Dean_NZ

Couldn't have said it better Kaz

Boy

Blackface mutation died out. The breeder had a chance to pass some birds on to a well known breeder (and yet i've forgotten who it was lol) and he refused. They caught an illness and the family died out shortly thereafter due to the conditions they were living in. I personally would have loved to see a double factor anthracite blackface grey (possibly with opaline). Now that would have been a black budgie and then some.

Oh dang. The bane of bird-dom eh. Sorry to hear about your troubles, dont give up - GET EVEN!

Have no experience with quails unfortunately. As far as i have read they hatch self sufficient? They should be able to feed themselves from hatching which is partly why they are so popular with mass breeding and artificial incubation?

Just remember any mutation of budgie can have an orange beak as a baby. Developing beaks can be many colours but do solidify with age.

There is no red pigment in budgies. That simple. Not at all sure how to explain grey factor off the top of my head, but violet is not a colour mix, it is a mutation that alters the feather structure and changes the spectrum of light absorbed/reflected. Essentially it acts like a dark factor in all colours bar cobalts where the alteration in colour brings the cobalt along the colour spectrum nearer to a violet shade. There is no purple added at all, just a shift in the light that is aborbed and/or reflected. No red/pink budgies.

Hi and welcome Never fear, the budgie bug will take full grip on you in no time!

what brumby said

I'd be careful with that rule. I have a hen who didnt sit until the 5th of 12 eggs were laid. All eggs were fertile but the first did not show signs until the 6th egg was laid.

Aah. The legendary, if not mythical 'pink budgie'. No need to say more on that!

Thats a bad idea, you can expect birds to lose toes doing that. The disruption will prevent or severely disrupt breeding as well as increase stress, which increases the risk of abandoning eggs and chicks as well as plucking.

They are both adjusting and it is normal to be very aggressive (self protection) when suddenly in a new social situation and/or cage. I dont have any experience introducing foreign budgies as I breed budgies I intend to tame rather than buying them, and they are together from a very young age and get used to each other and me. Maybe someone else has experience or advice.

Half would be spangle. If the green bird is split for blue, then you would 'basically' expect half the chicks to be blue and half green. Although technically what you would end up with is 25% blue, 25% yf blue, 25% green split yf, 25% green split blue (not counting spangle).

If you only have babies... then WHAT are you breeding with??? All budgies need to be over 12 months of age to breed! I think (hope) that he means he has 35 birds only counting babies, but im sure he has more than that (ie older breeding and non breeding birds). Actually, either way makes for a poor situation, 35 babies total (some of which are breeding) is scary, as is 35 babies PLUS more birds with the sort of questions that have so far shown a distinct lack of knowledge and handling skill.

I will be doing the same thing with the line I am starting so it will be good to have your own experience to put with mine and see if we both get ahead or both have difficulties with such pairings.

I think you should stop breeding. Seriously. You have all these babies and you are asking questions that even someone who doesnt breed should know.

Use the search function. There are plenty of threads and stickies on this topic that have all the information you want and more.

The hardest thing about breeding is that there are undoubtedly dominant, partial dominant, recessive and sex linked genes responsible for all sorts of different aspects of a birds phenotype (look). You say that one of the daughters got 'her mums head'. Perhaps the head size or feathering of the cock are a recessive feature and the hens smaller head was dominant, or at least dominant to the cock. So one could say the hen is small head split for big head and pairing her back to the big head father should give you 50% offspring with the fathers head once again. As for the shoulder and other qualities it is also a numbers game, the more chicks you produce the more ruthless you can cull and breed forward only the better stock. Anyone who does or has linebred/inbred will tell you it floats the cream AND the **** to the top very quickly! Ruthless culling/selection is paramount in such a breeding program. Remember also that inbreeding/linebreeding also affects factors such as fertility so be very careful about monitoring that and know when to introduce a outcross (his brother would be a good outcross seeing as he is better than the cock you are basing a large progeny off).

Do it GB, it is the quickest way to fix in the good properties as well as flush out any bad ones that may have otherwise cropped up later in the line (father daughter pairing I mean).

You said she'd been panting on and off, that doesnt sound fine to me. I would think egg binding was the problem as well. Alternatively she may have been attacked by a rodent or eaten some rodent scat off the floor?

Usually it is time to remove the hen.

Read my topic 'first absolute disaster breeding season'. Just to give you an idea of some of the downsides!

If it looks fertile and doesn't hatch it is likely to have become dead in shell (DIS). It happens at varying stages of development.

Very nice work! Very lucky girl to have been set off on the right foot with such a good setup. Hope the 'budgie bug' bites her hard and stays with her for life! It's a great hobby