nubbly5

Well a rainbow budgie is a combination of a few different varieties. Yellow face is the prime part and YF M2 probably produces the best result. M1 too soft a yellow and Golden Face too strong. Often in the mix is spangle, clearwing or greywing and opaline. Yours as mentioned here is a YF (M2 probably) Cobalt Dominant Pied.

Definitely male but as Kaz says definitely not normal. Hormonal imbalance.

Well isn't that what the judges in this case actually did? Judge the greywings and DQ anything that didn't conform. I don't actually see what has changed this year compared to other years (suffused is not a comp class yet is it?) and I disagree that all we will see are dilutes on the bench if we still have a Nationals comp that allows awards in variety. There will still be people giving clearwings, blackeyes and greywings a good go if there is still an award available for them. I think it's the benefit of having the Nationals in the format that we do. I will be nice for those of us who breed a stonker dilute in the process of breeding these other varieties to have a class to show those birds in. I obviously wasn't at the selections so don't know what happened there but I guess I would have to ask why those birds ended up in the greywing class when they don't conform to the greywing standard. No slap to any judge intended! Just a straight out curiousity based question.

All I can say is that being in the position of both breeding clearwings & dilutes as well as judging I'd have to say...... those poor judges. Unfortunately this series of varieites (Greywings, Clearwings and Dilutes) tend to pick up modifiers from each other and end up looking like a sorry mix of the lot of them. I've seen lots of clearwings benched as greywings due to heavy wing markings, greywings with the original 50% bodycolour suffusion benched as dilutes etc etc and what can a poor bloody judge do....... we don't know the genetics behind these birds and neither should we be expected to. Breeding one of the varieties can give you some insight but what do you do when presented with what you know bloody well could be a clearwing that conforms to the greywing standard?????? Unfortunately if a bird doesn't conform to the standard (even if it IS one of that varieity) what should a judge actually then do? I wouldn't have liked to be in the position that these guys were in........... and then just to get bagged by everyone........ no thanks.

Yellow face grey spangle male. Not cinnamon and not dilute. Do I spy some clearwings in the background there lion?....... Can't see them properly but they look very interesting.

Yes. Especially evident in nest feather. You'll notice the dad also has some blue feathering on the rump area. Very typical for this variety.

Could be. Coz he is opaline as well, the grey body colouring may be covering his grey wing markings to the extent that we all assumed he is dilute. His body colour could well be indicative of a 50% body colour greywing..... Shame we can't just take a sneak peak into his genes and say ahhhh, yes there it is..... he has the dilute gene activated and his daughter has modifiers for wing colour activated...... would take some of the surprises out of it though and that would be a bit boring! Are you actually going to be able to tell for sure that you have a cinnamon opaline greywing if you breed one? Except for if you breed one from a cinnamon cock bird and even then would you know if it's actually a greywing as well?

Normal dark green.

Well pretty likely she is a opaline greywing. 50% dilute from greywing and slight extra dilution from opaline would produce a colour that looks very similar to cinnamon opaline (body colour) but with grey wing markings and black not plum eyes). Greywing markings in greywings can vary in intensity due to wing modifiers and I've seen a range.

I know you said no plum eyes in the nest but gee this one really looks like a cinnamon to me. But considering you've said it's grey and not cinnamon I'll go with that. The very original greywings had 50% bodycolour dilution and not a full strong body colour. I've seen some starkly marked greywings too so yes, wing colour variation is possible and does happen in this series. Dilute, greywing clearwing. As I've mentioned before I've bred dilutes from clearwings with NO wing markings at all. Still clearly a dilute but carrying the wing modification from the clearwings. BUT you don't really expect these modifiers to be hiding away like a recessive gene. There might be more going on here than that. Waiting for some input from RIP although I know she is on her way up to Tom Price escorting some heavy vehicles so prob won't get to this for a bit.

There are still going to be variations in the variety and I'd say if you compared this bird closely with a bird that has a true neutral tail quill she'd still have a more grey quill than not BUT from the bit of experience I've had breeding clearwings I'd have to say that many of the features that the standard says dictates either a clearwing, a greywing or a dilute are all a bit interchangable. A clearwing bred from clearwings but with heavy markings will often carry a grey tail quill when it's supposed to be neutral. A dilute bred from clearwings will often carry wings completely devoid of markings but be diluted in body colour. These features that the standard says make a variety one or the other are not as cut and dried as we tend to think. It seems these features (modifiers) can carry over to the other varieties in this allelic series. Still this bird, although not having a noticable grey tail quill, does in all other respects appear to be a greywing. It's not a clearwing that's for sure what else can it be.

I'd say skyblue. Usually cobalts body colour is kind of patchy but so is this girls but she appears to still be moulting into her adult plummage which will give a similar patchy effect until she's fully moulted. The hue of her body colour is not deep enough for cobalt even with the dilution caused by the greywing. Oh and my inability to completely read posts strikes again! I didn't read carefully enough to see that the bottom picture is of another bird DOH! Didn't even notice the whole boy v girl thing. Sorry Kaz! Definitely a sky greywing though going on these pics.

It's a greywing. Kaz in the top photos the tail quill is definitely grey (looks like these pics are taken without flash) the bottom one shows blue tail feather but the picture appears to have been taken with flash or colour enhanced somehow.

I think they are cute but I've always thought you could achieve the same effect by swirling a little super glue onto your budgie!!!

Hmm cocci - not fun if you get the sort of outbreak you've just been through. Good lesson for everyone though - cocci becomes active at the change of the season (warm, moist weather). It's a good time to plan a cocci treatment. Or after a big thunderstorm!!! Glad to hear you got through it not too badly.

I was gonna say boy for sure but if it's as young as you say, I'm going to hold off a bit!

With Neville - other name for a dutch pied. Has quite distinctive frosting on wings in normal variety. Check with RIP she has bred these and has one now I think.

Hmmmm guessing at cinnamon opaline cobalt or violet or maybe sky violet. Might help if you post a complete picture of the bird rather than just the body feathering.

I gonna pitch at both girls. Post some more pics in a week or so and we'll all have another go!

Well I figure if you select heavily for size and feather and don't pay any attention to fertility, somethings gotta give. Conversely if we select heavily for fertility I bet size and feather will suffer.

That's like saying guys are faithful to their partners Or that a male dog won't have sex with his mother

So sad! RIP little fella. Unfortunately vets are like anyone - some are great at their job and some are just plain sh*t at it. Some are better with dogs than cows and some are better with birds than cats. The bummer is that your vet was sh*t at budgies (or just plain sh*t, maybe). I have some amazing stories of complete vetly ineptitude that would curl your hair. Most of them are fine when all they need to do is stick a thermometer up your dogs bum to tell you that it's temperature is normal!

I think I'm with Jen on this. There are some feather mites that cause this sort of feather damage. Just on the very edges of the feathers. They end up looking a bit ragged. Had a green hen with this very same issue (purchased at auction!!!!) and a good dose of Ivermectin solved the problem.