Dean_NZ

Yes is right lol. Blond moment! Thanks nubbly!

Yep, I'll stay out of this one lol. As with anybody, I have difficulty distinguishing dilutes, greywings and clearwings because of the variable colour strength throughout all three varieties that are basically 'sister' mutations. All are dilute mutations, just slightly different from eachother with an order of dominance from normal > greywing > clearwing > dilute. As Nubbly said a greywing/grewying paired to a dilute/dilute can only produce 100% greywing/dilute (visual greywings). The tricky part is knowing who is greywing/greywing which you can only tell through breeding. Dilutes then become quite handy there, as any greywing paired to a dilute will instantly reveal if it is greywing/dilute or greywing/greywing because of the chicks. If you get 100% visual greywings, you know the greywing parent is NOT split dilute. If you get 50% greywings and 50% dilutes, you know the greywing parent IS split for dilute. A greywing/dilute X greywing/dilute pairing will produce 25% greywing/greywing, 50% greywing/dilute and 25% dilute/dilute chicks. That basically means you can expect 3/4 chicks to be visual greywing regardless of split. BUT as nubbly also said, the problem with dilute breeding is similar to that of opaline breeding - even if the chicks arent dilute (or opaline) themselves, they often inherit some sort of residual or crossover effect somehow (ie normal chicks with opalescence, or greywing chicks that are very dilute in colour).

Could dad be a heavily marked clearFLIGHT pied?

Welcome back splat!

Cant be split for black eyed self. Must only be split for recessive in that case if bred from a black eyed self.

Fantastic posts nubbly! Much appreciated. :rofl:

:rofl:

Looks more like a heavily marked recessive with opalescence to me. Could be dominant pied, but regardless I have never seen a full opaline with so little opalescence after the molt, it normally gets stronger. Yes you are right about the breeding expectations. If he is opaline and you pair him to a normal (non opaline at least) hen, all his daughters will be opaline and his sons will all be split opaline. If he is SPLIT for opaline instead, then half his daughters will be normal, half opaline, half his sons normal and the other half split for opaline although you wont know which by looking at them.

Definitely yellow belly. You can tell the chick hatched around a day early. As Kaz said, definitely not your fault. Can sometimes be a hen that is too eager and eats the shell long before the chick has fully broken out. Normally the chick takes about 18-24 hours to break a hole at which point the hen picks up the egg by the hole and starts eating the egg shell, releasing the chick who during the last 18-24 hours absorbed the remaining yolk. If a hen is too eager and pierces the egg too soon after the chick first starts peeping and tapping the shell it will die from yellow belly. Premature =/

Looks more like opalescence to me. I wouldnt have called it an opaline. Most likely a cock split for opaline showing opalescence, as is common in cocks split for opaline.

Don't apologise nubbly! The whole reason I pasted that info is because, as I said, that is the info I was going off because I felt it was from a trust worthy source. I was HOPING for discussion and clarification if possible. As long as someone can assure me that one or the other type of ivermectin is effective and going to work then i'll be happy. One further question to ask though. How often should we alternate mite/worm treatment products to prevent resistance developing? And what product would we use as an alternate? Cattle pour on is used primarily, so our switch out option would be??

I would say yes, but I would also say why do you have a nest box if you arent able to recognise breeding condition? Perhaps some more research is required before adding nestboxes and attempting to breed?

I think orally is fine for the sheep prep. The article I cited above goes on to list dilutions for oral treatment, but they are very very hard for the average joe shmoe to work out. It involves weighing the bird, diluting the solution exactly, drawing up an exact amount and then administering it via crop needle to ensure it all goes in. Most people would rather just whack a drop on the back of the neck and be done with it, especially if you have hundreds of birds!!

i think if you had read what i have said over and over again about parifin oil and use of scaley mite you would know that it is one way to treat a bird or small numbers of birds i bet you payed like 12 bucks if so you could have got cheaper and yes it should be used just as you said ivomection treats all pasties so...kills things inside out totally diffrent thing and yes its fine to treat your birds with Another interesting note from the same document states: so now im confuzzed please can you just tell me should i or shouldnt i if almost all the breeders i know use it with no probbs whats the deal or you say sheep one okay cattle one not ???my vet did say be very careful dont give orally and to keep in fridge it will stay for one year then need renuing he also gave me ivomection water solubale drentch a 5 day in water tratment to do one every 6 months as well Im about as uncertain as you GB :hap: Looks like there are veterinarians and breeders alike who swear we should use on or the other, but not much agreement! I just added that info for discussion, because I feel it is trust worthy because of who wrote it so I guess thats what I will go on unless or until I find research or solid information that changes my mind? On another note, I took this info to my local vet (not avian specialist) and they only sell cattle pour on for use with birds, and go as far as to put a disclaimer on the bottle saying "not recommended for use on birds" or something like that and they say use it at your own risk. When they read the stuff I showed them they were like "yeah well, this is what we use and what we sell and we arent going to get a big bottle of sheep just for you".

Just thought I would throw my 2 cents in for discussion, as this is the information I have been going on - believing it to be from a pretty darn good source (which for copyright reasons I will cite/reference first) Brett Gartrell, BVSc MACVSc(Avian Health) PhD Lecturer in Avian and Wildlife Health IVABS, Massey University Palmerston North, NZ copyright © Says the following: Another interesting note from the same document states:

I just had to laugh. Not much else you can do after reading that! Certainly not believe your pieds are about to turn into normals! hehehe

Looks sky violet to me at this point :rofl: Great thread.

Grey and violet are on seperate genes. Grey is a dominant colour modifier, violet is a partial-dominant colour modifier that lies on a seperate gene. They can co-exist and neither is suppressed by the other. I have a thread somewhere about a violet grey bird I had. Just as violet is difficult to visually identify in greens, so it is with greys. Often in the presence of strong colours like green and grey, the violet appears more as a dark factor and the violet sheen (although present) can be difficult to see visually, unlike with straight blue birds. Edit: Here is the link to the violet-grey thread: > Click Here <

lol it worked though :hap: Is that an actual anti-plucking product or just a nasty tasting spray? I have a plucker sitting on eggs that is a great layer/feeder/breeder but she plucks when the pins start to turn to feathers so i usually move her out and let the cock finish feeding to prevent her even starting the plucking process. Would love to see if there was a way to stop her plucking?

1. Correct 2. Correct 3. Correct 4. Correct 5. Correct 6. 12/12 correct 7. Correct 8. Correct 9. Correct 10. Correct 100% woohoo! I added a couple of extra answers for question 9 that werent included in the answer sheet kaz sent, but I believe i was correct technically... :hap: Haha I got a bit tripped up on that one too. There are a few mutations that change the appearance of the bird in double factor form, but some mutations dont do it as strikingly and obviously as others. So i included all I could think of and only the most striking ones were mentioned in the answer form.

Sometimes your greatest success in breeding comes from acting when your birds are ready, rather than when we are ready. Fingers crossed and good luck!

Just be careful with blaming the hen. In my experience, most problems with eggs are a result of careless cocks, or outright egg eating cocks. Sometimes you have to wonder why great looking hens or cocks are being sold and be very careful when breeding with them. This is when observation becomes so important. I have a cock that for the last year has repeatedly made it a habit of kicking eggs around in the nest and breaking them. After an egg is broken almost any budgie will eat it as they are highly nutritious and nutrition is absolutely vital when breeding so they do not waste an opportunity. At first I blamed the hen he was with, but after spending a saturday popping in every so often I finally caught him in the act. Seems he was doing a very good job of cleaning the nest, scratching nesting material out furiously. He was TOO good at it in fact, and didnt stop cleaning even when eggs came about so of course he inadvertantly kicked the eggs. As he was a very good cock I decided to experiment with him and just recently found that once the hen is sitting tight he stops going in the nest box except to feed. I gave the hen marbles and swapped her eggs into a foster nest and at first heard the marbles thunking around, but I have since swapped these with infertile eggs which havent been touched since he stopped going in the box at around 4 eggs laid. Lessons learned: - Never assume anything, always go on what you see and know. - Never give up on a cock or hen, be creative (but never risk hens, cocks, eggs or chicks health if AT all possible while experimenting, its not good practice and almost never worth the risk). - Always be careful with birds you have been sold that look better than they seem (or came unusually cheaply). I could easily sell that cock and say he has filled eggs and raised chicks, which he has. I dont HAVE to mention he is a superb nest-box cleaner who plays a mean game of soccer with eggs... (I would never leave that out, but im saying any breeder can tell you whatever they need to to sell a bird and leave out certain parts...)

I have used AI years ago, but have chosen not to continue the practice. I believe breeding capability and fertility are factors we must always consider when culling our stock.I will seperate the number one pair after this round and will not fly them in the same avairy, thus hopefully breaking the bond before I breed again in Spring. 90% of the time you can just remove the cock and introduce him to another hen, as long as the hen is in breeding condition you should have no trouble. A very good point. I don't believe AI should be used exclusively - it simply another tool and no amount of AI can ever replace good husbandry and knowledge regarding the health, nutrition, fertility and wellbeing of the birds. I think if anything you must be MORE careful with AI than with regular pairing as you could successfully AI a cock that might not fill eggs on his own and potentially pass this problem on. As you mentioned breeding capability and fertility is not something you want to ignore or bypass using AI. Therefore it makes sense to only AI cocks with good or superb fertility who (where possible) also have the attitude and behaviour to successfully pursue hens and actively engage in breeding behaviours. The reason I promoted AI as a possible solution in this case is because the scenario was putting one cock across multiple hens - this apparently worked well and shows the cock was able to handle fertilising and courting multiple females showing he has fertility and the right attitude, and in the second round for whatever reason he seemed to favour one hen so in my mind this was a good scenario where AI 'could' have been utilised to get the same results in the second round as where achieved naturally in the first. If the cock had not filled eggs or not behaved from the beginning I would not recommend it. And as I have also said elsewhere, I have so far only utilised AI to get chicks from a healthy fertile cock who cannot mount because of a wing injury :laughter:

Yep, that will certainly dissapear after the first moult. I've seen it a few times and always in young chicks.

Line breeding is breeding closely related siblings (like cousin to cousin for example). What you need to do to establish new mutations is actually INBREEDING. Normally this is very strongly advised against as it doubles up on good AND bad genes (including any lethal, blindness or other nasty ones). However inbreeding is the best chance of securing any new mutation as it is not always clear if the mutation has occured uniquely in the chick, or if it is a combination of a hidden mutation carried by both or one parent. In this case no-one would be critical of you inbreeding