Dean_NZ

Welcome! Im not much for words but hi lol.

Most likely it would be a double factor spangle in either grey or blue. It has iris rings so its not a dark eyed clear.

Im pleased with how many of this cocks chicks come out looking like him. Pairing him to the sky violet pet type (which i thought was cobalt) was mainly a test to see whether the chicks would take after him or her. They are somewhere in between, but definitely all benefit from his blood. Of all his offspring, it would be one of these girls that I would consider pairing directly back to their father to produce offspring with 50-100% of his genes, probably an average of 60-75% so there will be less of the pet blood in them. The rest will be paired to half siblings which can produce offpsring with anywhere from zero to 100% of his genes, but again the average should be a bit higher than 50% given both parents have 50% of the sires genes. The chicks from such pairings will either be outcrossed or paired back to their grandfather or aunties/uncles and then outcrossed. At least thats the numbers behind it! Chances are i'll be going more by eye than anything and trying to avoid dark x dark and too much green x green as I prefer blues. There is another sister who just fledged today, cinnamon opaline sky blue, but she has a much spottier mask than the first cin op sky hen shown at the start of this thread. I think the pet type mother is inhibiting the length of the mask since the cock bird is pretty good in that area, not super long but not short. It will be interesting to see how they compare once they are 8-10 months old. I love having visually identical siblings to compare growth and development with. Pics to come tomorrow...

Latest chick to fledge, this is a result of pairing the stud cock to a pet type hen (she is full blood sister to the cin op cobalt and cin op sky first shown at the start of this thread) and you can see the family resemblance. Apparently the hen is not a cobalt, she is a sky violet. This would explain why she's only produced sky's and cobalts up till now (no mauves), and in this clutch has produced 4 chicks of which at least 2 are visual violets (possibly another but its young yet). Hoping to put him across some of my show stock blues soon as they are coming into condition and so far have only been putting him to green hens with the exception of this pet type blue. This is a SF violet cobalt cinnamon opaline hen, absolutely gorgeous colour. I must admit i didnt expect the heavily diluted violet to be so pretty:

Gosh Nubbly, either pair 1 and 2 could have sired the first chick and either pair 3 or 4 could have sired the second chick lol. I suppose you'll only find out from breeding, if chick # 1 ever throws a yellowface you know it was pair 1 that sired it. If not then its anybody's guess. Same with chick two and the DF YF mother (potentially). Breeding will clearly sort that out!

Some of my show types quite regularly lay 11-12 eggs per clutch, usually all fertile. Always have to put down pet type foster pairs at the same time just to handle the over flow.

1) Greywing SF violet cobalt hen (possible cinnamon but looks greywing in photo) 2) Cinnamon SF violet cobalt hen 3) Normal cobalt hen (good chance of it being SF violet sky blue given the prevalance of violet in the siblings) 4) Greywing sky blue cock 5) Normal cobalt cock (looks like a very nicely coloured one, again could be a poorly coloured violet if it is not simply a nicely coloured cobalt)

Crop needle is really the best way to medicate birds. Adding medication to the drink water is, as you have learned, a very un-exact method.

No more you can do. Sounds like it hatched weak due to whatever reason. Chances are it wont survive but you never know.

Sounds like the change of environment (cage) which is (was) his safe zone has upset him. He now feels like he is in a foreign place and reacts to your hand as a threat. Once he is outside he is familiar with the routine and settles from the sound of it. I would put my money on the fact that you changed his cage setup / toy setup and he is having security issues.

Violet greywing and normal sky blue

If I could do it all again I would never buy from the first aviary I visited. I did that for the first 1-2 years and spent quite a bit of money for some not so hot budgies. It took that long for my 'eye' to develop - that is to say my eye for quality budgies, what to look for, what im wanting, what birds compliment eachother visually (which is important but not as important as good blood). Last year during the show season i went to every show i could and looked at all the budgies, and visited breeders local to the shows to see their aviaries and their birds and see who has what, where they got their birds from. Doing this I found out who the better breeders were and that they had stock from mostly related ancestors from 1 or 2 of the top breeders. So in the end I found a breeder who was winning, who had a good solid line of his own that was developed from birds from my top 3 local favourite style of winning/champion birds and I bought the best birds I could afford from him (only bought 2 pair). Only one pair has bred, but it bred me my first champion bird which won me best novice and best in show. Never rush into buying birds!

Looks like french moult alright =/

What squeak says

Chokos are yukky.

Wings look cinnamon in some pics, but not in others. I have some VERY dark cinnamons myself, typically the flecked ones are darker (or one might say the dark ones are flecked ). A cinnamon opaline mutation combination could easily explain the pale patchy colour. But then some sort of clearbody could be in the mix. If you bred him yourself it should of course be evident in the parents, or at least the hen unless she is masking it?

OOoh amazing. I was hoping to see the pictures. Exceptionally beneficial! Thank you Kaz and RIP!

The chicks will all be cobalt, half of them will be spangle and the cocks will be split opaline. If the cock bird (sire) is split cinnamon you may get some cinnamon cobalt hens and/or cinnamon spangle cobalt hens, if he is split opaline you will get opaline and opaline spangle cocks and hens (as well as normal spangle and just normal cocks and hens).

Yes i was thinking the same thing. Fortunately the breeder who sold me the stud cock has some birds with exceptionally long and wide masks, probably cost a fair whack to get one with such a mask but all I need is one good cock to into a few of the future girls in this line.

Here are some more pics of this family line, or the beginnings of one! Starting with the dark green cock bird that won at the UBC show: Here is his full blood sister from the same clutch, a cinnamon opaline greygreen (she was still in pin feathers at the time of the show, looks great though! Wish I had been able to take her!): She looks as though she might moult out a bit flecked, hopefully only lightly or not at all. Here is another from this clutch, a sky blue cock split cinnamon opaline, also too young at the time of the last show: He is shown there in the second picture with his half-sister (to the same stud cock father, different mother). These two will be paired up at around 8-10 months of age depending on how well they mature. They will be the first of around 10 half-brother sister pairings I am hoping to have arranged after the initial breeding rounds with the stud cock are finished. Here is more of this same hen, a dark green cinnamon opaline: There are a few other nice siblings, but these are my favourites of the bunch so far (minus a hen that I had to hand raise that looks quite nice). The rest of the cock birds seem to be of lesser quality but im still hopeful they'll produce nicely when paired with half siblings. There are more siblings in the nest and in eggs currently so watch this space...

Ooooh he is nice. I recognise the family look as well

Opaline greywing grey and skyblue normal cock. If the hen is single factor grey, expect 50% grey and 50% blue babies. If the hen is carrying a dark factor, you can expect light greys, dark greys, sky blues and cobalts. Unless the cock bird is split you will only get visually normal chicks although all will be split for greywing and the cocks split for opaline.

Both my cinnamon opaline girls had (and still have) pink ceres that look distinctly male, very little white at all. They can only be females however given their parentage

That is a cracking violet dark green! Love him

Some very nice birds indeed!