RIPbudgies

b.k.2009 you could also consider keeping together birds from the same studs. There is a good chance the bird are realted and so the features you need to cement will be enhanced further by breeding related individuals. This will give you a good grounding for your own lines. Remember what you see if not always what you get. Be prepared to mix and match at the next pairing. Observe carefully the results and compare to the parents. You want to see consistency and uniformity in the young. Remember also the young will carry a percentage of the parents genes and don't be afraid of putting a son or daughter back to a parent. Some times pairs (bloodlines) just don't click, doesn't mean the pairs are no good, try them with another mate. Ask the breeders if they have the pedigrees for the birds and also where their stock originated and where they get their outcrosses from. You got a few birds there from Sue Adams. Is it possible that any of the cocks are split Clearbody? ring her and find out....it would be better way to go especially if related....if not fall back to the Dark Green/Ino. picture#8...does that hen always sit back on the perch like that?

Dominant Pied Opaline and is looking Grey Green. Check the cheek patch if violet it is not Grey Green. The cheeks patches have lost there colour due to the action of the pied gene. As for being a double factor dom pied. Unless you know the breeding or will bred from this bird you will never know for sure. I have seen single factor pieds with this level of piedness. I am not 100% on this cause one photo makes me think cock and then I look at the second picture and I see hen. So for me jury is out for the time being.

Consider pairing the Dark Green/Ino to the Clearbody hen. You will then produce Normal/CB cocks; Clearbody/Ino cocks; Normal hens and Ino hens. This will start you off with some visual CB cock for next year. As it stands now Pair 3 only has a 25% of producing an Ino and it will be a hen and all the cocks produced will be Normal but some will split for Ino but you will not know which ones. Pair 6 will only produced Normal split Clearbody cocks and Normal hens. Unless you have been given pedigrees you will not know if any of the other birds are split but I would suggest being split for Opaline and Cinnamon or both is common place. Have you a particular reason for keeping the Greys together? This will produce a portion of double factor Greys. A pairing I like to do is a Grey Green/Blue to a Blue with one having a dark factor.

One of the effects of French Moult is a stranglutation look of the feather. They also appear to bulge slightly which may be cause of the strangulation effect.

Thanks, RIP, that does answer my question, and also confirms what I have been figuring out, that cinnamon doesn't show up visually when it's combined with the dilution genes. (I'm assuming that goes for the greywing and clearwing, as well, or do those have differing degrees of the cinnamon not showing up?) Cinnamon when used in the Dilute alleles will change their appearance and sometimes it is hard to pick up, even for me. I can sometimes suspect but not allways be able to prove without test mating. On a Dilute as I already mentioned it will reduce the already reduced body colouring and sometimes it is hard to pick up. It will reduce depth of violet in cheek and marking will usually still be seen as a pale grey. On a Clearwing it will reduce the body colour and will be similar to a normal Cinnamon in depth. the cheek will be a pale violet (careful here as some Clearwings can had pale violet cheek patches, yet not be Cinnamon). sometimes you can see a slight brownish/cinnamon cast to the tale. I have bred many Cinnamon Clearwings as I use them in my Black Eyes. On a Greywing I can't really tell you much as I have never puposely set out to breed one as I find no use for this composite. I have been shown birds that were told to me as Cinnamon Greywing and yes they looked different with body colour reduced as expected and the marking taking on a brownish/cinnamon cast. cheek patches I would suspect will dilute to a paler violet maybe similar to a normal Dilute. There will also be differences for example, Dilutes from Clearwing stock, they tend to lose wing markings. FBC Greywings, well I have never seen Cinnamon included here. I would suspect though that the bird would resemble a Cinnamon except the wing marking would be mainly grey with a brownish/cinnamon cast.

Your not having a good run, that's for sure. I hope it's gets better for you.

okay, so I have a question, if both parents are cinnamon, shouldn't the whole nest be born with PLUM eyes? I'm guessing that by "Black Eyes" you mean Black Eyed Self, but what color eyes are they born with? (I should probably move this over to my plum eye topic, to keep from going off track in your thread, RIP.) Finnie they were all born with plum eyes. A Black Eyed Self Colour is a competition variety in Australia wereby we try and obtain a clear yellow or white bird, hopefully free of markings based on the Dilute mutation. Using Cinnamon although not allowed in the class as such is practiced quite widely as it is pretty much impossible to see the Cinnamon on a Dilute as the brown marking just don't show up but the effect is to help reduced body colour suffusion. The eyes darken as they age and so again there is no visual id to go on. Any question on any of the results in this thread very welcomed and certainly not off topic. Things were putting along quite well till I had that person come through the place. He could of gone into the shed, I don't know. Of course the cops moving around and shining torches didn't help. But I am happy with what is happening despite that. I am always chuffed when I see a GF in the nest. Same goes for any of the rares really. Especially when I have paired splits like the Danish pair. Sadto hear your not doing so well. Maybe too cold over there? Generally I don't breed in winter but my set up is not what it use to be so I have to go with the flow for now until I can set thing up the way I had them before. Hope things pick up for you.

There should be some there now. I have had to edit so many times. Kept pressing wrong buttons. I so need new glasses. It is starting to get real bad now. Fingers are getting cold too. Can't afford heating.

Just a quick update on the birds. I lost a few chicks from various clutches the night of the trespasser and then with the cops shining torches around the place. Pair 1: Danish Pied Dk Green/Cinn x Cinn Grey(sf) Green/Danish, Blue New hen, sat well but addled a couple of eggs. So one left of hers and a foster. Hers looks like a Danish at this time. Pair 2: Opaline Sky x Opaline Cinnamon Lt Green All Opalines of course but surprise the hen is split Blue as there is a Blue in the nest. Pair 3: Lt Green/Blue x Lt Green This is the third time I have tried this hen since purchasing her. Finally she did the right thing. One is fostered off and the two remaining are a Green and a Blue so the hen is split Blue. Pair 4: Dilute Dk Green x Cinnamon Grey(sf) Green/Dilute Devastation! Found the hen dead in the box tonight with no apparent cause. she had an egg on the way down and was due to lay 10/6. Transferred eggs. Still devatasted, a bit dent in the breeding program I had planned. Pair 5: Cinnamon Dk Green/Dilute x Grey(sf) Green/Dilute Hen laid fine but seems to move eggs around a bit, quite frustrating. Didn't seem to feed well so fostered off. Looks like I'll get one from her this time round. she has started laying again and was due to lay today but....nothing. I needed to put the dead hens eggs somewhere and this was the only place in sync. So I might have to sacrifice her eggs in favour of the dead hens. Pair 6: Cinnamon Dk Green/Danish, Blue x Grey(sf) Green/Danish, Blue I got a Danish, first up. Next is looking normal. Look closely and you will see the Pied markings starting to be noticable. Pair 7 & 8: Both Clearwings that look Olive and paired to Cinnamon Light Green hens. Pair 7.... well what a surprise!! I have either a Clearwing or a Dilute! Sort of puts a crimp in the experiment. I need full bodied colour in order to ascertain the cock true colour, having any dilution just will not do BUT I'll keep it just the same. Hopefully it is a cracker. It is the chick on the right in the picture. Pair 8 fostering others since she went clear. Pair 9: Cinnamon Dilute Lt Green x Cinnamon Grey(sf) Green/Dilute This hen is so frustrating. The pair have so much energy. Laid nine eggs, all fertile. Seem to feed to start then it all went pair shaped. Fostered them all out as hatched and eventually the eggs also. Ended up loosing the lot. Pair 10: Goldenface(sf) Cobalt x Sky Blue First chick a GF....woohoo!! Pair 11: Goldenface(sf) Coablt x Opaline Sky Laid fine, sat fine, addled all. Nest boxes 9-12 are not very successful at all. Pair 12: Cinnamon Dilute Grey(sf) Green x Cinnamon Dilute Grey(sf) Green He is past it I think. This is the second year I have tried him. I was sure he was peaking this time round, practically bouncing off the walls, but alas, still no bubs. He is a great foster dad though. Pair 13: Spangle Cinnamon Grey Green x Spangle Opaline Grey Green Only two eggs fertile both hatched but I may have lost one. Got a couple of BES freeloaders in there all around the same age and cause they are all Cinnamon I have to wait till feathering to figure out whose who except the first one....it is a Spangle.It is the chick at the bottom in the picture. Pair 14: Sky/Dilute x Dilute Lt Green/Blue First chick a Dilute Sky....Woohoo!! Markings will be very heavy though. Might be heavy enough I might have to enter it as a Greywing and the judges will have to penalised the poor body colour. It is the chick top right in the picture. Pair 15: Cinnamon Dilute Grey(sf) Green x Cinnamon Dilute Lt Green A nest full of BLACK EYES.....Woohoo!! Pair 16: Lt Green/Clearwing, Blue x Clearwing Dk Green Three chicks to young to tell yet what they are. Pair 17: Clearwing Violet(sf) Cobalt x Dk Green/Clearwing, Blue T2 Few problems here. Eggs are not a good shape. She addled a few, sat real late in the peice and they should be hatching now but nothing. Another nest box that is a problem.

I will give only my opinion on your inquiries as I can't speak for how others see things.

Quite honestly I don't go by any time scale. I will let the birds tell me when they are ready again. If it is a bird I wish to use again that is, otherwise he can just hang with the mob till breeding season.

Congrats to all those on BBC that have had birds selected. GO Sandgropers

Fertility is great with no real problems as such at this stage. 8 of the pairs at first year hens and all have fertile eggs with a couple missing. Couple of the pairings as two first year birds together and have had no problems. I persoanlly don't believe in hens being a problem on their first time. I watch my birds for weeks before pairing as they are coming through their moult. I catch the cocks as they are bouncing around chatting up everything in sight and if they have a few pin feathers, no worries. The hens are a little more suttle in their appearance but I like to see them showing interest in the boys next door and generally they will bounce around the place but not quite like the cocks. Observation is the key. Only pairs who have not filled eggs at all are the old Black Eye.....so although he was showing all the signs he just maybe not producing any more sperm. So retirement for him. The other clear nest was a Clearwing x Cinnamon so I will use her as a foster which sometimes helps the hen settle into the breeding routine and not be so keen to sit on eggs.

Been awhile so I better let you guys know whats going on. 108 eggs laid from 17 pairs giving an average of 6.35 eggs per pair. I am happy with that. 80 Fertile 3 Broken 11 Addled 2 Undecided 17 Hatched with one death (pair 9).

I have read back through this thread again and I notice that you mentioned you were not sure of the fathe of some chicks produced by this hen. Now with that in mind it may be that the birds produced may not be from the same father. If the father is a DF of any yellowface he will produce 100% yellow young and similarly if he was a composite of two yellowface types only 100% yellowface young would be produced but of two different types and they would all be single factor yellowface. I reckon let them all feather up then take pics. If there is Yellowface Mutant 1 involved keep in mind that as babies in nest feather the yellow can be quite faint.

Graceful??????? really?????? if you call that graceful That's a freaking joke! You could of just said I was wrong did not have to put it as I know nothing I do NOT see suffusion a lot here, Maybe you guys in other countries do BUT here in my area NO it is NOT COMMON! its hardly ever seen Maybe we are better at breeding i don't know but I'm gone so it doesn't really matter and I've never been 100% wrong I work extremely hard to know the mutations, and the genetics and how they work If i'm not 100% sure I say so I use the words such as "think" "looks like" Etc etc etc so you all have fun and do what ever it is you do i'm sick of the degrading and rudeness Plus it takes forever to get a reply I'd hate to see when some one posts about a hurt bird and it takes them 2 weeks to get a response I have highlighted this part as in this case K&M you were 100% wrong! If you want to take up a challenge I can post some pics of birds that I bet you will not be able to identify. K&M if you knew GB you know that she was indeed being graceful. I tell you now that GB is dyslectic and also has a few other problem relating to an accident some years ago which affects her being able to express what she is thinking. She is also having a few personal issues to deal with right now. She has no malice towards you or anybody for that fact but gets extremely frustrated by being ignored when she knows she is right. GB did however bring up a vaild point about you knowledge. You say you have studies mutations for years and yet you seem to know little. If your knowledge is based only on your location then you cannot be all knowing. One must also be open to the possibilty of something you have never seen before. K&M we don't like to see people leave either. I think you were rather rude in saying it takes ages for people to reply to posts. This is not so. Most are replied to within 24 hours. Some people are very busy and don't have the time to been on the computor all day. Also the way the forum is set up is that if a post has not been answered it drops out of the 'new posts' or 'view new posts' or whatever it is (maybe a moderator can clarify) and can sometimes get forgotten. I know I keep meaning to reply to one of your post re me breeding teils. So whilst here I will tell you I have and have am getting back into it. I currently have a pair of Pearls (Opaline in budgie speak). The original bird is a DF Spangle and those of us who have been lucky enough to see them like this know it to be fact. There is variation in all mutations, just more extreme in some than others. My first Spangle was purchased in 1983 as a pet which subsequently set me down the path to the show world. I have seen the chages within the spangle over years, some for the better and some not. The bird from Poland is a DF Spangle and also a SF Yellowface Mutant 2 and although hard to say with certainty does look Opaline. The pix of the chicks as far as the Yellowface goes begs a question or two. The father is on the face of it either a DF Yellowface Mutant 2 or a DF Goldenface but blues are notorious for not getting good photos of so it is hard to tell for sure. The chicks however seem to show different levels of yellow which leads me to believe the father may be a composite of two different types of Yellowfaces. The chick with a greater amount of yellow would appear to be a SF Goldenface and the other a SF Yellowface Mutant 1. My question to the breeder would be: Did you breed any non Yellowfaced birds from this pairing?

I have in the past entered the National Show, mostly with the rarer varieties of course. Only one year we (was partnered back then) did not send birds as there was an outbreak of Newcastle Diesease (from memory) and we just didn't want to take the chance. That was our decision. Of the times birds have gone they travelled well and came back healthy and all bred. I would have had a couple of Clearwings this year to go but not being able to join a club at the time I had to get my rings direct from the manufacturer and so they are ineligable to go. Nubbly your post was well put and I totally agree that pretty much all that can be done is done to minimise risk. Showing of any livestock has its risks as soon as that livestock leaves the property. Perch sizes. From what I understand there was no real data put forth as to why larger perches were needed. The birds are bigger, are they really? Well in a way they are but a lot is feather. Skeletally how much change is there in the budgie. I dare say over the past 100+ years of domestication with the at least the last 50 - 70 years being for size we would have without a doubt increased the skeleton of the bird, but has it changed sufficiently to decrease the birds ability to perch correctly. Personally I would love to see the return to the smaller perch.

I read that first and was so inspired by your literary genius that I felt I had to offer up a peice of my own.

Just to put my two cents worth in. DF Spangles are quite capable of being extremely suffused. Early on in their development it was common to see them like the one that started this topic. People being people decided the suffusion can and was reduced to the show standard we have today. K&M I don't know what other forums you are on but I have looked at a few around the place. My main interest in them is usually always the genetics side of things and I can tell you there has been some really bad answers on those forums. Given some of your answers since joining BBC, I can say that although sometimes you have been 100% right you have at times been 100% wrong. GB settle petal or I'll put the leash on ya. Nubbs, bang on with the pix mate. Pawel, thanks for posting such a picture of a beautiful budgie.

Why is it when a TV personality mentions something like the wing markings of the early Clearwings and Greywings being similar everybody listens! I have been trying to get this across for years yet get ignored. Don Burke, great bloke no doubt, but he does have a tendancy to go off on tangents in his articles. I have both a first and second edition of Neville Cayley's book. I have also been lucky enough to see an actual painting of his which resides with a breeder in Perth. As for the title of his article "The world's first Cleabodies", what he is in effect talking about is the bird now know in Australia as the 'Darkwing' of which I have bred. Didn't I read somewhere that Don himself advocates the Clearwing should have clean wings! Yet conceedes in this article that they orignally did not. I have been super busy lately but if I get a chance I will scan the plates in the book and post in this topic.

Need pix to be clearer and closer but it is looking like a Recessive Pied Spangle Opaline.

So okay as of 8th May 2011 I have 40 eggs. Pair 18 just not gonna work due to set up and location so now that has been dropped of the list leaving 17 pairs. Lost the hen from Pair 12 so replaced her with his daughter so it now reads as: Pair 12: Cinnamon Dilute Grey(sf) Green x Cinnamon Dilute Grey(sf) Green Doubling up of the Grey factor is not really a good idea for Black Eye Self production but the Grey factor does change the structure of the feather which helps to reduce the yellow somewhat and also goes a fair way to reducing the cheek patch to a more white appearance as required in the standard so this pairing will be a bit experimental. Being a father, daughter pairing I am hoping that a certain amount of alleles will be common in regards to obtaining a more yellow bird. Any birds from this pairing use in the furture will need to be paired to non Grey factor birds as it will not be known which, if any, are double factor Grey.

Spangle Opaline Light Green. My first thought was Mulley but couldn't remember the partners name.

Birds can present similar symptoms to a wide variety of ailments. Without proper clinical evidence it is hard to find a cause and therefore a cure.