nubbly5

Well Done! I'm jealous already :thumbs_up:

Great photo's! Me thinks girl.

The top price was $550 for the cinnamon sky hen....... Don't ask me how I know that! :thumbs_up: I also bought lot 37 and 21. 37 specifically for the violet although he is a smaller bird but with enough going for him for me to add him to my stud. And a very solid opaline grey green of Gary Armstrongs particularly for that very nice directional feather that his stud has and mine has less of! The cinnamon sky hen was coming home with me no matter what AND she is only 2010 rung bird and very very nice apart from turned toe on one foot which I was more than willing to risk. Very happy! I'll get some pics if people are interested - violet sky already pictured above.

Yep same here Dave - I thought they were dead! Then when I make noise they all get up, stretch and fly to the perches. Must be taking a break on the floor.....

Splat have a look at the BARF (bones and raw food) website (or information on BARF diets). Unfortunately many homemade diets are typically unbalanced for dogs and puppies. If your puppy is getting puppy kibble of any sort calcium addition is not necessary but if your dog is on a meat only diet calcium is very necessary particularly in a still growing dog, but you can overdo it. Raw bones as suggested by others here will fill the calcium gap except for lactating bitches where you run the risk of milk fever if you don't supply extra calcium AFTER WHELPING NOT BEFORE - chicken necks (or frames for bigger dogs), brisket bones, lamb off cuts, ox tails etc are all good - never supply cooked bones. For a younger pup be careful of over nutrition which can easily lead to OCD (not obsessive compulsive disorder but an over activity of the growth plates in the wrists causing long term changes and lameness arthritis) also if the breed is an at risk for hip displaysia (I'm assuming it's your cattle dog so not as much of a worry) then keeping them lean as a young dog is important. High levels of high protein food (meat etc) is a real issue here. Stay clear of ONIONS. These cause anemia in dogs with sustained use. Eggs too are okay in small doses but should be cooked not fed raw. You can add fish oil (don't go nuts) to give coat shine but not essential. Raw green leafy vegetables, carrots, different fruits all minced along with your dogs meat portion of food helps by supplying minerals like magnesium etc whilst bulking out the food, making your pup feel fuller and not relying on the very high value meat portion of the diet to feel full. Addition of frozen vegies can be helpful when in a pinch too.

Well done S_C! And just to clarify cutting spots IS ALLOWED, cutting anything else IS A DISQUALIFICATION.

Sorry to hear SL26....... :rip: Rosie

Sooooooo cool - I LOVE seeing red eyed babies in the nest (usually what I'm aiming for either with lacewings or fallows) to me they are super exciting! And the really nice thing about breeding mixed variety birds (unlike most of the show birds these days) is that you are more likely to get those little surprises all the more often.... Really looking forward to fledging pics to see that jigsaw of varieties start to slot together!

If you dose your birds or any animal, including people, unnecessarily with antibiotics you are at greater risk of creating a resistant superbug which can not be killed by antibiotics anymore. This resistant bug can be caught by you or your family and then you may not be able to treat yourself because the antibiotics will not work on these bugs any more. This is how MRSA(aka superbug) was created in hospitals. An oversimplification of the issue SW. MRSA developed specifically from overtreatment of people including sublethal doses (people who do not finish the enitre course of anitbiotics) - direct exposure of that particular bacteria to substantial and prolonged antibiotic treatment. NO DIRECT link has been found from animal treatment with bacteria transferring from animals to humans NOT EVEN from food producing animals which pose a higher risk to human health from anitibiotic usage than pet animal treatment. In fact the finger has been pointed squarely at GP's over prescribing antibiotics particularly to children as posing a significant risk to human health. Many of the antibiotics now used in food animals are different from those commonly used in human treatment SPECIFICALLY to reduce the risk to human health from resistant bacteria and new antibiotic registrations take this into account EXCEPT for pet antibiotic registrations where the risks to human health has been assessed by the WHO (World Health Organisation) as negligible at worst. Many strains of bacteria and protazoa are host specific anyway - e.coli for example has many different strains some of which are specific to one animal but not another. Cocci is the same. There are SOME zoonotic diseases (diseases which can transfer between animals and humans) psitacosis is one - but they are relatively rare. The risk would be pretty low that a) a healthy person contracts a zoonotic disease, b ) contracts a strain of bacteria that is resistant to an antibiotic treatment and c) is resistant to all antibiotics registered for the treatment of that specific bacteria in human health. Splat the risk to you and your family from treating your budgies with antibiotics is extremely limited even if you went berzerk and treated them like crazy. Oh and my vet has allowed me staggered payment but only because I am a long standing customer who has on most occasions settled my bill immediately and the bill in question was over $1000, I have seen them turn away newer customers on the basis that they cannot pay immediately.

But a mauves cheek patch is very different to the colour of this birds cheek patch!

With RIP on this one - definitely grey and likely violet, dom pied. To breed the grey out you need to pair him back to a bird that is not grey (or grey green). As grey is a dominant factor half the chicks will be grey and half will not be grey. If you put him back to a grey factored hen 25% chance of DF greys, 50% chance of sf greys and 25% chance non grey. Doh! Beaten by Dean

More fertility showing up. Only one nest that I'm now suspicious might be infertile - shaping up to be a good season so far. Fingers crossed that it all goes along smoothly!

Edit: On second thoughts I'd rather not say what I really want to say! Good luck with her GB!

Very good advice Troy........Thanks for that You confirm my thoughts and my need to do a hard cull. Yep that's the way of it Kaz. Babies look fantastic and not all of them fulfill their promise. They go through that fugly stage, the oldies and hangers on and the majority of your good birds in breeding all contribute to the low ebb! It happens to us all. And I'd agree with Troy to a point! Culling hard is great but not leaving yourself with enough to go on with is not great. Seen Cec do it, seen Jan do it seen, Carl do it, seen lots of people do it - not leave themselves enough birds (particularly hens) to work with, then you only need 1 or 2 failures (and who doesn't have them over the season) and hey presto you have gone backwards. Work out your requirements, your safety level and THEN cull hard! Unless you are willing to spend the big $ that some are to re-establish quality birds in your stud, then as long as you remove the tail of your birds each time assuming small increases in quality each year on average, then the quality of your stud SHOULD by rights improve.

Not to be super critical here but...... I don't think your 9 pairs over 3 years constitutes enough of a sample size for me to put any weight in your "quantitative" measurement of psychological health and further more without seeing a materials and methods, trial design and results both numerical and statistical, I think the jury is out as to whether providing large aviaries for breeding improves psychological health enough to improve breeding results. AND IF by chance you do see a numerical increase, remembering that other people providing large size breeding aviaries (as you have done) did not see any notable benefits, I would love to see how you would argue that it is due to improvements in psychological health and not due to any number of other factors (assuming you are not running a number of control pairs or are you?). And not trying to be bitchy here (and I certainly have given psychological health due consideration in regards to your first post), I think that unless one can really pinpoint measures or behaviors aligning with psychological health (and WHAT ARE the indicators of that according to budgerigars - I know attempts have been made to link behavior with stress indicators in other animals but I bet the work has not been done in budgies!) your actual measures are probably not great indicators of psychological health. I think your ideas, although sound theories with merit for further exploration, lack finesse if you want to talk "quantitative measurement" and not just anecdotal evidence. Also how does a lay person measure the psychological health of their birds if there are no current guidelines that link bird behavior with measurable stress levels? Really you need a much bigger sample size, a properly designed trial, control pairs run side by side with your "psychologically improved" pairs plus to start with data that determines what the indicators or behaviors determining psychological health might be aside from better breeding results. That was my point with pet shop type birds bred in dirty backyard colony situations where they are often overcrowded, fight to the death for nest boxes and have health problems due to mice and any number of different issues - these guys too often have great fertility, are good mothers (as they have to be) and are generally very hardy, but you would be hard pushed to say that their psychological welfare is in any way being taken into account! So breeding success is not a great measure of psychological health evidently. Like I said, I think you have over simplified the issue. The other thing you need to take into account is that for the majority of people that I know, their birds would spend a substantial amount of their time in well designed, large airy flights (mine are 6m (l) x 1.5m (w) x 2.3m (h) - a fair bit bigger than your aviaries - and I have 6 of these, plus smaller holding flights for youngsters), we provide natural fresh branches regularly, fresh fruit and vegetables, natural foraging systems, toys etc etc etc. So for the vast part of their lives (and understanding that I have no way of MEASURING psychological health) I would think that their lives would be reasonably fulfilled. AND as I have already mentioned, past attempts at improving breeding rates using larger aviary style breeding facilities did not prove to be any more effective, if you use breeding results as a measure of psychological health. As I also mentioned it then becomes an emotive issue as to whether YOU the breeder FEELS better about breeding birds in small cabinets or large aviaries as there is little reason to choose one over the other.

Well they definitely do not lack intelligence in comparison to pet shop type budgerigars. I have tamed both and do not find there to be much difference save for normal individual variation. You would understand about population curves I imagine.......? I certainly would not put pet type budgies on one end of that curve and exhibition birds on the other. I agree with somewhat with your observations on non-flight but it is very dependent on the individuals doing the selecting in particular flocks. I for one do not use nor keep non-flying birds. I have to agree with the propensity to increase feather length and change feather texture, purely for visually pleasing characteristics, seems to be causing feather issues and therefore flight problems. The issues we face are more to do with selective pressure on the population as a whole. Look critically at what we are selecting for - it's not fertility, livability or vigour - it's for feather, size and deportment. We only need to look at the poultry industry to see how successful you can be at selecting for specific traits but it certainly appears that little to no focus is placed on this area of the budgie population when it come to exhibition budgies. Looking at pet budgie breeding however, is no different. I certainly would not say that the majority of pet birds are bred in ideal conditions either - often far from it - with many being crammed into dirty, mouse ridden, unstimulating colony breeding set ups. The difference here is that it's the survival of the fittest often in these backyard situations and health and vigour IS being selected for, albiet unintentionally. I can't agree with you that these situations allow for more mental health/ psychological well being in that group of birds but it certainly selects out tough little critters. I guess there is more than one way to skin a cat! In fact it would be no issue to select for fertility, vigour etc and I'm sure we would make huge in roads if that was all we were concentrating on. In fact if the first prize was for the hen that reared the most babies or had the most vigourous babies or had the best survivability post weaning, I'm sure we would make it happen in a very short time but that's not what we select for - KNOWLINGLY. The other issue is what incentive is there to change either what we select for or how we rear our birds. Where people try new things that PROVE successful, these techniques are often shared and taken up by the general breeder population - we all do constantly talk to each other and share ideas so the info flow is pretty good. If suddenly someone was producing birds that won shows AND bred like flies then usually successes are shared and other people try what has worked for one. If there was somehow a miraculous benefit to providing large flight spaces during breeding (which has been tried and documented), we would all be using this technique as the industry standard. In fact large flight areas for each breeding pair was no more successful that the standard breeding cabinets that are most commonly used. But it depends how you look at it really - if it make YOU feel better, even if the results over time are not statistically different, then there is nothing stopping you from providing any sort of breeding environment you choose. If there ARE statistical differences, even numerical improvements and you share this and it's proven by others then over time it's likely to become the standard. I also don't think that breeding for self gratification or breeding for the enjoyment of the bird and it's character need be mutually exclusive. I know many exhibition budgie breeders that provide the best atmosphere that they can for their birds to live, breed and grow in as well as spending many hours enjoying and observing their birds behaviors in a stimulating environment. These same breeders also get self satisfaction for performing well at shows with specific standards that we all select our studs towards. There probably are things we can do to improve different aspects of our setups, many people try many different things (as you have done) and we find what works for us. I think you are simplifying a very very complex situation a bit too much.

My answer - BIG NASTY German Shepherd Dog! Ours works well as a deterent and she's not nasty at all, just big and looks like she means business. But this is a complete tragedy. After years of work something like this would be the end of the hobby for me - poor guy! Some people just have way too little to worry about if winning a d*mn budgie show means THAT much to them. Hope they catch the &*^&%%^ that did this (the problem would be proving it I assume)..... Can you imagine turning up to a club meeting only to be thinking that it was one of those people that stomped half your budgies to death???

Healthy pink babies! Looking good there Finnie. Hey can I ask..... how come your bird seed is coloured???

If the airsac is ruptured then the crop is allowed to drop into that space. Ahh okay. It's probably that then. Did you manage to treat your birds and how. There is no accumulated air to release but the crop is well and truely displaced. He does seem pretty happy in himself though so I'm not sure what else I could be doing to help him. Just digressing your thread here. The crop can become pendulous if the bird is a 'croaker'. Horse people will know this term as 'wind sucking'. Birds who do it can be heard making a croaking like sound as they suck in air. Over time the crop walls are stretched far beyound their capacity and the elasticity is compromised. If the crop can no longer holds its shape it will droop. Pigeon breeds known as pouters and croppers are based on the ability of the birds to suck in air. The Clavicular air sacs lie behind the crop. If an air sac was ruptured the body cavity would fill with air. I have had one or two birds over the years with air sac ruptures and these will self heal if the rupture is not too severe. The pain is removing the air in the body cavity until the repair is realised for it if it is not the pressure caused by the air will press on organs and cause their failure, not to mention pain and uncomfortabilty to the bird. Not a croaker. Very happy in the flight. Still pendulous crop can be felt low down on the chest of the bird.

I use pine shavings. Deep litter, let the hen toss out as much as she likes so she feels like she is in the grove of getting ready to nest and then just add enough back to cushion the eggs. If there is not enough covering the bottom (concave if you use one) I always wince when the eggs are knocked around if hens scramble off the nest when you go to check. Don't like bran due to moths. I put in seed when chicks have hatched (usually millet sprays actually).

52 eggs, 13 positively fertile, 1 double yolker (write off), 3-4 eggs definitely infertile (first eggs). One full nest of 5 so far looking like it may well be infertile but good fertility generally throughout.

Poor Dean! And I'm only whinging about the $400 fallow hen I bought to rescue my fallow variety not even being able to lay one egg before dying..... (well aside from having to deal with a written off motorcycle and a broken husband). Don't worry I'll read this thread every now and then to make myself feel better whenever I feel like the world is against me, coz god knows, it's way more against you right now But whatever the tribulations, hang in there buddy. It really is worth it - at least when things start to improve anyways!

Baby feathers are lighter coloured and more dull than adult feathers. As they moult their colour becomes brighter. Looks to me to be a cobalt dom pied.

Can I put my order in for any nice fallows?

Nope!