Dean_NZ

So I went to the UBC show today. They were supposed to have barheads and young birds (i.e. broken caps and around that age) but they decided to just judge all birds together and have top 3 novice (barheads, broken caps both male and female), top 3 champion, best pied (hosting club was a pied club) and best in show. As soon as they changed the classes my heart sank because some of the broken caps were much older than my two cinnamon opaline sisters and the dark green cock bird. Also one of the first birds that absolutely caught my attention was a huge grey green barhead that I thought was in the champion class but found out it was in the novice class with mine! At that point I thought I would be lucky to get a third with one of the girls. Well they started judging and I saw them hover around that greygreen and they moved him next to my dark green (which was at the end of the line so they were moving the top three to stand seperate from the rest so everyone could see). Next they grabbed a lutino hen (broken cap) and moved it in between the grey green and my dark green. Then went back to judging the other birds. When they passed over the cinnamon opaline girls my hopes really sank. Lastly they came to my dark green bird (last cage in the novice lineup) and when they moved him in between the lutino and the greygreen I was amazed. I looked a bit closer and sure enough he was strutting his stuff better than I could have hoped. They went on to judge the champion birds and picked out a greygreen dominant pied barhead (amazing bird with a heap of back skull), an opaline greywing (was surprised to see this in second but it was a good choice after I looked at it) and then another pied I cant remember too much came third. The #1 champion bird was also declared best pied in show and then to my surprise the judges went back to the novice birds and started going back and forth between my dark green and the greygreen cock. I started getting real nervous as they were making motions with their hands and i could see they were talking about width of face and skull as they were making measuring gestures with their fingers and then pointing and making a sweeping motion from cere down the back line. Suddenly they moved my dark green barhead boy to the front! First place!!!!!!!! Then they put it next to the champion bird and started discussing and after a minute or two declared my darkgreen bird best in show! I was amazed to say the least! I was totally impressed with him as he came up through the nest and he really showed well but I never expected him to beat the grey green or the pied. I asked a few quick questions of the judges and they said the greygreen was a bit bigger and stocker and had bit more blow, but mine had a better sweep, more width of face and skull, a deeper mask and more back skull. They also said the greygreen was a bit loose in feather and got messier toward the rump whereas my boy flowed from cere to tail. They said the greygreen pied had more backskull but less blow/width of face and the backskull was not proportional to the blow so it made the head look flat and the mask was short plus it didnt stand as proud. SO long story short I came away from my first ever show with best novice bird and best in show trophy which I will get my name engraved into! So pleased! Pictures of the winning boy tomorrow after he has had a rest

Its definitely french moult. Here is a post I made on another thread:

Hello to another kiwi Hope you enjoy the forums and look forward to your contributions!

You may be the only one posting but I always read your updates By the way, is it just me or does that first baby, the Cinnamon Light Green Spangle Hen look like she's got the beginnings of french moult? Hope not given all the other drama. I have a chick (a cinnamon opaline light green hen) the same age as curious george. Her foster father died 2 days ago and mum decided she would rather start chewing and cleaning the nest box than feed her 4 chicks. 3 oldest can feed themselves but the youngest hatched 6 days after the second youngest and is not fully feathered or eating by itself like the others. I taught myself how to crop feed yesterday as the only other cock i could put her with (has 4 chicks of his own) was trying to mate with her and refused to feed her for a whole day. Fortunately she survived as I was at work and had to drive to a friends place to borrow the crop needle... The formula barely squeezes through the crop needle its not easy. Might have the wrong size but my friend lives a fair way away and i have no time to go back for a bigger one yet. Might not need to as this one does work (16 gauge i think).

booooy

okay I'll get on to it wednesday. I am preparing for my huge final exam on tuesday. SOOO nervous!

He's the one im building my family line from, the cinnamon opaline cobalt cock pictured in my thread about DF rung birds 2010/2011 breeding season. Pictures really dont do him justice, he's very very long as well as standing tall and having a straight backline, massive blow, width across the cere and long mask with loads of large spots. I really only got him because he was a french moulter and hadnt bred for the owner because he is missing some flights. Thats not a problem with certain methods of breeding I am able to employ when the need arises.... as evidenced by the fact he will likely produce me some 20 offspring before the year end if all goes well.

It is but you only have a given chance of each chick getting a certain gene. Single factor yellow face (any type) X normal = 50% normal chicks, 50% yellowface chicks. But you could get a round full of yellowfaces, then a round full of white faces, or a round of any percentage of mixed - its simply a genetic chance.

YF1 x YF1 will give you roughly half yellowfaces and half white faces, without going into specific detail about why

I could so use more normal hens! Really like the look of the top dark green hen, could make some gorgeous babies with her and my stud cock. Oooh yes... Send her down we can split the chicks

Yes he has a lot of melanin as you can tell by the mild flecking. His throat spots are quite dark but obviously cinnamon up close, nice dark wing markings as well but his flights are very much cinnamon which you can really see with all the bars in the way in the pictures. I should try get some more of him, he is a super cock as far as stance, blow, length and width. His opaline markings are a little bit heavy (has the thumb print on the wing markings) and a judge friend of mine felt his colour was a bit pale but disagreed with my thoughts that the addition of opaline had a diluting affect which was the reason for his colour (I reckon opaline changes the colour to a pastel shade a bit lighter than normal which is then diluted further by the cinnamon)

Some really fantastic looking birds there shannon! Look forward to seeing some good results!

Thanks Nubbly! Im really pleased about this dark green cock coming up, cant be 100% sure it was fertilised by the cock in the breeding cage or by the AI as the cock in the breeding cage definitely sired some chicks (he is split ino and there is a lute hen so i know he was getting jiggy with it!). But I also know the AI worked as the hen is split blue and there is a sky cock in there (in-cage cock is not split blue) and there are cinnamon-opaline hens. Next round I am swapping the cock out and placing my grey cock that cannot fill eggs with this hen so I know all chicks will be purely the offspring of the AI cock. Im with you on the 90% thing as well! Since following the threads and pics Kaz and others gave us to show how to detect sex in very young chicks I havent miss-sexed a chick yet, but im still not confident enough to give myself more than a 90% success claim lol.

There ya go I think people over-react to brown ceres on cocks. It DOES indicate something hormonal going on and DOES require some attention, but unless the bird seems unwell or in pain or has changed in personality, i really dont worry. My cock bird that went brown cered has completely returned to normal and is chasing anything that moves in the aviary!

Definitely a light green father, dark green baby and olive green mother. The mother and father will only ever produce dark greens when paired together.

I can absolutely tell from the nest box who is going to tame 'better' than others. Most budgies will tame that is true, but their are degrees of tameness and i believe this is determined by their personality. Screechy squawky babies in the nest remain quite skittish, nibblers will always nibble, biters will always bite, wrestlers always wrestle and then there are the very small percentage I personally love to tame - the quiet ones that love to be scratched and cuddled. I see maybe one of those in every 20 chicks hatched. I think too many people try to fit their budgie into a specific mold and say 'my budgie wont stop doing this, why?'. Most times its personality! We all have an image of what a tame budgie 'should' do, but lets not forget they are individuals and any level of tameness is a special opportunity to share their world more than we otherwise could.

Thanks guys. Just found out there is a UBC show (and bring a plate lunch!) at the end of this month, really excited to see how these girls do. Perhaps by then some of the siblings will also be ready, I know there is a dark green cock bird that is really filling out well and should do great (50% chance he is a half brother, but the cock to that hen definately filled SOME of his eggs even though i AI'd the hen as well hehehe).

Basically you can expect half of each.

Would love that yellowface in my aviary

Congrats!

I know Kaz! I look at them and i think MALE as well, but their sister also has the same cere and I wonder if it's something to do with cinnamon+opaline affecting the pigmentation while they are babies? They are definately girls as they are from a normal mother and a cinnamon opaline cock. But yes, totally agree they have nice bright pink ceres with almost no white at all!

yay for pics

There are.... *counting in my head* at least 7 other siblings (to various hens) feathering up right now and they are from very nice hens, not pet shop ones. If these two look this nice with their tiny mother, I think we are all going to be please with the others once they feather up! So far he has chicks to: DF Yellowface SF violet opaline sky blue hen (nice hen) = 1 chick (Single factor yellowface cinnamon opaline sky hen) Normal cobalt (pet shop hen) = 2 chicks (Cin Op sky and cin op cobalt hen as pictured). Normal grey green hen (very nice hen, laid 12 fertile eggs, but only 6 hatched due to various accidents and annoying fosters) = 2x hen, 1 x cock (3 chicks) from the cinnamon opaline stud cockbird (that i can be sure of) are feathering up now Normal light green hen (another good hen) = 1x cock, 1x hen feathering up

As many of you have read in my other thread which describes all the terrible incidents that have so far hampered my breeding success with new birds, finally I have SOME chicks. I will be starting a line of DF rung birds based on this cinnamon opaline cobalt cock bird which I am using AI to put across various hens. The reason for this is because he was a french moult baby and I do not want to pass on french moult through him in the nest box, and also he has difficulties mounting hens with his lack of flights on one side. The first his offspring were actually unexpected. Their mother is a tiny pet store bird who i was using as a foster hen, on the off days that the cock bird was not being AI'd to other hens, I AI'd him to the foster hen (not caring if it fertilised her eggs or not). It successfully fertilised 2 of her 4 eggs and they went on to hatch. The oldest is a cinnamon opaline cobalt like her dad, and the youngest (by 2 days) is a cinnamon opaline sky hen. I was curious to see if the tiny hens genes would be more dominant over the cocks, but i am pleased to see that the cock is rather pre-potent and these chicks are better than what some of my 'better' pairs produced last year. Cinnamon opaline cobalt hen: Both the hens - (sky on left, cobalt on right)

No cure as french moult is caused by a virus. The virus will be present in all your flock as it is endemic in a lot of countries and aviary birds. It usually shows up when you breed in summer, go too many rounds, breed with poor/inadequate nutrition or breed with unfit birds. The virus does not affect adult birds, they are carriers it affects baby and young birds. The earlier they are affected the worse the damage is as the damage is dependant on the strength of the immune system at the time the virus is acquired. Young babies will be killed by it and often are found dead with full crops, however autopsy would reveal internal damage and swollen organs. The older the baby the less chance of dealth although in most if not all cases the virus will ALSO do unseen damage to internal organs and may shorten the life and vitality of the bird affected (when young - adult birds are NOT affected this way if they are infected when adults). If the baby survives it may or may not have delayed or slowed development (due to internal damage to organs and stress on the system). What we typically SEE of this virus is the affect on the developing feathers as the virus travels in the blood and developing feathers are rich in blood. The virus attacks the feather follicles in a similar way to the organs, causing inflammation, swelling and damaging healthy cells. The result is a severely stunted or mutated feather growth and usually there is so much inflammation the feather will fall out. In some cases french moult babies bleed from the feather follicles and are extremely sensitive to touch because of the pain and swelling in the wing. The age at which the baby acquires the disease affects how severely the feather growth is affected. Some will lose feathers all over the body and they may never regrow, most lose flight feathers and tail feathers, only some which regrow and even then they are often oddly shaped and painful to grow because of the damage to the follicle. In some cases only a tail feather is lost, but do not doubt that this bird is now a carrier. Birds do not constantly shed the virus, typically they shed it during times of stress (sold to new aviary, change of feed, moulting, breeding, feeding babies, sickness). Since it is shed when stressed, it is typically passed on to the youngest babies, as the older babies will be putting the stress on the parents with demand feeding. How many birds are affected is random. Some people get a whole nest of affected babies, others only one or two in each nest box. It might affect your first round, but not your second. The virus is in your aviary, there is nothing you can do to get rid of it. It will come with new birds you buy in as well, so the risk of getting babies with french moult is FAR higher when you put down newly purchased birds to breed as they are doubly stressed - first by the move, second by breeding. Management of the virus is simple, do not over crowd (stress) your birds. Ensure your feeding regime is adequate for the needs of the birds, especially when breeding but also during the moult. And of course stay on top of sickness and treat affected birds quickly.