nubbly5

Well the G&G 2009/2010 breeding season is coming to a close. We have just 6 of the 24 cabinets still in play with the final babies mostly coming out of the nests (bar one nest of hatchees). I snapped pis of some of the promising ones from this batch. I have a large number of normal greens and dark greens from this years breeding season (I'm very happy about that!) and this little guy is lovely too. I have one more normal light green just about ready to go into the nappy cage too - maybe my normal/normal program didn't take quite such a hit as I thought...... 2 of the last pieds - all cuties. I would like more size on them overall but the green above is from a pied pairing so there is obviously some size tucked away in the genes somewhere! This girl has a stack of potential and is actually the full sister to my grey boy who got a commended at the recent WABC young bird derby. Their parents have produced a full 3 rounds of really lovely chicks with the potential to grow on and produce great feather. This is the boy. Still looking shmick from show prep (nubbly's secret "how to get your birds looking fabulous!" weapon). And this is what he looked like just out of the nest - a blind monkey could see he had good potential!!!!! And this is partly where his potential came from - his Daddy. I love this bird apart from his tendency to slump on the perch (the lazy so and so). The hen I chose for him is really strong and stands well off the perch. I did this in the attempt to correct the slouchy posture of the cock bird. Not sure how successful I was there as the young fellow above I noticed having a good old slack attack during the show - obviously not enough to put him out of the top 5 though. Well, that's all for now and probably only one more photo update before it's all over until September again.

What males this one a DF dom pied ? Yes of course there is a chance that this bird is sf dom pied or even a small chance of combo BUT df dom pieds commonly (well the ones I've seen anyway) have what I describe as that white chinstrap effect AND considering the limited markings on the other pied progeny AND the fact that DF pied "pieds out" more of the birds markings than a sf dom would AND given it's parentage I would back DF dom over sf dom BUT test mating would be the only sure answer. All dom babies and it's a DF some normal some dom and it's a sf (unless of course that tricky lille recessive pied gene is messing thing up a bit!).

If you want them to breed, get a nest box. If not just throw the egg away (you can keep doing this as she lays others which is likely). She may start to incubate tham after a few days (this is normal for budgies as they often don't start to sit until after the second egg is laid). You can repair eggs with nail polish if the crack is recent and not too big - just make sure it dries properly before putting into the nest. If it's been a few days it's best to throw the egg out as it is unlikely it will hatch due to nasties getting in via the crack.

Firstly just to clarify - Dominant Pied is used for a few different types of pied all of which are dominant genes. These include Australian Dom Pied (or banded pied), Dutch Dominant Pied (or variegated pied) and clearflighted pieds. I have NO idea if these are all present on the same allele or not which confuses the issue for me somewhat. Also the combination of Dutch Dominant Pied and Recessive pied actually give the black eyed clear. Your Bailey looks like a mauve not a grey (his cheek patch is dark violet not grey or slatey blue grey and his body colour is that funny mottled grey) and the fact that all his babies are dark factor would agree with this too (AND not one grey baby either). I would guess that he is a poorly marked clearflighted pied. Hard to tell the greywing part from the picture but we'll assume that's right. Your Pheobe is a skyblue sf golden face combo pied (at a guess) or DF dom pied - I would imagine that DF dom pied might also mean one clearfligt gene and one banded pied gene???????....... (both of these are considered domnant pied genes but not sure of what the combination of the 2 would give). I say skyblue as you would have seen all mauve babies is she were a mauve and 50% chance if she were cobalt. In fact you got none and although it's not a 100% guarantee, the fact that she also looks like a sky combined with the breeding results makes me confident she is not cobalt either. The fact that EVERY baby is a dom pied of some description leads me to believe that Phoebe is actually a df dom as if she were a combo (with one dom and one recessive) you would expect that there was SOME chance of the pair producing a normal/recessive baby. She may well be DF dom pied AND recessive but there is no way of telling unless Bailey is also split for recessive pied. If she is in fact a combo pied, then all her chicks would be split for recessive pied. You could test mate her with a straight recessive pied and 50% of her offspring should be recessive or combo. So I would say then that babies are: a) Cobalt clearflighted pied (looks like a greywing but hard to tell from the picture - if so then Pheobe is also split for greywing). b: Goldenface cobalt clearflighted pied. (poxing smilies). c) Goldenface cobalt clearflighted pied. d) Cobalt DF dom pied (clearflight/banded or clearflight/clearflight ???).

Great job Anne and well done on finding out what it was! This is excellent information for the rest of us.

Oh man! I'm so sorry to hear that GB. Hope you and your daughter feel better after the memorial.

Regular canker treatments are recommended. Canker like cocci is one of those common budgie ailments (aparently very common in pigeons too) and can cause deaths but is usually slower to do so than cocci and usually gives you more noitce of an outbreak. I have not done a canker treatment for about 3 years but copped a bit of canker this year so in went the Ronivet S - it works very well! I am a vet member of Vetafarm as Ronivet S is a vet script only drug and they need to have some records of your flock health status (by law) before they will sell it to you. Give them a ring and they can let you know the process (generally send in some poo samples, find out what is present in your flock. Also then you can buy preventative treatments like Doxy and Ronivet).

Father is opaline, so oldest chick with the white down is a hen, right? Yup! Looking good Dave!

Hannah, Great to hear Nibbles is on the improve. Big fingers crossed for you and him that he is well on the mend.

Culling for me is a general term. It USUALLY means to reduce numbers - or go through your whole stud and select out what you want to keep and sell the rest. SOMETIMES it doesn't mean this, as others have pointed out. And GB that's seriously funny! I never really thought about the fact that we can say COCK as much as we like and not get autoconsored - just goes to show how "normal" it is for budgie people but how uncomfortable it might be if you are new to the game.

Looks pretty much like a clearwing to me.

I do this too but find that for the super naughty ones that they revert to psychotic as soon as they dry. For these ones the best thing I have found is to bring them inside for a few days, either in the show cage itself (with water and food of course) or in a small pet budgie cage. They eventually settle well and calm down in the show cage. Also whilst they are inside whenever you walk past run your fingers over the front and pick the cage up and move it randomly.

Did you say "new seed & supplements"? Does that mean you had changed his diet? If so was that before or after he got sick?

Thanks guys I'll be taking some tips away from this thread. I do the bucket wash and drip dry in show cages. Ping pong balls in the bottom of cages. Water in the bottom of cages (old cages). Spraying birds in show cages and letting them dry in the cage. Now I will also do the show cage in the nappy cage thing AND the show cage in the nappy flight. Anything anyone else does differently?

Sweep floor more regularly is just fine when you have a gazillion volunteers to do the million jobs available on the day. And so far the d-cups have worked better than I thought they would - definitely reduce the seed on the floor whilst still giving birds the opportunity to feed if needed or if they desire.Also having judged now a couple of times with the d-cups in and as they are white AND below the front rail of the cage, they cause very little issue and are not really noticable. Funny how some people react to new and different things..... Macka the WABC show rules will include d-cups for all WABC shows. It has been voted on by all affiliated clubs via their WABC delegates and will be included as a requirement 2011??? not too sure on dates.

D cups are WA only but will be adopted across all affilated clubs. Perches are nation wide. It'll be a bit hit and miss for both of these items whilst we have the change over period. Once that happens it'll be large perches, d-cups with seed and paper on the bottom for all. And if you read up the thread a bit macka you'll see why WA chose to go with d-cups for seed. Actually I took full advantage of the change over period and put seed in d-cups AND on the floor for the two UBC's that I took along.

Great photo's thanks LittleBudgie and thanks for your help on the day too!

WA decided to trial small white d-cup feeders on the front right bottom of the cage due to OH&S issues with seed all over polished floors, but not everyone has implemented that yet (yes, marked cages but well.....). Others had seed in the bottom as per normal requirements. The paper was normal for our smaller table shows (no seed) but now for welfare reasons we have decided that they need seed every show but that the huge amount of seed on the floor was also a problem. Hope that clarifies it a bit.The thinker perches have come from an ANBC ruling that budgies should be perching on a 16mm perch size. Not 100% sure when that ruling takes complete effect.So all that is different are the small white d-cups (plus paper). When they are fitted correctly (below the front rail of the cage) they are barely noticable and they definitely work well. My birds snacked happily from them (when they were not grubbing around on the floor. This one definitely was mine I spent quite a lot of time trying to train this little hag too. Water in the bottom of the cage, bucket washing and then drying in the show cage, ping pong balls - you name it! Definintely NOT the good show temperament there......

Considering the recent post on "Show Budgies Behaving Badly", I thought I would ask the question of all the seasoned (and not so seasoned) exhibitors on what they do to train their budgies to sit politely on the perch in their show cage and not grub on the floor, hump the drinker, chew the paper, dig in the seed on the bottom, plaster themselves all over the wire front or any other bad behaviour that budgies in show cages often entertain themselves with. So please feel free to post up your training regime - it might well help (people like me especially, it seems ).

Me thinks this calls for a thread on show cage training!!!!!!! (and in my case what NOT to do).

Yeah, I think I spy at least 1 of my birds there!

Hmmmm, yeah okay. Seeing that I have already posted a picture in my interview you may as well.

Heeheehee he holds his age well - he is actually 80-something! But I know Brenda looks after him well with a very healthy lifestyle and he keeps pretty active.

Thanks Daryl! I was just disappointed that Holy Sh*t dropped his tails as he would have given it a good shake I think (but you never do know I guess). But there were some super birds there including a few Nationals placegetters and some young birds that should do well at the selections too. Was a really solid turnout of quality birds. Great to see for such a small zone as ours.

All I can say is that I'm absolutely knackered!!!!!!!!!! The G&G stud managed best Lacewing in Yound Bird Derby and best Lacewing in Adult State Show, plus a commended (and best Grey) in the Derby with the nice young grey in shown in my breeding journal (not Holy Sh*t who had dropped his tail or Holy Cr*p who has not yet fully moulted out yet - the other one). Happy about the commended considering he is a 4 1/2 month old bird. A couple others too, best clearwing in the state show (adults), and best BES in the Derby (youngs). We just managed to get home to settle the birds back into the aviary before it got dark too - bonus!