Dean_NZ

okay so here is a quick update. I should have pictures tomorrow Augren and viola round 2 - they have TEN fertile eggs. Egg #1 is DIS, but egg # 2 hatched yesterday. All the other eggs are looking great I have so far fostered egg 2 and 3, so no eggs have actually hatched for viola yet. I plan on fostering 1 or 2 more out so she only raises 5 or at most 6 since she is a great parent. The AI pair are raising one foster egg from the pair that are raising the AI eggs instead and now they are raising the first of augren and viola's second round of chicks. She seems to have clued on to feeding now, and doesnt appear to have any problems there so fingers crossed. She also has 2 further AI eggs that were laid a bit late and are fertile which i hope she will be able to raise herself fingers crossed. The foster pair have got 3 AI chicks hatched and growing, a 4th started hatching yesterday but it seems to be slow going. There is a decent whole chipped in it but the egg feels quite tough, so i expect it'll either be hatched and happy tomorrow or dead. Find out when i wake up. There is one more fertile AI egg to hatch in this nest (which means including the other 2, there were 7 eggs successfully fertilised by AI out of 10 for this round). So in total, there were 10, 10 and 6 eggs laid in the three nests. 3 were infertile, a night fright caused 5 eggs to chill and the remaining egg hatched, another egg is DIS for unkown reasons and the remaining 17 eggs have hatched or are soon to hatch. Looking to be a bumper crop for me, considering I have only a handful of pairs down at a time.

"He" may be a "she"... there is always that option..

Tail pumping indicates she is indeed in some sort of distress. Have you weighed her? Feel for her keel bone and see what sort of condition she is in. My poor girl was fine, but then in a week or so wasted away very quickly and then died despite anti-biotics and a hospital cage and all sorts of vet tests.

Ah that second picture does help lol. Looks a lot different there when compared to the head shot lol.

Oh gosh not that again. I had it in a bird, it goes away, then it comes back, then it goes away. Then she died. I took her to the vet - an avian specialist, and although he found some bacteria around the eye, he didnt think it should cause the feather loss. He never ended up finding out what it was because she died and we dont know if it was related to the eye... Good luck =/ Edit: Seperate that bird from your flock ASAP!

I agree with nubbly, good normals are very hard to come by. Even in the large aviaries where i sometimes purchase show stock, they sell a lot of their cinnamons, opalines, and inos, but rarely do they sell a spangle or a normal. Quality normals are essential as outcrosses in almost any variety. And while at first I was going to breed opaline to opaline, i think for the most part I know would prefer to have more normals and im attempting to breed some this season with my best normal cock. Next year I will be showing my normals and my opalines and leave it at that for starters I know I won't do very well, but im curious to see where my birds stand and what improvements I can then make the following year before I look at moving to canada and starting again.

Mostly agree with nubbly. Recessive pied sky blue COCK (if dad is an albino, this has to be a cock or else it would be an albino hen...) YF2 Recessive pied spangle sky blue cock And i would wager the parents are both recessive pieds, and the oldest albino hen will be masking rec pied also.

Um the dad looks like a green series recessive pied. Its definately not a YF2, as you can see the chicks are green series as well. And as far as DF violet goes, where do you get that from? Any black pin feathers eliminates DEC and clear wings with some black feathers would at this point indicate recessive pied or clearflight pied.

Dominant pied spangle opaline grey green cock. Opaline is obvious - body colour in the wings Spangle is obvious - white tail marking with black tip, white cheek patches, bulleted throat spots Dominant pied is obvious - patchy chest colour, clearflights and wings (to a degree) Grey + green again a simple one.

Any kind of flour can stench blood flow, and it often forms a cake that can cement over the wound which is easily removable after it has hardened (after a day or two to stabilise the wound if the flour is still on it can be removed). Apparently white pepper works best. Dont be afraid to have someone gently wrap her in a towel, gently extend and bandage her foot if you can. If you dont think you can do it safely, just use the flour or pepper.

AI baby #1 hatched on saturday night and seems to be doing well. Interestingly enough, the remaining foster egg (remember the others were DIS when i came home) has hatched and the hen seems to be feeding superbly. She didnt feed her first fosters a month or so ago and they died, so it looks like she's caught on now. AI baby #2 is hatching as we speak, should be out in about 2 hours, but its late so i wont check until tomorrow morning when it for sure will have hatched. Cant believe it worked! Babies from my best cock who would never breed on his own Touch wood they survive to fledging and beyond - I'm terrified of getting my hopes up or jynxing it lol, but I'm so glad I spent the time (and had some help) learning AI techniques so I can use them on the rare occasion where there is no other hope. All part of my growing library of breeding skills Pics soon! I know im slow on it but i have one more assignment to finish and then i will have time

I think there is a chance that the change of scenery might confuse them and scare them out of breeding mode, no matter how smooth and stealthy the transition. If its not urgent, i would delay the move until after breeding. Theres enough possible problems with breeding without adding to it!

Perfectly fine.

Should have been placed in a kindy cage with some older males that will feed babies and/or the other new fledgling for a month or so to wean it. Being kicked out of the nest then sold is too much for a lone baby.

Eucalyptus is what i use almost exclusively in my aviary, its magic. If your friend has used other branches, they may have had bacteria or mould on them or been from trees toxic to budgies. It could also be that the bird was sold before it was fully weaned, or sold with a hidden illness. Hard to say really. Except it wasnt the eucalyptus!

You know whats funny tho. My angriest, meanest, bitiest, male bashing-ist hen in the aviary, has turned into the most caring devoted brooder in the breeding cabinets! She's going to be a fantastic mum! Hows that lol. So weird.

Nice birds Hope you have some good plans for breeding them

Hens generally follow a 7 week fertility cycle. Some hens can stay in condition for months, and some stay out for months.

Tovi, tobi, tori, toni, toki, toli.... and so on and so forth

My guess would be male.

I have finally finished my placement, and BOY what a mission it has been trying to get any sort of breeding results during the last 5 weeks. Heres the short and sticky of the mess that has been the last 5 weeks (remembering that I put down two test pairs before i realised i would be placed in a rural hospital for 5 weeks unable to effectively manage my breeding program). 2 pairs down. Pair 1 = 8 fertile eggs Pair 2 = 6 unfertile eggs - this was expected as the cock is my best cock who has a gentle nature (doesnt flirt much) and a bad wing (not good for breeding easily). So i evened it out to this: Pair 1 = 4 fertile eggs Pair 2 = 4 fertile foster eggs. Eggs start hatching for pair one. Next week i come back and eggs start hatching for pair 2. First chick hatches and dies same day, i suspect hen didnt feed it. Second chick hatches and i place it back in nest 1 just in case then i go back to my placement. Pair 1 = 5 chicks Pair 2 = 2 eggs about to hatch. I come back and find the 2 chicks in nest two died of starvation. Hen was a virgin, perhaps needed older babies at first but i wasnt there to micro manage. So pair 2 start laying again. This time im preparing myself, researching AI. With the help of a dear friend on this board (not sure if i should say who - you know who you are!) i finally pieced together the last missing bits of Artificial Insemination information i needed and began practicing. Of all my cocks, none of them gave me a sample. I was dissapointed to say the least! Then i decided to try the one cock i had wanted to learn AI for - old bung wing! And he gave me a sample the second day i tried him! MAGIC! So i began to AI the hen, and the first 3 eggs were clear (was still getting the hang of it) so i know he wasnt filling them himself. I got a perfect sample and transferred it perfectly after egg 3 was laid. At this point i had: Pair 1 - five chicks Pair 2 - 3 infertile eggs, successful AI. Pair 3 - Feeder pair, no eggs. A week later i came back to: Pair 1 - five chicks Pair 2 - 3 infertile eggs, 3 fertile eggs. Pair 3 - 3 eggs. I continued AI'ing the hen as often as i was home and good old bung wing gave me a daily sample Just before i left again, i had this really strange feeling something was going to happen. I had discarded the infertile eggs, so pair 1 and 2 were both sitting on 5 eggs before i left. The nest boxes are identicle, so i quickly swapped them around before i left and the hens went straight back in none-the-wiser. This week i came back and found: Pair 1 - 3 eggs (round 2) Pair 2 - 4 DIS foster eggs, 1 fertile foster egg, 4 infertile eggs (my dad said the budgies had a night fright the day i left, i assume this hen left the nest for a period of time, somehow knew some eggs had died and began re-laying without any AI samples in her - so they are infertile eggs). Pair 3 - 5 AI foster eggs, ALL HEALTHY AND FERTILE AND READY TO START HATCHING THIS WEEKEND! I tell you, it has been such an effort to get chicks out of this cock and hen. I have my fingers crossed that this feeder pair are good parents as this is their first clutch and the chicks they have are like gold to me! My first successful AI from my best cock and an oh-so-troublesome hen. Cross your fingers for me! I'll post picks from the 5 fledged chicks from the first pair, and hope to report back with some good news on sunday about a new AI baby!

A common occurance with colony breeding unfortunately Sorry to hear of your loss.

Hi Nubbly, I have a latent interest in this most challenging variety myself - hoping to breed them once im settled in canada. I came to the conclusion myself that show size dilutes are the way to go when crossing out clearwings and already have a rough idea of one or two breeders i might source those dilutes from in canada. I heard that normal splits give you dirty clearwings, and dilutes used with clearwings can have an opposite effect - they dull the vibrancy of some clearwings. Then it can be a problem of 'which are the dilutes with clearer wings, and which are the diluted clearwings?". The key here is keeping track of your double factor clearwings. That way you can pair your double factor clearwings to pure dilutes and normals. Either way its a long road buddy, and i will definately be picking your brains in a few years time to get starting tips and learn from your progress :happy-dancing:

Isnt size a recessive trait? The saying goes that if you were to let all your show birds colony breed, eventually you would end up with small pet shop sized birds within a few generations. Dominant traits always run rampant without controlled breeding. Thats why size and feather length were selectively bred and paired for, and why line breeding is so valued among certain show breeders.

As a general rule: 'Pinky' see through eggs = newly laid Solid white a few days later = fertile Yellowish see through white a few days later = infertile Dull greyish white = dead in shell