sunny (Sky-blue Yellowface II Greywing Split Recessive Cock and Recessive Green Pied Hen) Innocents and Patches (Albino Cock and Dominate Pied Green Hen) (older picture) Thank you Chrissy

What does a "split to recessive" mean... ? I've read that before on this site, but what is "split" and he is "recessive" to what??? I'm confused? When you say "sky" you are talking about dark factor/color... meaning he's sky blue no dark factor?

Good morning. As promised here are some new pics from this morning, not using a flash, of my two birds in question. Looking to see if my "grey" bird is grey/violet?? (what dark factor) and if she is Opaline or not. Also looking to see if my "greywing" is greywing or cinnamon, if he is deluted or not, if he's opaline, if he is yellowface or not and if so is he type I or II??? So take a look and let me know what you think. Thanks again.

Will theywillingly breed before one year old if they are with a male or are they not "interested" in breeding until then? I have nesting boxes, food, water, cuttle, mineral blocks, bedding, not to mention tha additional greens and fruit I've been giving them. I know you can tell if they are a year old if the iris has deveolped, but is there any other way to tell how old they are? Some of my birds have bands on their legs and some don't. I have a few with black bands, one with a purple one, one with a dark blue one, and one with a gold one. I've check sites for info on band colors and none of them are consistant and one said the color doesn't matter that breeders use whatever color they like??? I think the black ones are 08, but not sure so those would only be 7 months at the most... ( I got my first keet as a Christmas gift and obtained all the other in the following months. I plan to get two more males to bond with my other two females, but I need to chose the ones I want and then quarentine, etc... so my flock won't be complete until end of summer.

okay, thank you all... I will take more (better) pics tomorrow and post them. I really can't thank you all enough. I must praise this site and it's posters... this is the most helpful site I have been to. Other sites have people who reply to questions with "play them a slow song and bring them flowers to get them to breed..." or "I don't know but last I check Crayola says this is BLUE"... I have a passion for these birds, their welfare, and any offspring that may occur and I appreciate the honest, serious replies you are all giving me. Too many people breed animals (including keets) with total ingornance to it and animals are hurt or die because of their stupidity and I don't want to be one of those people. Thank you again and have a good night.

Based on my previous post.... I have paired the Resessive Pied Green Hen with the Greywing Cock... I have paired the Opaline Green Cock with the Grey Opaline Hen... I have paried the Albino Cock with the Dominate Pied Yellow Hen... Can you tell me what any of the babies might look like? And is my Dominate Pied yellow hen still too young? Her cere isn't brown or as dark as the resessive pied or grey opaline? Sorry to be such a pain, but two of the three pairs already seem to be "bonded" and if these are good matches I'd like to leave them and see what happens. I have not found mates for the other two females (normal blue and dominate pied blue) as of yet, there cere's are both white with a pinkish blue around the notstrils and someone told me if they are females they are probably still too young?

Here are some more pics maybe they will help?? You all are so helpful and I can't thank you enough.