Dean_NZ

You could post some better pictures of the parents first, that would help us to better see if they have scaley mites or not. Alternatively, take them to the vet to get checked for scaley mites. If the vet says they have mites, he/she will provide information and treatment for you.

Do the parents have a pied patch on their heads? Birds split recessive pied usually (but not always) have a pied patch of clear feathers on the head.

Its hard to tell from the pictures, but it appears the parents may have scaley face. Could you provide better pictures of the parents? You may have read about this already in the forums, but colony breeding (putting nest boxes all over your aviary and letting your birds breed as they wish) is a risky and problem filled way to go. You already noticed that birds fight over the 'best' box, and if anyone was to advice you on colony breeding, they would say place all the boxes at the same height and ensure they all look identical to minimise fighting. Also, having two boxes for every female allows them to feel they dont need to fight. Colony breeding can be done successfully, but anyone who goes on to try cabinet breeding will tell you they'll NEVER go back to colony breeding. Hopefully next time you want to breed you will have breeding cages and boxes prepared and will be able to implement a nutritional program to make sure your birds are in tip top breeding shape and stay there! It was a good idea to swap out the fertile eggs/chicks and use the other hen as a feeder so that neither couple were too stressed. Hope to see how you progress as you learn more

Excellent post to show the use of flecking. Notice how your flecked birds have big DARK spots? Great stock breeders to put to small spotted birds perhaps. Third picture bird seems to have the great spots WITHOUT the flecking - great bird!

My budgies love it. Brown rice is a low GI rice (around 40gi) and contains more protein and nutrients than most other rices which have been de-husked. Rice is however an incomplete protein (as grains are) and when mixed with legumes (barley, peas, lentils) which are also incomplete, together they form a complete protein which is much more beneficial to the birds and provides extra nutrients as well. I would recommend buying a packet of pre-made dry soup mix, and adding it to brown rice and cooking them together without salt. If you need to fatten up a bird, you can also add olive oil or another nutrient oil as the rice will readily absorb it during cooking. I will have to look up the ratio for legumes:grains that make a complete protein, but i think its around 2 parts grain to 1 part lentils. So you could make 2/3 cup dry rice, 1/3 cup lentils, cook and serve a portion, freeze the rest. I place mine in ice cube trays, freeze, remove in seperate ice cube sized portions for thawing and serving at a later point. You can also blend a vegetable cocktail into a chunky mix or fine paste, mix it with your cooked rice and lentils then freeze the mix and serve

What are the dimensions of the breeding cages?

I think one of the first posts i made on this board was about how flecking was a horrible trait to have in your stock and even worse to have on the show bench. Having had the opportunity since to talk to some of the most long standing breeders in NZ, they have almost completely agreed in their comments which match those of heathrow - when they tried to clear out their flecked birds, they lost the great spots. The said breeding a longer and wider feather created a requirement for more melanin. More melanin results in flecking in the cap, but fixes the spots. Again, they said what heathrow said - they keep the flecked birds, especially hens, as great breeding stock to fix small or weak spots in cocks. There is a happy medium to be achieved - long, wide, large spots on a good wide mask that have great colouration thanks to a flecked parent, but no flecking in the head thanks to a parent without flecking. Sometimes two flecked parents can produce clean capped well spotted offspring, but they told me that is usually because they have a long standing idea of the breeding expectations in certain lines or birds. Long story short, as far as show birds go, I am not ashamed to say I have eaten my hat Most things in budgie breeding seem to come down to balance eh?

Its impossible to say that some of the babies are dilute and some are greywing and some are clearwing. The parents can only be clearwing or clearwing split dilute. Meaning some chicks are DF clearwing which usually means a brighter body colour and dirtier wings. Some could be SF clearwing split dilute, having clearer wings but washed out body colour. Or so say the readings i have done. Note i do not YET breed clearwings so i cant say from my own experience. p.s Gorgeous birds

Sounds like an olive clearwing to me. Have a search for clearwings and see if they look like the one you are describing.

Hmm hmm, interesting you should say that. Was just looking closely at it myself today and wondering if i could see throat spots. Have to wait until the moult i guess and then do some test breeding when he's old enough

Good guess, but the dilute genes are homo allelic, so they cannot exist in such a combination. I was going to explain it myself but the budgie place website does it better than i could Here, "C" represents the normal gene, "cg" represents the greywing gene, "cw" represents the clearwing gene, and "cd" represents the dilute gene. With these four alleles we have the following possible genotypes: CC, Ccg, Ccw, Ccd - Two normal genes or one normal gene and any of the recessive genes, resulting in a normal budgie. cgcg, cgcd - Two greywing genes or one greywing gene and a dilute gene, resulting in a greywing budgie. cgcw - One greywing gene and one clearwing gene, resulting in a full-body-color greywing budgie. cwcw, cwcd - Two clearwing genes or one clearwing gene and one dilute gene, resulting in a clearwing budgie. cdcd - Two dilute genes, resulting in a dilute budgie.

I agree on both points with the above post. Older chicks are nosier and more demanding when it comes to food. I have seen chicks with crops that stay about the same fullness all day - meaning parents regularly 'top them up' so they are never empty or full. Then i have seen one chick with a saggy empty crop in the morning when i put in soft food, then 20 mins later it is so full the chick is just unable to move. Looks happy however Again the problem with new chicks is they are not demanding enough, so the well meaning parents can feed whoever they think is calling for food and assume the rest arent hungry. In this case you can try hand feeding the chick at regular intervals, always returning it to the nest after a feed until it is a few days old and crying loud enough. Or you could move the young chick to a nest with one or two similarly young birds so they make around the same noise and all get fed. Or move the older chicks and leave the younger. Its basically up to you how you shuffle them around, but birds of the same age get fed more evenly.

If you go by old school terms, a sky white is a skyblue white. White is the old term for dilute in white based birds, so i assume one parent is a sky blue white and the other could be a greygreen greywing or fullbody clearwing.

No nev is right, the chick has to be a male. It will be a DF dominant pied that is split for albino. In regards to the father, males DO need 1 sex linked gene from both parents to be visual for sex linked mutations. So a quick punnet square for these parents would be (using X as albino, x as normal - dad would be XX, mom would be xY since females carry the Y chromosome and only one x): Dad XX - Mom xY: x Y X xX XY X xX XY Meaning all females from this pair will be XY (albino) and all males from this pair will be xX (normal split for albino). So for this chick to show any colouration, it can ONLY be a male (even though it is double factor dominant pied).

Wow! Thanks everyone! This picture is of a special little creamino I call nibbles (she always nibbles me to say hello). This picture was taken at about 3 weeks old, when i would take her out of her cage while i cleaned and put soft food in every day. She seemed to love sitting inside the tape roll, perhaps it felt secure to her. Every time i tried to take her out she would give me that look as if to say "dont even think about it bud! this is my chill pad!". She has that 'eye' i think only the females of any species can give a guy!! :hap:

I should get some pics and show you my converted cabinet. Its what i use to breed My dad heped me with it, and i have to say they are perfect! My only suggested improvement would be in regards to cleaning. If you look at daves picture, there is a vertical plank of wood about 5mm above the floor of each breeding cabinet which is about 5mm thick and goes right across the cabinet horizontally. This creates a 5mm gap where you remove the wiring and can place a bottom tray in. Line the tray with newspaper, and when you need to clean you can just slide the tray out, clean, replace paper and slide it back in. This is also a feature i have on my breeding cabinets and it saves so much hassle not only with cleanup but with bothering the birds. Just a suggestion

Depends on the parents. Watch them with the first few bubs, paying attention to the male especially. Sometimes cocks can feed chicks at the expense of their own health (or even forget to feed the hen). So as long as babies are getting fed and both parents are eating as well, should be fine. I have heard of hens laying and hatching 11 fertile eggs, then raising 10 (1 died). Of course the less chicks they raise, the less toll it takes on them. Its really up to your judgment. Sounds like they are an awesome couple

Might pay to block off the nest box entry hole for the last pair if the hen is a grumpy "anti-male but loves to lay" kinda hen! Secure some cardboard over the hole and give the male a few days to work his magic! Some breeders recommend leaving it their then taking it out when you think they have mated. Others have told me to poke a pen through the cardboard to give her a starting point where she can chew it away and gain entry after a few days. Apparently making her work for it rev's up her breeding instinct! Have never tried it myself however! Best of luck, keep us updated

Agree with nev. And it depends who you talk to, but the YF thing is a bit silly and they should really be called "par blue". Dont think this is the time to get into that arguement lol. I could go into the genetics as far as i have learned them, but basically nev is right. YF2 x YF2 will get you normals, yellowfaces and double factor yellow faces. You can tell they are double factor because the yellow tends to be brighter, and instead of bleeding throughout the whole body it is in the mask, wings and upper chest - leaving the belly and rump blue. These will produce 100% SF yellowface 2's when paired to normal blues. I will be breeding some double factor YF2's next breeding season (around september).

Thanks nev. Good to see i was bang on with the opaline grey wing Those composite varieties can be tricky and require a keen eye! I am finding the dilute varieties a pain to distinguish! You have greywings with light and dark markings, full body greywings with light and dark markings, clearwings with light and dark markings, clearwings split dilute, and dilutes with light and heavy suffusion! Aaaaargh! So frustrating! I suppose it is a good challenge at least

I had read accounts of albino breeders who came across the violet factor in their albino breeding. They stated that at times it can appear close to a 'pink budgie' as the violet factor produces some violet (more of an iodine or faint red/brown colour) that can be seen in the day light. They said that seeing violet albinos in flight is a beautiful thing.I have some albinos and some violets and had hoped to breed one down the line. Today i found what MUST be an albino with violet factor. I immediately was able to see the 'iodine' colouring on the rump, and when the light shone on the bird, you can definately see a violet shimmer to it. It really is a gorgeous little thing!Here are some pics, hope you can see a bit of what i saw! Here is the same picture a bit larger: picture 1 Larger again: picture 2 **Edit** Just a note, this bird has red eyes, and the blue/violet sheen is only visible when it is in clear light. The iodine on the rump is present at all times, but quite faint. I guess it was easy for me to pick up because i am used to albinos and this had a little something extra

Any other pictures of storm? If i am looking at the right bird, looks like a plain old spangle to me. Cant see opaline or clearflights. Then i might be looking at the wrong bird More pics of parents?

Hi all,Have recently been on a MAD hunt for clearwings. I have talked to some of the biggest and most well connected breeders in NZ, and i get the same message - clearwings are too hard to breed for show, no-one does it anymore. Everyone who did breed them, doesnt anymore. The die hard fans got old and... died. So the advice i have been given repeatedly is 'keep looking around, but i would say get anything you can find, even from the pet shops. You can try outcross them with bigger better birds if you want to improve some aspect/s".It is beyond frustrating! The main reason i wanted a breeder is to be certain that i will be buying clearwings and avoid the very thing i am about to ask you!! I went to the pet store today and picked out 3 birds that could either be greywing, greywing opaline, dilute, or clearwings with 'dirty wings'. Personally, i think they are greywings But i am hoping someone might know better..This is the first bird, its hard to tell from the photo but it is definately a goldenface type 2 mauve (quite blue around the rump). Not 100% sure, but i think it is a greywing. It has a grey tail too if that helps? Sorry the alignment is all messed up in this post This is the second and third birds.The second looks to be a clone of the first, except it is an older male. And it does not have a grey tail, it is navy blue. The guy at the back im not sure about, but i suspect an opaline greywing? That or a dilute. Cheeks appear diluted, body colour seems uniform dilute or not (why i suspected opaline). Harder to tell with that one. I will post a smaller picture, under which i will post a link to a larger version of the same picture if you want a closer look. Larger version - picture 1 Here they are again a few moments later: Larger version - picture 2

I dont actually have any rainbows and would be a few seasons off producing any (likely to produce some just prior to leaving NZ). I have YF2 opaline cocks x 3 which i hope to breed to violet and/or cobalt clearwing hens (whitewings if you will). I also have one YF1 violet cobalt hen which i would have to breed with an opaline violet and/or cobalt clearwing cock. I would then take the respective YF opaline chicks split for clearwing and breed them together to get between 25-50% rainbow chicks of two YF types. I am REALLY having trouble finding anyone with clearwings. It would be PERFECT to find opaline clearwings but beggers cant be choosers. That is to say my 'basic' rainbow recipe would be a blue series YF (any type) opaline clearwing composite. I have thoughts about my own 'perfect' mix, leaning toward goldenface type 2 over yellowface type 2, and double factor of either as opposed to single factor. Double factor does not wash out the entire body, mainly the mask and chest to varying extents, leaving the belly blue. This provides an even greater variety and colour to contrast with. I had wanted to experiment further down the line by introducing dominant pied into the mix. The reason for that would be to mix with DF YF/GF type 2. You get a yellow/blue chest, a clear white band on the belly (or yellow if the YF bleeds too far down), then a blue rump. Again providing even further colour contrast for the eye. The inevitable 'white wash' of the flights that comes with dominant pied is regrettable, but i would have to see it to judge how 'badly' it affects the overall look of a rainbow - meaning whether the benefit of the clear belly band outweighs the negative of the clear wings. Anyhoo, i could go on a bit about rainbows but that should suffice for now. I will eventually get to where i want with them Probably not in NZ though

I had no idea you were only 17! You have taken such a cautious and informed approach to breeding, i assumed you were older!!! Im glad to have met someone closer to my age who is as passionate and dedicated to breeding as i am! Im 24, recently married, in my second year of a nursing degree and if not for the fact i will probably be moving to canada (my wifes country of birth) after i graduate - i would be very much into show budgies right now. Knowing i will be moving, I cant justify the money i would have spent buying some great stock (i know the best breeders in NZ including some who originally imported the english show budgies and have kept the lines pure). Its a shame, but i am content to just get more breeding experience and perhaps create a few rainbow budgies while im still in NZ. Great to meet you