nubbly5

Sorry but that is just a little bit overwhelming!!!!! You will get lots of different colours from lots of different pairs .

Dunno about that, bit like "you can lead a horse to water....." Maybe your conditions are more conducive to successful breeding than what my birds experience. But I can give mine "The Hilton" and, even if compatible, if one isn't ready to breed there won't be any chicks. Personally Sept 1st seems to suit my birds' breeding habits. The only issue I have is that the National has evolved from a Young Bird championship to an almost Old Bird championship over the years. I'm with Darryl on this one...... as a complete newbie I tried all the "right" ways of doing things as expoused by those "more knowledgable" than me. Lots of people here said to put birds down to breed after the first rains in April. Nothing, nothing, nothing, some fertile eggs, deads in shell - just horrible results every time, then as September came around and it started to warm up - good results. Didn't seem like a complicated situation. Breed when the birds are really firing not when the condition is a bit off, it's cold wet and horrible and the day length is shortening not lengthening. Sure I could have insultated the shed, put in heaters etc OR I could wait until September.... Sure they will breed to some extent all year but way better at some times than others. And I know it's been a young bird championship but being a relative newbie in the hobby I've always really considered it to be a variety challenge just with rules on age..... Suppose why the ring issue date didn't really seem like a bit deal (and it was good for my birds breeding time).

Looking forward to when you get settled in Canada and breeding clearwings too so you can share your experiences as well. With 20:20 hindsight I wished I'd kept some of those diluted things to test mate. If they ever appear again I will do just that to test my theory (thanks to John Mulley) that they are indeed dilutes. We might find that they are actually diluted clearwings (that's what my thought was initially as I'd only ever seen dilutes with wing markings) - but probably less likely given the scenario, still who knows. Yes DF clearwings. That is the challenge. When I bought these guys I was told they were paired clearwing x clearwing for generations. Then I got these diluted things and rang the breeder who said no they HAD used dilutes in their clearwings. Good one!!! So currently I really only have an idea about a few of the birds being split for dilute (based on the production of the diluted clearwings) - BIG SIGH. Oh well! I've plopped in 3 different outcrosses this season so we will see where that goes.

I agree in essence Peter. But I know I would have had 2 extra birds that might have been selected that got nowhere near even going to the selection show purely because they had not fully moulted out into their adult plummage, mind you something else could have happened to the older ones anyway. Sure it'll still be the same names (yourself included of course) with a few variations here and there just like any other livestock exhibition. AND no doubt the ring change won't suit everyone. I know WA voted no initially (although or rep voted yes!!!!) but after a bit of lobbying we then changed at the next vote to yes - so there were enough people here who initially thought the idea sucked. Personally I still LOVE it.Still, I don't think the change is big enough to affect people in such a way that they'll stop breeding exhibition budgies - not that I've heard anyway - and next year it'll be some other contraversy anyway After Gina's post above I spent some time reading the ANBC Minutes (yes, I have no life ) and, given the number of times it took to finally get resolution on the Sept 1st issue date, a move to Jul 1st will be about as much fun for the ANBC as sand in your undies! Now THAT is SAD Darryl you truely have no life. Reading through all those ANBC minutes would have been as much fun as sand in your undies anyway!!!!!!!

Mmmmmmm very good question actually. I had the opportunity to have a pair of proper "bush" budgies here at my place to be displayed at the Nationals and I could not help myself and I took a photo of one of them (a light green cock)in a show cage with my biggest bird (a cinnamon grey hen) - found the picture!!! In the wild budgies are tiny little pinheaded things and they are very fast and very nimble flyers. In the UK small stock shows were very popular (still are) and were kinda the advent of livestock showing generally - dogs, horses, birds, pigs etc. As budgies became a popular pet people - particularly initially in the UK - started to show them to decide which was the best. Obviously you have to have some guidelines as to what constitues "the best" so they developed a "standard of excellence". Most show societies be it budgies, dogs, horses etc have an agreed "standard of excellence" to work from. Now with budgies people generally liked the bigger more feathery birds and selected for them and so the budgies changed significantly from what the standard was and the standard was revised to more correctly represent what the budgie had started to look like and to what people thought should be the aim for show breeders. To be honest I don't think there are too many other show animals whose standard has been changed so regularly and to such an extent as the budgie. For example another standard I am very familiar with is the German Shepherd the standard size for a dog is 65cm at the shoulder and that has not changed for many years. The aim in this case is to keep the breed from become monster sized and imparing their ability to undertake strenuous work. In budgies it's really only what people like to see in a show cage so they have changed over the years with much selective breeding. Another similar example although not a show animal is the broiler chicken. From the common backyard chicken breeds, poultry companies have been able to selectively breed a bird that now will reach a killable weight at around 5-8 weeks and looks quite a bit different (much more solid square shaped body) to your average chook. It's all to do with selective breeding really. So size and feather on all show budgie varieties has been increased from the natural state. It is just hard to do this with some varieites especially without losing what is called for in the standard for that variety.

Would any of those be the ones you sold to me? No unfortunately (or fortunately - depending on how you want to look at it) I sold them all to the pet shop. I actually don't think I would have used them in preference to the 11th place 2008 Nats bird anyway as they were a similar size to him just looked like a dilute body colour with clear wings. Definitely worth a bash Shannon and at 15 you've got more time than me to perfect your clearwing line!!! Seems to me you are going about it well so I wait to see your name up at the Nationals soon! So I guess thats why my DEC cock is small compared to other varieties......Good luck Nubbly, look forward to your progress....Sure is! And DEC are an even rarer variety not yet really represented at the Nats (except as part of the exhibition class) so people don't worry too much about trying to "improve" them. Here are some pics of the clearwinged dilutes for some comparison and to show you what I was talking about. This is the violet boy from above. This is a dilute version of the violet. This is one of his full colour siblings in dark green. And this is another one of his siblings this time a diluted dark green (or olive). Out of a nest of seven chicks 4 were dilutes and 3 were full coloured - bred from an olive clearwing cock to a dark green clearwing hen. You can imagine my surprise - first year into breeding clearwings - when these popped out. My idea of dilutes were what you would normally see with wing markings so I was very perplexed about these and started asking around. From what I understand these are dilutes but with their wing markings modified by the clearwing. Almost another arguement for a co-dominant trait like the full body colour greywings now breeding as 100% greywings but with a full body colour. I assume if I bred 2 of these chicks together I could start a strain of clearwinged dilutes that bred as pure dilute.

I've always used nail polish mostly with success so long as the dent/crack is small and has not penetrated the membrane inside the egg.

Recessive varieties and traits in general seem to be smaller and harder to improve. Clearwings are particularly hard as when you DO try and improve their size by using stronger varieites like normal green etc, you lose the wing clarity.

Good stuff Renee & Tony!!!! Looks like it'll really help out in regards to giving more flight space. Have to say that I made my biggest steps forward when I could keep my young birds longer so that they could mature to their full potential - not sell them off and then find out it turned out to be a ripper Looking forward to seeing the finished article!

Cuties! - I love the action shot in the top right of the first photo!

I have not actually measured him but I would guess he is about 3/4 the size but also less feather than my normal (normals, cinnamons, opalines, spangles) varieties.

Daryl only birds with the 09 rings,can be shown in Rocky,if you have put on the 010 rings,they will be okay for the 011 National, Yep, I get that Macka. I just don't get why we have changed the rules to exclude such a large group of previously eligible young birds from being classified as young birds next show season. In the past there have been birds as young as 5 months old at the Nats. Now the youngest young bird which can be shown at the Nats will be 9 months old (unless of course someone was to continue using the 09 rings for the rest of the year). I'm led to belive one of the reasons for bringing put forward the ring issue was to allow breeders to breed from their champs before they attanded the Nats as some breeders believe the experience of birds attending the Nats causes them to breed poorly (if at all) the following season. Darryl, from memory when the ring issue date topic first came up (I think we had a first vote on it which was defeated at the 2005 or 2006 ANBC meeting) there were quite a few different arguements for the change including the one you mentioned plus better maturity for those later bred birds. Initially there was quite a bit of counter arguement as well but I guess a couple years of extra lobbying can achieve changes in opinion. Welcome to the wonderful world of budgie politics!

Yes I've heard so many different things about breeding clearwings. Mainly breeding clearwing to clearwing. When I bought my first ones I was told that they were clearwing to clearwing for many generations. Then out popped these really weird diluted clearwings. After long conversations with John Mulley and others re these birds it appeared that they were a dilute but with the clearwings modified by the clearwing. I have to say that there definietly seems to be more than just the 3 phenotypes of greywing, clearwing and dilute in this series. Anyway, after pinning down the breeder he did admit to having used dilute regularly to up the size. He advised that I kept the biggest of these clearwing dilutes and put them back into the clearwings (I had already sold them and then split the pair as I believed that they were of no benefit to my breeding program - bugger). He was one of the many that said normal splits will bugger the wing markings (which they do) but how else to get features like feather and size into them when they don't already have it? Anyway he is not the only one I've heard of who uses dilutes - common practice apparently but I can see I would still lose something in wing clarity as the dilutes are still not 100% clear anyway. That's why I plan to run a family bred soley for wing clarity (chosing the biggest of them each time to breed though - so I still might be able to slowly increase size at the same time anyway) and then play around breeding splits from them or putting in marked outcrosses and then breed these back with the wing clarity family. Maybe that's completely the wrong way to do it - I guess I'll find out....... I will be trying dilute too but have to wait for the babies that I bought to mature.

Yep Renee that IS the question........... I'll be choosing the best of the bigger ones and putting them back into the clear family. That's my plan anyway.

Thanks Guys and yes I did breed him and I'm pretty proud of him and a couple of his brothers and sisters. Although I have to say my attempts at quickly increasing size using normal splits has given me birds with crappy wing clarity, as I was told would happen actually........ sigh. I guess clearwings will become a bit of a labour of love. But I am really glad that I took the time to seek out foundation stock with superior wing clarity rather than just the big heavily marked birds. Ifeel that I have a better base from which to work and I just love having these little flashes of colour flying around the aviary. I'll put some effort in and do a photo expose of the variations you get in wing clarity one day.

Mine arrived yesterday but I also have no chicks to put them on YET! Some hatching soon I hope. I LOVE the new ring issue date. I start my breeding season in September and finish in March. The birds I bred in September - December were very often too young to make the Nationals the very next year - some being only 6 months old. Others bred in January - March got to mature a whole lot more and were often the birds I had selected. Not that it bothered me really as others were in the same boat. But for me the new ring issue date is WONDERFUL and I'm happy that now my whole batch of babies get a better chance to mature before the selections !!! :rofl:

This is the variety of budgie that attracted me many years ago when my Mum had a book called "The Cult of the Budgerigar". The violet whitewing as Mr Watmough called it, is shown on a glorious colour plate. I couldn't believe that there were budgies of such a stunning colour and contrast. 2 years ago I decided to try my hand at clearwings as they are known to be a really tricky variety to breed. You either get tiny birds with clear wings or big birds with badly marked wings and tail. Although not huge, this boy is not tiny either (still a long way from the current show standard size of normal varieties) but he is exactly what I love about this variety. Clear white wings contrasted against a lovely violet colour. I think he is something quite special.

Boy - nice pink/purple cere of a rec pied boy.

Good to see the boys looking so well after their long travels and I have to say GB it was a pleasure dealing with you. You certainly do more justice to them in your photo's than I did!

Pretty safe to give her a whirl if she is coming into condition. AND she looks reasonably mature from the photo's. As we are already into September the youngest she is going to be is 8-9 months. Edit...... Well okay ALMOST into September.

Great clear post. And great information.

Opaline Lacewing x Opaline rec pied. All opaline babies. All hens lacewing all cocks split for lacewing. All split for Rec pied. All split for blue (unless hen is also split for blue), 50% chance of grey greens (unless hen is DF grey).

Normal for a budgie either not used to close confinement - is a stress behaviour. Usually if you've just put it in a small cage and it's not used to it, you can get this sort of behaviour. If you move the container up you might find he/she still tries to dig in the corner of the cage too. Pretty normal and hopefully it'll settle down over time.

Dean my birds never come in contact with the base of the nest box as the whole box is filled with about 1 1/2 to 2 inches of nesting material. It wouldn't matter what sort of box I used as they get adequate grip on the nesting material anyway and don't come near the bottom of it. They would have to be 1/2 mole to find themselves slipping on the nest box floor! I'll take a photo of the amount when I've got little chickies to demonstrate.

Oh sorry M6B that's tough going! Does sound like an egg bound hen but sometimes even when you are around stuff happens when you breed budgies. Hopefully the rest of your breeding season goes smoothly.