Dean_NZ

Yes GB I actually thought about it today. Last time I bought in new hens they didnt breed well until they had been in the flights for about 6 months settling in. I don't know why I forgot about that, suppose I just got caught up in the excitement of breeding new hens. Most of their eggs I have fostered out to reliable older hens as fosters and im letting the new hens back into the flights to settle until later this season, perhaps january. Duhr!

I believe gerald binks said that there are two types of budgie people, those who quietly enjoy it as a hobby, and those who are obsessed by the hobby and pursue it with a singular focus to get to the top. He calls it 'attacking' the hobbie - meaning the type of person who is shrewd with buying in birds, travels great distances and many aviaries to see who has the best birds, who has related lines and who has the birds you feel will take you to the next stage or even to the top. I think im on well on my way to obsessed lol. I spent this last show season travelling as much as possible and viewing as many aviaries as I could. I still made some rookie mistakes when purchasing because I need to learn to SAY what I know in my head and not get conned into purchases just because a 'champion' or well known breeder is promising glory for his runty culls.. Spent almost $1000 on birds that are currently giving me no end of headaches in the breeding cages right now! I'll come out on top though, because im not going to give up!

Yes I paired 6 or so up a month ago. Had no end of bad luck. Mostly maiden hens and cocks, had broken eggs, eaten eggs, clear eggs, no eggs. Now the fertile eggs from the better pairs are starting to hatch and the hen isnt feeding them so i've lost the first 2 chicks from my most promising nest. FML.

You can cut the feathers sure. But the problem is they continue growing and that is what kills the bird.

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

As far as I understand most if not all of the pied genes are co-dominant. I havent touched up on my allele, loci etc vocab so I cant refer to that in proper terms but yes a dark eyed clear is a recessive pied (2 genes) plus clear flight pied. Also I have seen that clearflight pied (sF) plus dominant pied (sf) are co-dominant and result in a bird that appears recessive as far as wing markings and amount of clear feathers goes however they have iris rings..

All chicks will be cinnamon, all hens will be cinnamon opaline. Some chicks will be pied, YF2 etc. There is a chance you will get cinnamon opaline spangle hens. This pair will produce a veritable hodge podge of mutation combinations.

It will be cock and hen. I dont doubt that the mop gene is well spread, especially throughout the birds from top breeders. The thing about recessive mutations is they can go unseen for generations and then crop up when you start breeding within a line or family and happen to cross two splits and produce a double factor. The more I read of it the less it worries me - especially what was said about the highest 'odds' of getting such a chick is 1/4 or 25%. Thats not to say you wont get a nest full of mops, but then you could also have the next round from the same parents with no mops. Just the odds of the game.

We'll never be rid of mops. At the MOST you will only ever get odds of 1/4 since it is recessive and mops usually dont survive to breed - meaning we only ever breed with birds split for mop. As with any splits, you get 25% babies who dont get it, 50% who become carriers, and 25% who get a double dose of the mop gene and are visual mops. I was watching a DVD interview series (from the late 1980s') with Roy Aplin, E.D Lane, Sadler, Harry Bryan and Joe Mannes and one of the breeders mentioned this fact and said "I can accept losing 1/4 chicks in each nest. 3 chicks on the perch is fine by me so I'll never worry about breeding mops" (not exact quote but you get the gist of it). I have also read that mops showed up long before we got the feather length, or the size/width or buffness of the birds today. I think in order to psychologically minimise the problem, breeders of mops have justified it by saying it means they are nearing the maximum feather quality or bird quality. Well, keep telling yourself that Whatever helps you accept losses is fine by me!

Glad im a guy so i'll never be tempted to stuff an egg down my top!

Yay :sad:

Oh boy the amount of old wives tales I've heard! The hobby is chocka block full of em. I've been told a normal hen bred from a sex linked cock can make sex linked chicks of either sex if she is 'dominant' enough in her genes. I love the one where I repeatedly get told to put all my blues back to greens or they will lose their colour. Why? the only difference between greens and blues is the yellow production and blues dont produce any yellow so why do i need greens? Good colour birds produce good colour birds, bad colour birds produce bad colour birds. There is no mix and match - add a bit of 'green' to your blues to bring up the colour? "Skies made from cobalts have stronger colour, dont pair sky to sky". On and on and on it goes.

Is that a sibling in the aviary run on the left?Also found a corella/galah hybrid on a quick google search: corella/galah (click this link)

Very much so! Agree with you Kaz, its gorgeous.

Usually eggs hatch around the time the eleventh or twelfth is laid? I would assume most if not all were infertile or that would have been one bloody mess surely?

I want little pinkies Mine were due yesterday but it is cold here so I am giving them an extra 3 days leighway on account of chicks developing slower in cold weather. Hopefully hatch tomorrow as i have candled and they are still moving around in there but havent yet pierced the egg sack. *SIGH* Glad to see your progress at least

Laying eggs where ever the opportunity presents itself - definitely omelettes daughter! Sorry to hear about the other hen

My birds eat anything broccoli. Sometimes I let the broccoli go to flower and then rip out the whole plant and hang it upside down from the roof, the birds go nuts for it. Love the little yellow flowers and seed heads especially. Leaves are great too

Results look good :yes: Only needs one drop full stop doesnt it? Works for up to a month?

Woo :yes:

Oh gosh I've never even heard of bouncing the bird. I can imagine it as having been done but... I could never ever do that @_@

Wow Kaz. I've actually never heard of that method. It is very rare that I have had to euthanize a bird but it does happen from time to time. Last time was a young cock who got his leg caught by the ring - must have been early in the day. By the time I came home from work he had worked himself up into a terrible state, his leg was mangled and it was obvious he had tried to chew himself free. It was clear that the best thing to do would be to put him out of his misery so I went with the quickest option I know - a quick hand axe to the neck on a chopping block. Im not a fan of the blood or anything else that comes with the job (not squeamish or anything but would prefer a 'clean' method). I think i'll give your method a try if I should ever need to do something similar (heaven forbid). Thanks for the thread.

You're not the only one with 'budgie luck' (I.E BAD LUCK!) at the moment splat. I am currently putting an old foster hen who gives me good 'colour' babies that I hand tame - her eggs seem to be porous and they are drying up only 2 days after being laid. I swapped 2 of her eggs into another nest and they seem to be doing fine so im wondering if its somehow the hen drying up the eggs??? She is also a great foster hen but now im afraid to put her eggs or anyone elses under her! She is currently sitting on 2 clear eggs from another nest (to test if they dry out). I am trialling a maiden hen and she had an egg bum for 3 days. On the day I knew she was going to lay with 90% certainty, I checked the box and found a damp yellow patch of shavings... hmm.. Egg bum again the next day, so on the second day I checked again. Couldnt even find a damp patch! Two days later I find a monstrous egg and transfer it to another nest (swap it with a marble). I was home again 2 days later and transferred out her egg again about 10 mins after it was laid (I checked a couple times around 2pm when she lays). Today I was working and came home to get her new egg only to find it was already eaten So I checked the nest box with the remaining two eggs and found the hen in there HAD EATEN THOSE TWO!!! She had left her own alone but they were covered in yolk so i had to clean them. They are the only surviving eggs from her clutch of four as she is also a maiden hen and she chipped 2 of her eggs with nails. So now I have 2 maiden hens eating eggs, two yolk covered eggs I had to transfer out of that nest or risk them getting eaten to. The first hen is a violet to dark green violet (split blue) pairing and I was REALLY wanting some double factors in green or blue from that pair. The second maiden hen who ate eggs is the best hen I have bred to date and I felt SO SO sad when I saw she had eaten those eggs. Now since I only breed on a small scale (7 nests) I have 2 egg eaters and one foster hen who cant sit on eggs (until i know she isnt drying them out). The fourth pair the hen didnt lay - she just played around. Fingers crossed the third pair saves her egg eating sisters eggs as well as her own two. Pair number 6 is a reliable violet hen (mother of my best hen - who is now an egg eater and mother to my violets) - she is on 4 eggs and likely to lay 11 like usual. Pair number 7 is my best cock and a cobalt hen. She laid 4 fertile eggs, and just the other day started laying again after an 8 day gap. She isn ow on 6 eggs with the first due to hatch a day after she lays a 7th if she does. Its insane here right now :glare:

Yes One of Omelettes I could see the family look

My hands are softer than my wife's. I've always been told I have hands the envy of every girl. Doesnt quite inflate your man ego and certainly doesnt stand up to budgie hen jaws of death but eh, i just let em bleed lol. I have quite a few healing wounds on my fingers right now actually from pairing and prepping some hens for breeding hahaha. Ooh tell ya what tho, one took a chunk out of the palm of my hand - she went into the muscle and flamin heck that hurt!