Dean_NZ

It is rare for a hen to be infertile. It is also actually quite rare for a cock to be genuinely infertile (as opposed to not in season as the testicles shrink/shrivel up when the males are not in season but while they are technically not producing sperm, they are simply out of season rather than clinically infertile). Often infertile/clear eggs result from males being out of season, or in season but not mating properly. I have heard very few cases of hens being infertile and having checked semen myself from 'infertile' cock birds and found it full of live sperm I believe many 'infertile' cocks are simply cocks that lack the drive/personality or have missed the opportunity to mate successfully (poor perches, box bound hen, nervous hen, vicious hen etc etc).

Are you sure thats a clearwing spangle? Did you breed it yourself?

The eggs will hatch every 2 days, so if one egg hatched then another hatched 4 days later it is likely the egg that should have hatched 2 days later was clear/infertile. Dont do anything to the eggs yet, just give them time to hatch or not hatch.

That to me would scream out "girl budgie" more than anything. Males can draw blood but 9 times out of 10 when you hear of bites that hard it is from a hen =/ Shey may not have the type of personality to ever be the budgie you want her to be. Perhaps you could take her back and get a young male? I shouldn't recommend such wanton swapping and disregarding of birds, but I know how important it is for those wanting to bond with a bird to find a bird they can actually bond with and have a good experience with. It is still early days and she may settle in and become tame with time and PATIENCE, but its so hard to know if and when that will happen when things start this way.

Soft shelled egg. Remove any nest box or anything she might try to nest in, get some calcivet as Kaz suggested and also be sure to supply cuttlefish or mineral/iodine blocks as well. She is lacking calcium and at high risk of egg binding or worse (eg hypocalcaemia or hypocalcaemic paralysis).

I was thinking opaline dilute grey. I can see where you get the pied possibility from Kaz but wonder if it is light playing on the wings? Could be an opaline greywing but hard to say with the washed out picture with so much light, more likely a dilute. Could also be a spangle opaline dilute (meaning greywing/clearwing/dilute).

They are the same bird, all budgies are australian budgies Some are bred for exhibition and because this was more extensively done in england they are called 'english' budgies and because america popularised the pet-type ownership of the budgie smaller pet budgies are referred to as 'american' but they are one and the same bird. So the answer is yes, all can become dusters if they double up on the duster gene.

Mating does not guarantee eggs will be laid. If introduced to a breeding cage or given a breeding box and then mating commences, generally it will take the hen 7-14 days until the first egg shows up. Some experienced hens can lay as fast as 3-5 days but generally it averages about 7-9. This does not mean the first egg takes that long to develop - all eggs take two days to both develop and pass through to being laid.

Yes it can be carried in hidden form by males. But they will only ever produce visual females if anything unless paired with an ino hen which would then allow them also to produce 50% males with ino as well as 50% female inos'.

I would just wait yet. Too early to say if all the eggs are either clear or DIS.

Why would you let it go? Such birds often starve to death or get attacked by cats etc. Seems like a pretty poor experiment?

That's what i was thinking

Its common for males to pair up in an aviary setting. Doesn't mean anything.

Its is reasonably common to let a pair that have produced excellent offspring to lay a third round which is then fostered out before resting the pair. I wouldn't do it with a pair that haven't produced a majority of keepers as it may be more worthwhile to rest them sooner and put them with other partners in the hope of producing a better combination and better offspring and saving the extra strain. On a side note, I make a point of considering just how many eggs per round are laid. If a hen lays 5-6 a round, then raising 2 rounds and laying a third equals 15-18 eggs. If you have a hen like mine that lays 9-12 per round, 2 raised rounds + 1 laid equals 27-36 eggs - a considerably larger effort. For such hens it may be unwise to let them lay past the second round before resting them.

11 months is fine provided the hen is in condition. Chances are if you wait one month she'll be out of condition and you'll have to wait another 3-4 weeks on top of that. As long as your parents are okay or you have arrangements for the babies if you cant keep them!

New Zealand has fairly temperate weather, especially the north island. So breeding all year-round is possible, but within that you should still only breed birds when they are ready and for no more than the usual amount of rounds. It has its pros and cons. Pro's being you can rotate pairs and produce chicks throughout the year, cons being you have chicks with multi-variable ages instead of having a set breeding season and having clear age gaps between chicks who are easier to judge as far as development and sorting/culling goes. If you breed year-round you have to keep clear record and sort/cull when each chick comes of age and it becomes much trickier. It works for me at the moment with less birds than other breeders who can fill their cabinets with breeding birds and still have reserves.

Have you read my thread about my disaster breeding season? I had loads of babies from pet types and even lesser quality show stock. Last year I sold most of them and brought much better quality birds and had DISASTROUS results attempting to breed them. Looking back I should have given them 6 months to settle, which is the very advice I would have given someone else but didn't think to take myself. It has been about 6 months since I purchased them and only now are some of them going down to breed. Others are just finishing a round and the odd couple still have are not in what I would consider breeding mode or condition. I think its just a timing thing, hens take a long time to settle. You shouldnt have much problem using the cock birds, but the hens - not so much so soon.

One of my favorite things about breeding and very seldomly seen!

Not opaline spangle. Possible he is split for opaline as some cock birds split for opaline often carry or develop some opalescence later in life. If paired with a DF spangle they will produce 50% SF spangle and 50% DF spangle. If he is split for opaline you will get 12.5% Spangle cocks, 12.5% spangle cocks split opaline, 12.5% Spangle hens, 12.5% spangle opaline hens 12.5% DF Spangle cocks, 12.5% DF Spangle cocks split opaline, 12.5% DF Spangle hens, 12.5% DF Spangle hens masking opaline

I don't see the connection?

I never really thought about it until you mentioned it lol. But the trousers on the violet posted earlier are pretty stylin!

Chick #1 is a yellow face albino (creamino) HEN if it has red eyes. If the eyes are black it is a golden face double factor spangle and could be either sex. Chick #2 is a yellowface spangle sky blue Chick #3 is a lutino hen Chick #4 same as # 1. I cant really see the eye colour which is why i included the possibility of double factor spangles, as I can see the hens markings clearly enough to see if she is a spangle or just has heavy pied markings. Cheek patches, lack of spots and the markings i can see do lean towards spangle markings, but could also just be pied markings.

No, rainbows are yellowface (any) + clearwing + opaline + blue (any, but generally sky blue is considered the most vibrant colour, although arguably visual violets are better they are less commonly seen).

Is that greygreen I see? To have greygreen AND blue it must surely be some sort of half sider?

I am confused about how you Al'd your french moult cock. I am also confused with the French Moult as some chicks have recovered fine and the breeders have gone on to breed them fine but others won't breed with them at all. I have queries on this forum plus also the Talk Budgies forum - not sure if you are a member there too or not. Do you have experience with french moult? Neville has been very helpful. It helps to get information from people in the same country. Lovely birds by the way. Gorgeous colourings. I hope your breeding season picks up. Other club members down this way are having similar problems to yours when we had our last meeting in November. The AI process essentially involves milking the semen from any given cock bird and applying it to the reproductive tract of a hen that is laying eggs. It is not a process I would recommend as firstly you can damage cock birds by trying to milk them, thus rendering them infertile, and secondly I have learned after some time that the window in which you can successfully fertilise an egg is quite narrow and you would have to be home every day at the exact time the hen lays an egg to successfully AI. It is much more productive to leave the hen and cock to do their own thing and such a cock bird could be placed with one hen in the morning and one hen and night and successfully fertilise both hens and those eggs could be fostered out and the cock used again in that fashion before being rested for a while in the flights if required. AI was indicated in this instance because I did not want to risk passing the french moult on by having the cock bird actually raise his own chicks and furthermore he cannot successfully mount and fertilise hens given the balance issues he faces from feathers lost through french moult. Here is a post I made earlier explaining french moult: French moult post (Post #6, by me) And to answer your question, I am more familiar with french moult than I would like to be! Most breeders can say that! I have been fortunate to only have perhaps 5 french moulters of all the many young I have bred, but it's always heartbreaking to see a promising youngster start dropping flights and tail feathers etc. Yes, I am aware many breeders were having terrible breeding results last november and high rates of french moult. The same was said last year when we met in hamilton to discuss breeding at a venue in te rapa, kingsgate hotel i think?. At that time i was still using lesser quality show stock and was the only one there to have had reasonable breeding and zero french moult. After I sold those birds and purchased better show stock, I had my first ever terrible breeding season ever. You can read about it, it was pretty awful! And I didn't even put everything in there! Im having a pretty good season so far. Numbers not at my usual, but I am producing far better quality and setting myself up a nice family line that has already had success in show. And for everyone else, here is the latest to fledge, the new cinnamon opaline sky blue hen. Full sister to the cin op sky and cin op cobalt first pictured on this thread, and to the cin op violet pictured a page back: Comparison shot: