Daz

Some information on Hand Rearing

As so many people seem to be into hand rearing, I thought I would do a topic that can be linked back to. Feeding Chicks from newly hatched. The first feed of the day for three days should be a quality yoghurt with a high live organism count. Next feed a mixture of the suggested amounts of Hand rearing food and pre-boiled water heated to about 50deg C. allow the prepared mixture to stand for 2 minutes to absorb all the water. Remix and if too thick reheat and add a little water to make the desired constancy. Bring the prepared food to 35deg C and feed with a spoon or syringe fill the crop full, taking care not to introduce food to the windpipe. Feed prepared Hand rearing food 4 to 6 times daily when the chicks are very young reducing to 3 to 4 feeds per day as the chick gets older. Feed small amounts frequently and allow the crop to empty completely at least once each day. Thoroughly clean utensils before each food preparation. Food must be prepared fresh for each meal. Discard all uneaten food. Growth of Chicks. Weigh chicks at the same time each day. Daily weight gain will fluctuate but on average healthy chicks should gain from 10% to 20% of their body weight each day. Weight loss could indicate the onset of disease but often means the chick is not getting enough food. Health chicks that do not gain weight may need more solids in the mix, more food at each feed or more feed per day. Weaning chicks. Provide adult type food to chicks once they are fully feathered or begin to resist being hand fed. To wean onto Pellets or crumbles, reduce the number of feeds and offer some moistened pellets in a dish. Once the chick starts eating the moist pellets, stop hand feeding and offer only dry pellets. Chicks will naturally lose some weight during weaning. # Probotics. Some parrot hand rearing products either include Probotics in their formula or recommend the use of a probotic product. Probotics are live bacteria feed supplements that may have a beneficial effect on a birds intestinal microbial populations. Most probotics contain several strains of bacteria, none of which has been demonstrated to be normal intestinal inhabitants of parrots. Commercial probotic suppliments are expensive to use and have short expiry dates. A quality yoghurt that contains live Acidophillus and Biffidus bacteria produces a similar result and is considerably cheaper to use. This information has come from Passwell Hand Rearing Product. The mix for growing chicks differs from product to product. All ways read the recommendations on the packet and use accordingly. # I personally use a Probotic with my birds and will continue to do so.

Looks great Kaz. How are you going with the breeding cages?

ellulah very nice birds, Can I ask what the ring numbers are and I'll tell you the Breeder? There are 06 birds, Gold rings.

Thats sounds great joey. These things are send to worry us Let us know how he goes.

Well we will see what happens.. Here is some shots of the chicks. These are last years. Here are two of this years.

Well thats the councils in Australia for you. If you co-operate anything is possible. I hope it goes through as it would be a problem if it doesn't.

Update. Council has Approved my permit to keep the birds. But I have to get a permit for the Aviary. $660.00 so far has been paid to get the aviary approved.. But i might have to pay more. It will take another 3 weeks to find out if I am okay or have to pay more to get the approval.

Welcome to forum, hope you enjoy it

Welcome to the forum. I hope that you enjoy it here. Pepeek is very beautiful.

There should be a substitue in all countries. But as I said grate some cuttle bone over the seed is a start.

Information on the desease This might help you understand the illness. More reading ...and some more Hope this helps Bea

Try using Calcivet or at least grate some cuttlebone on top of their seed. They need calcium not a multivitamin as Bubbles said.

Thanks Rob. But most of my knowledge now comes from guys like you. Listening to ideas at Club Meetings. Going to Shows, Stewarding and sitting talking to people like Henry George, Dave Ganzer, John MacAllister. those that are experienced in the fancy. Buying books and being on forums with those that talk basic facts on Breeding Budgies. These arn't my ideas but those from people that have been there and done it and found it works.

Thanks all. I moved the chicks that were over 4 months in to the Juvinile flight last night. The middle one will be for the Cocks once everyone settles down. Like the adults, this is the first time that the chicks have been able to fly and so are having trouble with the larger area. But this will strengthen their wings and burn off excess fat.

There is a few things you can do to help stop this. Put a plastic egg in with the hen and she will hopeful wear herself out trying to eat it. The other thing you can do is to put a false bottom in the nest box. Here is one I use. The hen lays the egg and it fall through the hole on to sawdust. You remove and foster to another pair.

You might have to explain this one a bit better for me. Are you thinking of a smaller show bird? If you are worried about a larger bird siting too tight. Put a marble or porcelin egg in the nest. It will support the hen so she doesn't sit too tight.

I use a Fido wash. Got it from a vet and it's good for birds as well as dogs.

Thanks all it has been a long time though. From to the current. It has been 4 months in the making. But from my beginnings it has been just under two years. It was the 1st April 2005 that I joined here and decided to to look after Budgies. One of my earlier posts. http://forums.budgiebreeders.asn.au/index....indpost&p=29235

My Double Factor Spangle hen in the green series.

Finished.... well nearly.. near enough. After so many months the adults are back in the flight. Some are having a bit of trouble... Getting off the ground.. Little fatso's. I still have to sort out the conversion of the stock cages to breeding cages and to tidy up the existing breeding cages but at least the birds are back flying.

the 2 on the end ones came from to different places one from about 80km to the north of were we live and the other about 40kms to the south of were we live but the other 2 on the left did come from the same place but the breeder said they wernt related we think the one on the far right is about 9months old and the other ones a about 8mouths heres 2 links for a closer look at the cere's if that helps http://img87.imageshack.us/img87/8599/b1ys0.jpg http://img176.imageshack.us/img176/6592/b2zs7.jpg thanks for all the help people I've been reading reading reading all the posts Yes you have three hens and a cock. If you pair the the cock to oneof the other spangles you may end up with double factor spangles.

Thanks Rainbow. Well it is a new form of weight loss. Since I have been instructing and not training my weight has gone up to 91 kg. I would like it to be 84 kg. Wednesday morning I was 91 kg but after the terrible night of throwing up and diarea, Thursday morning I was 89 kgs. When I checked it Friday morning I was 88kgs. which it still is today. New directions for me. No more junk food, More hard working in the aviary and with the family and proper eating. I don't want to go through that again. It's Saturday night and I am just starting to feel better. Today I finished the wire meshing. and have started on the perches. I have had to alter four breeding boxes to suit a door. Photos tomorrow.

Hi and Welcome to the forum. To me it looks like you will have a busy cock. The one on the right. I can't make out the cere colouring of the two centre ones. on my screen they are a chocolaty bluey colour. Possibly two females. The Opaline Skyblue is coming into season. That is why her cere is turning tan. How old are the birds.

Aviary Management Our Management routine has changed very little from our early days in the hobby, I guess we were both advised correctly from the beginning, in fact over the last two years we have reverted back to the KISS principle ( Keep It Simple Stupid) which has if anything given us a much improved result in the overall yield, vitality and quality of our birds. At one stage when we first commenced our partnership we gave the birds all sorts of mixes of a soft food mix, which included a variety of products from the local Woolworth’s health food section. This I believe achieved poorer results than currently experiencing using the KISS principle. We both feel that a Budgerigar mix alone is insufficient to breed quality youngsters, and birds do like a treat now and then. We probably give our birds a few unorthodox items, which I will explain further. Before we go on let me emphasize that if you are satisfied with your current management routine then stick to it, we believe that there is always room for improvement and we are both proactive in our desire to implement improvements that may benefit our birds and even ourselves. We truly believe that our following detailed routine has given our birds the vitality to reproduce quality in quantity. We rarely find birds dying in the flights, sure we all have the breeding season mishaps, but have never had a rampant sickness go through our studs. I’m sure that anyone that has purchased birds from our previous sales can testify to the good health and well being of any birds purchased. FEEDING: (Seed) The feeding program consists of Golden Cob Supreme Budgerigar mix, which is now coated with Protexin Probotic, and hulled oats. The hulled oats are given to the breeding pairs a few days prior to their first egg hatching as well as twice a week in the flights. As previously mentioned we gave our birds all sorts of seed mixes and other soft foods but noted better results by feeding a Quality seed such as Golden Cob. WINTER BUILD UP: As our breeding season starts after our Annual sale Day in late August and concludes in March/April the following year, we use the winter period to build up our stock birds prior to pairing up. This year in particular we have introduced the following to our feeding routine to ensure that all the birds are as fit, strong as vital prior to pairing up. Every day we feed the birds with quality hulled oats coated with Cod Liver Oil, Vetafarm’s Breeding Aid and Dr. Rob Marshall’s Turbobooster on alternating days. This has resulted in a visible increase in activity, which is usually abandoned in the winter period. EXTRAS: Recently we introduced a Budgerigar Tonic Seed mix, which even to my surprise the birds absolutely love and polish off the small bowl we provide daily. This mixture consists of 13 different specialty seeds, which is blended and available from Barry Ryan. Contact details – 02 9671 5380 or teresea@healey.com.au WATER: Our watering routine is well planned and documented on a twelve monthly calendar so that we are both aware as to what additives to supply daily. The weeks are broken up into Sunday night to Wednesday night additives, and Wednesday night to Sunday night, Water. A typical month would be; Week 1 Coccivet or Sulpha D Week 2 Vitamin Supplement Week 3 Probotic Week 4 Calcivet We also schedule in the calendar year some preventative medications; Twice a year: Ronivet-S for Canker Quarterly: Potassium Permanganate (Condis Crystals) Yearly: Wormer Until recently we were supplying Vitamins twice a month but decided to change to a Calcium solution particularly as both our aviaries have indoor flights under artificial lighting. GRIT: We feed three types of grit, Cunanda grit (soluble) , Charcoal & granite grit (partly insoluble) and a course Sand which is spread over the aviary floor, the birds absolutely love the sand, you do have to be careful to ensure the sand you supply is clean. We also add Iodised Salt to the Cunanda grit as well as the Murphy’s Minerals. GREENS: This is where we feed a few unorthodox items, Monday, Wednesday & Friday we feed Carrot, Corn & Spinach to all birds, on the weekend we give the birds in the flights citrus fruits such as Grapefruit, Lemons & Oranges. Although birds do not need Vitamin C, they do like ( after getting accustomed to ) the citrus fruit which we believe is a contributing factor to suppressing Mega-Bacteria, after all some of the early treatments for Mega-Bacteria was Citric Acid. We also place a Eucalypt branch in the flights on a regular basis, which the birds love to chew and strip the bark, this also gives the aviary a fresh scent of eucalyptus, which may have some medicinal benefit as well. PAIRING: The pairing is always going on in our minds, but the serious pair up occurs after we have completed our annual sale and know that the birds we have retained are what we have to work with. We do pair both visually and on pedigree, we believe you need to consider both as the idea is to breed the best budgerigar with the least visual faults and obviously with natural power and style. We believe that the key to constant improvement is dependent on your cull, you need to cull hard, keep the best birds with the desired features and this will naturally give you a visible improvement. SHOW PREPARATION : Show preparation starts with handling the youngsters in the nest, as soon as they hit the Nursery Cage we start with their show cage training, all youngsters will spend overnight in a show cage firstly in pairs and then a few weeks later prior to being released in the flights, ( 12 weeks old) they spend a night in the show cage by themselves. Whenever we are doing our chores in the aviary we always take the opportunity to catch up a potential show bird and place it in a show cage. CLEANING: This is unfortunately one area that many fanciers are lacking, we have a general clean up on a weekly basis, occasionally vacuuming mid week when excessive feathers are all over the breeding area. Both our set ups are easily maintained having a white melamine lined walls and tiled flooring. Good Luck and Happy Breeding! Note. I down loaded this from Plunkett & Tasi's Web Site which unfortunately hasn't been up for some time. This is the basis of my own management. I hope it helps.