nubbly5

Gorgeous birds Splat, you must be pleased with them - I certainly would be! And I second Kaz with adding cinnamon and even opaline into the line to clean up suffusion as both cinnamon & opaline reduce body colour to some degree. Adds problems for the single factor spangles though but good for DF's so you might need to choose separate lines.

Yeah and you gotta wonder how much the damn dogs owner really cared if it was allowed to wander around at will. Another pet hate of mine. I would be visiting the dogs owners with the shotgun too....... grrrrrrrrr. Glad to hear that your budgies at least have made a full recovery.

I second what Ross says about not taking it personally, you should try being a German Shepherd owner! And yes, considering there are 7 dogs running around our place, I often step in unburied (seemingly strategically placed) dog poo but I forgive them their minor indescretions, considering they are never off my property unattended, they ALWAYS come back when called, they are contained in smalled comfortable runs when we are away and are inside at night except for ablution trips so I figure I have the right to be a little bit annoyed when someones feral moggy wanders around our place and tries to eat my birds. And to be honest, it'd be a lucky dog to go home alive from our place if it decided to bust in here too unless it bested all 7 of my dogs at once. And sorry Kaz but no matter what you say, I still do and always will take exception to cats and cat owners (unless they are one of the few who have the special outdoor cat enclosure for their cat) and that's my personal choice and always will be (and yes vendetta if you want to call it that). I've seen wild cats the size of kelpies all over in our beautiful station country and through National Parks and when you hear the figures of the wildlife these little hunters decimate it's hard to turn down the hate dial. Even wild dogs don't get through that much small and precious wildlife (quite a few sheep, yes).

Kaz doesnt get "testy" for one and I dont edit out .....I do split topics if they go off on atangent that aparently doesnt link in to the topic at hand. I do these things because its my job. Noone has ever seen me "testy" and most likely never will Got a bite though, didn't I!!!!!!!

Great job you guys!!!! Lots more to come I'm sure so 007 better get busy with that shelf!!!!

No worries I LIKE disucssuion just like this one so unless Kaz gets testy and edits you guys out, please feel free to continue. Personally I have always found (and I know I've said it befor too), that an average/good bird from a strong stud with years of strong breeding behind it, will most often produce way better than a fantastic bird from an average stud. I have worked on this principal now for a long time and I think it's paying off. For example some Henry George birds I bought at auction - one particular blue (from his well known and very well respected Cobalt line) arrived looking like someone had dug it out of a petshop. Now some might have been tempted to move it on, but considering it's bloodlines I gave it a whirl and thankfully I did. My normal green and grey green National reps from this year all came down from that bird. Also re: buying from interstate. I find it an inconvenience at the worst and a great opportunity at best and think that more people should try and get birds from other states. I think this is particularly pertinant for WA as we have such a small pool of breeders and a strongly inbred group of birds (IMO) with some exceptions. There are few people I now feel I can purchase birds from in this state that I can further my stud with (not being pompous here). In reality Cec, Jeff and Gary are the only potentials and my stud is built around Cec birds with a tiny bit of Gary's thrown in. Jeff good birds are wonderful BUT..... (I won't tell tales) needless to say I don't have any here. Sooooooo, Gary Gazzard birds have come in (via SW syndicate), Henry George birds have come in, Peter Glassenbury birds (rare varities) have come in, Ian Hanington birds have come in (fallows). All big names with very well respected studs and that's the way I'll keep going as I try to get other outcrosses, when I need them. I think though that I'll have to actually go in person to some studs in the east to try and buy what I want now...... Mind you I'm in a happy place and think I have the features (at least in the lacewings and normals) that I want so I'm content to just plug along with my own breeding program for a while now.

Ooooh, how very interesting Jen. Is this a bird that you bred? If so what were the parents or what makes you call it a dilute lacewing?

Great to hear that your birds are A-okay. 6 whippets and a German Shepherd "fix" any cat problem that we have. We USED to have a neighbours cat come visit but 7 dogs happened to that one night............. If I have to keep my dogs contained, under control, not wandering etc etc I believe the same should apply to the feral little wildlife murderers.

Bummer! Night fright in the aviary is the worst. Hope they recover okay for you.

Mostly information is recorded via the closed metal rings. I assume from RIP's post that there might be numbered split metal bands? But most of us show breeders use the numbered closed metal band (with our own breeding code plus a unique number etched into them) and put them on babies before their foot grows too big. The split plastic bands as Shannon says are just used to indicate quickly if a bird is split for a certain variety so you don't have to go back to your records to tell. For me blue bands a split lacewing, red bands are split fallow, green bands are split clearwing, purple bands are split blackeyed self. Nothing written on them just as an indicator of what the bird is split for. The records are kept from the closed leg rings unique number.

This is the difference. Size and feather. The cinnamon grey hen is my best show bird (maybe not as of this year but was at the time of the photo in 2008) and the normal green is a bush budgie. Often pets are the size of bush budgies and show birds are usually as big or bigger than my girl.

Thanks Daryl & Kaz That 4th baby is the one that had the feather disturbance when it was just fledging....... Can't notice it at all now.

Thanks jlee and all! Yes I'm pretty pleased with them. There are others of course that aren't quite as good but overall I'd have to say it's a great breeding season so far and the quality of the chicks is strong right through instead of just that one or two standouts that I used to get before.

Very good idea to keep them for at least 12 months! Even those average looking babies can really surprise you and that is especially true for lacewings which I've found tend to mature later and not really feather up until after their second moult.

Just to add a little more to the Lacewing history, since I get a mention. The Texas Clearbody side of the equation came from Peter Glassenbury (SA), that Clearbody was used in my Lacewing lines which orignated with E Kolfalvi (WA) who had some great Lacewings. Watch those pet shop quality birds you never know where they came from or what they are hiding. I second that! The grey spangle Dodgey Bros hen I bought from a local petshop all those years ago was the foundation hen of my strongest family even though she looked like nothing much, there was a lot of really good stuff behind her.

The Lacewing Lineup - First Round Lacewing Babies (kinda in order of age). The 2 last ones (on my hand are not yet out of the nest and the rest are either just into the nappy cage or still in the cabinet with their parents. Also the young grey from my last post has just exited the nest and is looking better than I could have hoped. Here he is - you see how short he tail is at the moment - still very young.

I would go as clear a winged clearwing as you can. You want to add that wing modifier back into the line and try and retain the size and style you gained from the split dilute.

What an amazing Fro!

Oh so sorry to hear of you loss! Kaz & Ken, Grant & I are thinking of you both.

Here is a link to the manufacturer of my aviaries showing pictures. D & S Aviaries Some of mine are like the one at the bottom right. My breeding ones are a custom design I came up with. I don't "get in" to them, I can generally reach through one of the entrances to do whatever I need to. The wire floor prevents birds from rumaging through dust and droppings in a concentration they would never encounter in the wild. How do you catch the little suckers?

GB and all - no offence taken and none intended either. It's just obvious I spend a lot of time thinking about this sort of stuff.......... really just prompting thought and discussion. Wow Darryl That was a great post with some fantastic information! The 2 big factors that WE can influence immediately are the accumulated poo and the crowded conditons and it sounds like you've done that - this is what affects all livestock adversely. Never having seen suspended aviaries - how do they work - as in how do you get in there to do the things you need to do? I still find it interesting that we (and I mean this as a collective "we") assume that overmedicating birds is the reason for all our woes (don't get me wrong I don't think it's great either - balance as Dave siad) but will still use birds for breeding that probably should be culled for poor health, if they are good enough to maybe breed a winner. As I said in the previous post I'd imagine it'd be pretty hard for me, after spending a substantial amount of $ on a bird, to just get rid of it due to health issues if i thought I could save them with a holiday in the heat box and a short course of antibiotics. There will obviously be exceptions and in some repects our stud undergoes self culling as I travel away a lot and aside from feeding, watering and ringing babies my darling husband is no stockman and completely misses any fluffies so no medication, no heat box usually - self culling. So consequently we have a reasonably healthy flock. The worst things about buying birds at auction are not the lumps and bumps but the chronic disease that might not show up in the bird for some time - AGV being a classic. Although it's considered a secondary disease I have found certain families WAY more susceptable to it than others but by the time it really shows up, I've often bred 2 or 3 rounds from the bird - perpertuating that family of susceptability. But I'd definitely not cull them if they were good and I probably should (and cull that family). I think that is the real problem here - we breed for things so completely removed from good health that over the years we have not placed any selection pressure on birds showing ill health (in fact quite the opposite). In my mind breeding show budgies and breeding healthy show budgies are 2 very different things as you really need to change your selection focus. Also we all tend to get used to the way things are and accept what happens as part of everyday. Those slow but intrinsic changes in the whole budgie population go a bit unnoticed except for the older generation who have seen those small sleek healthy little fellow who used to breed like flies change to the big fluffy freaks who breed if you are very lucky. The very same thing has happened in the dog world. The freaks we now see in breed like the french bulldog, pug and the like who cannot breath, have their eyes fall out and cannot breed without surgical assistance is pretty much the same. Dog breeders have selected purely on cosmetic things, just like us, and lost things like health and breedability, just like us. But also like I said before I'm still chasing those nats winners so I also am very much perpetuating the problem........

Good luck to you both. Nothing nasty intended here but I would say there is a VAST difference between the birds you have now and the birds that are flying free regardless of what YOU personally do to them. 6-7 years is what you will get out of your show birds (with the exceptions though) and it's been that way for a long time. Pet budgies unhampered by the close contact living conditions can live a very long time without the pressures of breeding and intensive livestock illnesses. Also remember that you both have bought birds from people who have bought birds from people who have bought birds from people who have selected for size and feather for a long long time. YOU haven't created what you have got as far as the inherited immune problems etc. You might be able to DEVELOP a group of birds that have better health and fertility than the norm by heavily selecting for fertility and health at the cost of feather and size (maybe at the same time but I would think not). To do this you would have to be pretty strong about never breeding from chicks that come from parents only producing small clutches say of one or two and removing any birds from your flock that have come from a parent that has died of an illness or have ever shown any signs of illness (and therefore shown a poorer immune system than the rest). In the natural environment birds are placed under enormous selction pressure - anything unfit dies early or is eaten by a waiting predator. There is no room for an unhealthy bird but WE have made room for them. We all say we don't do this and don't do that and that we breed only from fertile hens & cocks blah blah blah - then we go and buy a bird for a few hundred dollars that breeds one chick and dies. But we'll use that chick anyway because it is fantastic and we spend lots of money on the parent - in the end we probably don't have a real handle on why it died anyway - maybe it was that crappy immune system (who knows). And how precious would those handful of imported English budgies have been????? Bet you anything that, even if they had have bred just one baby in their entire lifetime, that baby would have been used if possible. And so we go on - selecting ourselves a bunch of birds often unable to breed more than one or 2 chicks before they cark or dwindle off with some chronic illness. And you have both totally ignored the fact that we've taken free ranging birds out of the bush - ones that cover hundreds of kilometers in their natural nomadic lifestyle and stuffed them into an area that is a few meters squared - if that's not completely unnatural and in my opinion BOUND to affect their health outcomes in the long run then I'll go he for chasey!!! The case has been proven for many other types of animals too - pigs, chickens, cattle, sheep all suffer health issues when confined (and I don't mean crammed in just confined to a smaller range area where they come into contact with more pathogens). These animals no matter how robust an immune system often need medication assistance to combat the problems associated with intensive housing (cocci being a classic problem). But mind you maybe over those hundred or so years we humans have been foofing around with the budgerigar we are slowly breeding into them the ability to put up with an incredible overload of organisms caused by living on top of each other..........

The trouble is a lot of fertility problems (according to vets like Rob Marshall) are due to underlying problems like psitacosis. When he came here he did pooh screenings and bird checks and found chlamydia in quite a few birds where fertility was an issue. So even though my birds are not dying in droves with an obvious outbreak of "something" then the assumption I make is that there is an underlying level of different things in the aviary be it cocci, psitacosis, megabacteria etc etc etc - IF they in fact do affect fertility (and don't forget they are our doing to a big degree due to intensive housing conditions) then a routine treatment to reduce populations of organisms is not an unrealistic thing to do. The only issue I personally see with this in not a reduction in immunity levels as such but a high selection pressure placed on the organisms themselves which leads to resistance issues. If you routinely remove those organisms susceptable to a treatment, quite naturally what is left behind is often resistant to the treatment. After several goes at this the ONLY type of that organism left is resistant so the whole population of those organisms can no longer be affected by the treatment being used and you have to find something else to use. So IF we are dependant on using medication to boost fertility we are also affecting the balance of the population of the organisms we are treating for and eventually the system breaks down. I haven't found a realistic answer other than to stop breeding budgies full stop, either for show or pet purposes, because when we do we are completely changing the heath challenges we place a normally nomadic creature under and therefore affecting it's health and well being - not going to do this at the moment not matter how ethically correct it would be to do so. I'd have to go and join PETA and give up all my pets and go vegan then!!!!!

Yes I regularly get "runts" in my nests. About 3-4 each year. Most don't survive well and have an obvious growth issue so I cull them if they have not already died (which often happens when their siblings out compete them) have one at the moment actually..............

OOOOOOOOHHHH we got editted out of your breeding journal - how uncharitable!!!!!