nubbly5

Mites cause scale, scale builds up under the ring causing circulation to be restricted, causing swelling, causing ring to cut into the leg, causing infection. Cutting off the ring allows the circulation to restore itself (unless it's been left too long), allowing the swelling and infection to reduce and be treated. I am really glad that you have saved her, don't get me wrong just as I said, personally I would have left the ivermectin treatment until after I was sure the hen was in a stable condition as it will not boost her ability to recover from the infection/swelling. Once she is stronger and looking perky, THEN I would administer the treatment to deal with the less urgent matter of the scale mites. Just a precaution in my mind, as stressing an already ill bird is probably not something I'd want to do. But as I said, I'm very glad you were able to save her and glad that she handled it well.

sigh Many topics on this forum discuss Ivermectin. How about doing a search or looking here: http://forums.budgiebreeders.asn.au/index....showtopic=26852

Although Ivermectin is a relatively safe treatment, I personally would have allowed the hen some time to recover from the whole foot infection thing before treating her with Ivermectin. That will have put some stress on her already unhappy health position.

My understanding is that when newcastle disease and avian influenza outbreaks occurred AQIS went into meltdown and stopped bird and bird product (eggs, feathers etc) imports into Australia. As for dogs and cats etc depending on which route the animal takes and the number of days it spends in a quarantine facility in it's home location it'll spend either 3 months or 6 months in quarantine here in Aus. Knowing how poor the animal care (having seen it first hand here in WA facility) is, I doubt that any bird subjected to the same measures would survive anyway. With budgie sperm, no research has been done on storability. Horse, dog, sheep etc sperm is able to be stored in different substrates in very cold temps. We could collect sperm but would have no idea if the sample would remain alive until it could be used. Also there are very strict reglulations as to certain species and bringing in sperm for example sheep semen can only be brought into Aus after the donor animal is slaughtered and checked for scrapie (indicator of mad cow disease) and only if found negative will the sperm be allowed into Aus. Not something most stud breeders in Europe want to do just to send some sheep sperm into Australia. Pigeons can be imported still but from a restricted number of countries and must adhere to quite a number of stringent requirements and are held in quarantine for 35 days with a monitor flock of chickens in close proximity. I would imagine that this would be an EXTREMELY expensive exercise to undertake. For all the requirements see here: http://www.aqis.gov.au/icon32/asp/ex_casec...;LogSessionID=0 I know quite a number of people who have imported dog from Europe and America and I can tell you, you definitely need deep pockets to do it!

I'd say the white recessive pied is also a greywing. And agree the yf2 rec pied is a male and the others are females.

Well more clutches will be the teller. As soon as a non dom pied pops up you can be 100% sure he is SF until then it's either way really.

Yes it looks very much like a clearwing but could also be a spangle greywing with the spangle markings reducing the amount of grey shown. It's a bit hard to see but the older bird in the bottom photo might also be a spangle greywing or clearwing. Looks to be a clearish patch on his rump indicating spangle but the photo is a bit far away. Need some close up of wings and rump. Also the chicks will ALWAYS be a more muted colour than adults until they moult into their adult plumage.

I agree Kaz but all dom pieds even from a smaller clutch starts to give you the idea that he may well be DF dom. A few more round from him will give you more of a conclusion though.

First one looks right, second one is a greywing.

Lovely and unusual birds!

GENTLE? GENTLE? Obviously that's not describing the nasty hag of a hen that was hanging off my finger, drawing blood.

I'm guessing all went well! To be honest I generally always accidentally overdose my birds and so far have had NO adverse reactions. Usually these are restricted to allergic reactions causing anaphalaxis but if you use heaps there is a chance of ivermectin overdose. Not sure what heaps actually is as I've accidentally squirted about 1 full mL of the cattle pour-on on without any issues...... not going to try and find out however.

Let us know the results of your discussion Dean. The legislation in NZ might be a bit different OR there might be some small mills/premix manufacturer's that might be interested in this sort of business. Just at a conference and know a number of consultant livestock vets so might just broach the subject with them. Also pellets are one thing but maybe there is a way to purchase terramycin powder and apply it in some way to seed. Was there any information that you found on how the seed was treated to allow terramycin intake? I may well be able to get access to terramycin powder (used to be able to buy it as pink eye powder over here) and if there is a way to treat the seed then maybe that's a better option. Would certainly be simpler than changing water daily. Doxy powder is available too so could use that to treat seed if we knew the rates and technique.

Oh yes that would be a lot of work! and it would be extremely lucky that I had a split greywing and a split clearwing without knowing and that they ended up paired don't you think? I know nothing over the computer is 100% sure, and I also know that I will probably go with my instincts when I write down their mutations but I always like to hear the opinions from the experts as well Thanks again!

Looks like it but remember it's kinda hard to get it all 100% right from computer so I just add that caution! What does she look like compared to your skys? And I just read your breeding thread and you are 100% right about the fact that one parent could be split greywing and one split clearwing giving full body colour greywings....... but it would take a lot of test mating to see for sure.

Thanks for the response The reason I say they are goldenfaces is because the hen is a single factor goldenface, and I'm pretty sure of that. Violets because both parents are skyblues, and these two are definitely not skyblues so they must be skyviolets, I did suspect the hen to be a skyviolet as well but wasn't too sure until now. They yellow does seem a bit light on those pictures, and as usual I couldn't quite capture the violet. Well the violet has to come from somewhere and to be honest neither parent looks violet to me, nor do the chicks. More likely that the hen is actually a cobalt rather than a skyblue (diagnosis complicated by the strong gf suffusion) and the chicks are cobalt, hard to tell with the last one though. Remember that greywing also affects the depth of body colour even if it's a well coloured greywing (lightens it), so comparing to a normal is not really helpful. I agree that the hen is a sf gf but that doesn't stop the cock bird being a df yf1 (which shows as a white face) but yes sf gf is more likely considering the visual qualities of the parents, it's only that the yellow on the chicks is lighter than I'd expect for a gf. Really have to wait until they gain their adult plummage before being able to say for sure. OR you can mate the cock to a known normal blue to see - all chicks would be sf yf1. BUT looking at the tail feathers THEY are quite yellow so maybe the gf is the more appropriate choice. Here they are compared to one of the skyblues: Chick 3 Skyblue normal from the same clutch Just a thought that didn't occur to me, the violet could be making the body color stronger on the greywings?

Dean I don't know what the legislation is in NZ but in Aus a vet would need to provide a script to a feedmill specifically for your flock. THEN the feedmill would need to manufacture the pellets as per vet script spec. The trouble with it is that any self respecting feedmill would never consider such small manufacturing runs and would probably wouldn't even be set up to do so. The only other alternative would be for a vet to develop their own range of medicated feed, wholesale manufactured by a feedmill and then on sold by the vet themselves but again I doubt that the volume that they would sell would not justify the attendtion of a commercial feedmill.

Look like well coloured gf greywings. Full body colour greywings are greywing split for clearwing (technically!). These are just greywings with good strong body colour. I wouldn't say violet though. And gee the yellow is very light......... would need to wait until they have adult plumage to say gf or yf1 (there is a possibility that the sky is a df yf1).

Nup and spot on the head doesn't necessarily mean it's split rec pied either.

Some people find that endearing you know

Wow Patrick, just caught up with your thread here and what a breeding season you are having! Some really great looking chicks too. Enjoying seeing them progress through the thread too - one of the benefits of reading it all at once

Actually the one on the left looks like a SF golden face and the one on the right looks like a DF golden face (see how the face is very bright but the rest of the yellow is lesser when compared to the bird on the left) or maybe a combo DF goldenface and yf1 maybe.

Damn shame this is a singles thread! That questionaire looks like a lot of fun single or not! Good effort there Cathrine

Wow! Never ever heard this before. 12 weeks, that's amazingly young.

Heard an old wives tail that black beaked chicks are better than non-black beaked chicks. Haven't been able to prove that to myself yet. But then I have not done a serious trial or recorded the proportion of chicks kept from black beak v's non-black beaks either.