nubbly5

Does it matter? I was surprised to see you with all the clearwings that I'd sold Dave but what he does with them after he bought them is his business BUT I still bred them AND stand by their breeding AND would be happy to provide whatever details you might have wanted. After all I got the money for them in the first place and was satisfied, why on earth should it matter if they end up anywhere else and why should I consider that disrespectful if someone asked me about them?

Good on you for trying to set the record straight Ratzy. And just for the record, people don't hear what they don't want to hear no matter who delivers the information!

I guess it's each to his/her own really as far as what they do and how they do it. There are no rules to follow other than maybe a bit of a broad mind about people. As I said before I just don't get the protectionist attitude and the risk of turning away new people from an already shrinking hobby. The risk is far too great when you treat people this way not matter how nice you might pretend to be about it or what your underlying motives might be. I couldn't imagine how it would have affected me to have rung someone like Len Vinci only to be told to pull my head in and that I'd only get records if I bought directly from him - yes I bought one of HIS birds from a pet shop way back when. I would have considered him a completely pretentious prat! I mean really either way, he parted with the bird in the manner he chose - I expect he got the money for it that he was happy with. Or maybe he had sold it to someone else first or even given it away that was his choice. My choice was to go to a pet shop and pick out some birds I liked. And Len was kind enough to tell me all about her background. There was me thinking - WOW budgie people are really nice. Had it been different I wonder if I would have bothered to continue and seek out other breeders close to me. Probably not.

Nubbly, anyone who has come to visit me knows full-well that I am more than generous when it comes to helping out. And as things stand I breed for myself and then mostly for the Pet Shop, I do this so that while my budgies don't pay for themselves at least my Pet Shop culls go towards paying for all my other pets. However, it has come to my attention that there are some people who would rather buy my Show budgie culls from the Pet Shop than me! I think it is a bit low so this year I bred accordingly. So long as you are happy and able to make the distinction. It would be really sad to think that some poor starter picked up one of your birds from the petshop and rang you, only to be told to eff off (maybe in not so few words of course) just like you were. If you take the time to explain it to them then great but if you don't then I don't think you are doing yourself or the hobby any favours.

Well dogs are my first and foremost hobby and budgies have always come second. We have bred, trained and competed with German Shepherds for quite a number of years. Our girls have done pretty well too my old girl, Iccara Basic Instinct (Shine - playing in the sun at Rainbow Bridge), won an invitation only Novice obedience trial for the top 8 dogs in the state, my current girl Iccara Nonesuch (Scarlett) was the top Baby ***** and top Junior ***** Show dog in the GSDA in consecutive years, top agility GSD in WA 2 years running, won the Novice State Obedience trial and was a finalist in the Open State Obedience trial and the Masters State Agility Trial. But things do change! As I work away from home a lot, I was a little annoyed about coming home to find 6 inches of Shepherd hair on the couch where my lovely hubby liked to share with the dogs. So we embarked on finding him a couch dog and into our lives stepped Swifthund Msgoodytwoshus (Effi). Princess Effi stole our hearts (as well as our thongs and doonah!) and since 2001 we have swapped from breeding GSD's to whippets. So here is our hound family. Iccara Basic Instinct BSC1 CDX ADM JDM ET AZ (Scarlett) - she is now 11 yrs old and fully retired from competition although she is the consumate working dog and still loves to have something to do! Swifthund Msgoodytwoshus ADX JDX (Princess Effi) - Also known as Minimum Effort - she thinks the whole world is her oyster and is rarely bothered to get up much more than a gentle lope usually with a happy little whippet smile on her face! Bibbilmun Slim Dusty ADX JDX ADO JDO SD GD SPDX (Greebo - very much a Daddy's boy!!!!) - competing here at the Royal Show. He is currently the highest agility title whippet in WA and is working towards his Masters title. Barmera Black Russian GD SPD (Tchorna) - showing us her completely unique A-frame style where she only touches it twice - once in the colour going up and once in the colour going down!!!!! Also competing at the Royal here. She is lots of fun, although can be a bit of a "window licker" - we think she might be slightly autistic if there is such a thing in the dog world. But she is turning into a super little agility dog. Rakaia E-litter (Greebo x Effi). Rakaia is out breeders prefix and this is our E litter (A-D were all shep litters). Somehwhere in this pile is Rakaia Enya Face (Enya) who is the very first every home bred puppy that we have kept. She's the one on top of my husband going for his ear!!! Enya was the houdini of the litter and could get out of anywhere! Thankfully with some creative electric fencing we succeeded in keeping her in the 5 acre property at least! Rakaia F-litter (Greebo x Effi). We didn't keep any of these guys. Rakaia G-litter. (Baronrath Mahogany Rust x Tchorna). Somewhere in here is Rakaia Gone Blue (Freeze) and Rakaia Gotta Black Soul (Sinner) our two young trash twins! Here they are a bit older in the daytime puppy run. Rakaia H-litter. (Greebo x Tchorna). This was our "accidental" litter. It's what happens when you are on holiday and your poor Mum who is looking after the hounds rings up and says "There are 2 dogs stuck together! What do I do?" We didn't keep any of these guys either. But we do stay in contact with many of the people who have bought puppies from us. And here is Rakaia Heat of the Night (Dexter) in a whippets rightful place, doing what whippets do best!

Thats little rough Renee. So if you were given a super budgie from another breeder (say Cec Gearing) that he had bought in as an outcross from someone else, you wouldn't want to know its background. For the record, I'm happy to provide details to people in all instances In the very early days I did get a bird from my local City Farmers and eagerly rang up the breeder (they will remain nameless) and I was abruptly told that I was interrupting the footy match. Whether it is that way with all breeders I do not know but I have taken my lead from that experience. So No, I don't do things that way. My stock I have bought directly from top local breeders and any other birds I have acquired along the way I have not sought details - I think it is disrespectful. But that is just me. Well you gave away who THAT was!!!! :rofl: And to be honest I wouldn't ask this fellow for help with anything as you are likely to get the same answer unless he has the opportunity to big note himself!!!!!! Unfortunately you just can't get away from that type of up themselves, self important people. You find out very quickly that they are in it SOLEY for themselves. It's just a shame he has influenced you to go down a similar track. I have nothing at all to hide and am happy to help out where I can with variety birds or whatever as quite a few people here have already discovered. Also once people buy birds from me, I have NO problem with them being on-sold (like the clearwings you bought off Dave, Renee) and if they really want details of the birds then I will usually send the full pedigree or at least read out the details. You probably won't find my birds in a petshop these days but anyone who buys a G&G bird from anywhere is welcome to contact me for the ped details. I'm not sure what it is that is so important (they are BUDGIES not gold bullion) that I need to keep it so close to my chest. I really don't get people that sell non-breeding birds, falsify the credentials of birds, just can't be bothered to find the details for you or fob you off when you contact them, well that kind of limits your repeat custom in my opinion. Personally I would much rather people be happy with a purchase knowing whatever there is to know about a bird or family or at least whatever I can impart to them, whether or not they bought the bird directly from me or not. I figure good customer service leads to repeat custom and a good reputation for selling birds that HELP improve someones stud. Plus in the spirit of encouraging new people into the hobby (who OFTEN pick up pet shop birds to start with) I would encourage everyone to HELP these people or sooner or later we will only be competing against ourselves...............

1998 would have been blue anyway me thinks. The 98 was probably the individual identification number. The years are shown as the secret symbol and then the last digit of the year. This years is )0, 2008 was X8, and 2007 was a triangle followed by a 7. Can't remember what '09 was........... The secret code is so that people can't just get rings made with the year on them and then stick them on chicks earlier than the ring issue date and cheat at the Nationals by having birds significantly older than those they are competing against.

Well a four legged budgie is sort of like having 2 but only really buying one!!!! Sounds perfect for you really . Welcome to the forum!

Yes the markings usually moult out darker and the body colour is usually brighter and more even in adult feathering. The darker blue shading around neck and rump are not uncommon in many skyblues even if they don't carry the violet gene.

Well done Amy! Yes please Matt can you post the whole picture.

Looks like skyblue dom pied greywing to me.

All rung budgies are eligible for Nationals. :party0011: Although the breeder could have to be a member of a recognized Club ... not sure about that. However, if you mean this year's nationals the answer is no. Because even though the Blue ring date started on September 1 2009, the rings read 2010! :happy-dancing: So, this May 2010 only Red rungers are eligible (ie. birds rung between 1.01.2009-31.08.2009) AND next May 2011 Blue rungers are eligible (ie. birds rung between 1.09.2009-31.08.2010). :happy-dancing: Breeder has to be a member of a club that is affiliated with their state or zone controlling body (which in turn is affiliated with the ANBC). Each state/zone body controls the issue of rings bearing the secret code. Only birds bearing these rings of the appropriate year - still owned by the original breeder - are eligible for the Nationals.

If you can tell the ring code and find out who the breeder is they might have records of her actual hatch date.

Wow, lucky you and how very nice of cw! Nice to see support for newer members of the hobby like this! And CW, the compliment is very much deserved! They are beautiful.

So far I've used clearwings and my best normals. I purchased 3x dilutes this year to put into them - 2x dom pied opaline dilutes (1 cock and one hen) and 1x normal dilute (cock most likely split cinnamon and opaline). Unfortunately it's hellishly hard to find good dilutes over here and all of a sudden everyone seems to want them (greywing and clearwing breeders coming out of the woodwork). I'm really hesitant to use the dilute cocks as I bet they will be split for cinnamon and I was very wary of putting opaline into the line too as currently my clearwings are just that and don't have anything else much creeping around in the lines as well as the whole opaline AOSV thing too - I was warned not to let opaline get into them either actually (or maybe I'm getting that confused with the BES's?!. I will give the dilute opaline dom pied hen a go next season and just keep the hen chicks (dom pied or not) and use them. I was going to use her this season but she is so nice that I popped her into my normal line first. Maybe down the track I'll have some useful dilutes drop out and she has bred some really nice babies. I'm also trying to keep a family just for the wing clarity. I have been very lucky to purchase a family of birds with exception variety charateristics and will try and run a line of them alongside my other "tinkerings". I've only just started on this project - this is the 3rd season I've had them and the first time I've gone majorly outside the original family that I purchased in. To be honest I don't mind if I stay with tiny little clearwings with great wing clarity as they are just sooooo nice to have flying around the aviary. But I do aspire to having some clearwings as nice as yours, clearwing, one day - maybe, hopefully!

Grey birds cheek patches are a slatey blue/grey colour. Mauve have a dark blue/violet cheek patch. Quite different. If you post a picture we might be able to give you a definite answer.

Yeah clearwing, I'm not totally convinced that the heavy secondaries and the true long flights are the same thing. When I very first started I bought a longflighted bird from one of the breeders here in WA. He said it was the only one he had seen for a long time and it's the only one I've seen since - I soooooooo wish I had thought to take a few snaps of it as it was completely different to the sloppy secondaries that often show up in clearwings (and by the looks of it darkwings) when you try and improve them. This fellow had very definite long flights - primaries and secondaries - and also a longer tail. It's wings were still neat but the flights were completely out of proportion. It also had better feather that the rest of my flock too whereas these sloppy flighted clearwings don't tend to be much of an improvement in the overall feathering, just sloppy big secondaries. Still Don Burke in the DVD says he has "cracked" the long flighted birds genetically and the birds he is talking about in the dvd are quite obviously the same sloppy secondaries that I think you are talking about in the clearwings.

I agree with clearwing. This bird does not look 100% happy to me.

Saw the darkwing DVD that Don Burke and Mario put out to ANBC and in it he commented that he had "cracked" the long flighted gene and not to be scared to use it when improving stock. Can't say I was overly convinced though but to test out his theory I will be using a couple heavy flighted birds this year instead of culling them out of my stud. I think I have a copy of the article he wrote on it too so I might post it up with permission.

No Jap millet in your current mix Kaz?!!!!! Jap millet is the smaller more shrivelled looking millet in the Golden Cob mix. I've been using Golden Fields seed for the last 10 years and have found a HUGE variety in the mix. When we had a local seed shortage over here, they stopped putting in the Jap millet - THE most important seed for amino acids, and the quantities of canary and white millet change every now and again. The last "quality" batch of seed I got had some canary seed, LOTS of Jap millet, no white millet and WHOLE OATS!!!! I rang and asked what was going on and was told that the workers must have stuffed up the seed mixing - WELL YEAH! It's supposed to be a standard mix of 50% canary, 25% white millet and 25% jap millet....... Since tackling them on it, the bags I have bought have been good - pays to check on them every now and then. Most local mixes, Golden Fields and Triangle Seed mixes are made from local seed. To bring in seed from the east means that it has to be heat treated to kill any nasty visitors coming in with the seed. That's why, when Golden Cob was available over here it was generally more expensive than local mixes.

Small seeds don't always mean less nutrient. In dry finish conditions (where enough rain falls to grow crop but not enough falls at the very end of the growing season to properly fill out seed heads), you will get a proportion of whats often called pinched seed, these often test highr in protien and micro nutrients per kilo than normally finished seed. I would assume there may also have been some varietal differences in 15-20 years, allowing producers to grow varieties that might be slightly more suited to their growing conditions. People like GrainCorp or other grain marketers would do basic grain quality testing like protiens, screenings etc. Not sure if anyone would be testing amino acid profile of todays millets and canary seed. It's probably a good question to ask your seed supplier "Do they have grain test results for the seeds that they are using". They should given that seed quality can change from year to year even if seed looks the same. Every feedmill that I have ever worked for or with quality test their grain coming in and their product going out but usually only for protein, fibre, ME, fat and not for amino acid proile so you might hope that seed suppliers do the same.

Spot the ring in! A light green cinnamon/bes. Easier to spot the ring in in this picture. A bes hen top right. Bottom left is as close as I've got to a grey I'm afraid Dave - a mauve clearwing. Top left is a normal light green/clearwing rest all clearwings.

Oh sad! Sorry to hear of the passing of such a great bird! At least he will be well remembered in his chicks and grand chicks and great grand chicks etc. When you look back on your pedigrees he'll be right there.

Very very nice splat. Great job getting the violet into your stud without losing show quality to any degree. They are LOVELY!!!!! And that cin hen is something else!

Robyn it definitely looks like a cock bird. Sometimes (especially in older birds) males ceres go brown like this. People have always told me that this is indicative of hormone problems or testicular cancer. I have also been told that these birds are also infertile but I have no personal experience so can't give guideance on that one.