nubbly5

Have used breeding aid for at least 8 years for breeding pairs and chicks. Mix it with seed and leave overnight for it to penetrate into the husk. This is the only source of seed my breeding pairs and chicks get. This is one reason (Calcivet's Vitamin D3 levels are another) why I am now a bit more hesitant to use Soluvite D......... Looking at it, it seems my birds get good access to Vitamin D3 even without sunlight.

No worries! Cameron - water based one will be SAFE to use spot on but not sure how effective it'll be...... Cattle Pour-On is solvent based which helps it to both move around the body and through the skin. And chookbreeder - absolutely right about Merial not bothering to register not worth their while - they are selling it now anyway and the cost to register (which is substantial) is not worth the potential return! I spoke with a Norbrook rep at a field day recently (they produce a generic Ivermectin) who mentioned that some people also use the injectable for spot-on use. He couldn't tell me about it's effectiveness though. I'll stick with Pour-On which is designed to transfer around the body.

Randy birds! The bane of my life when judging - have to keep pushing the little buggers off the show drinkers all the time . Birds just don't have any shame do they?

Yep very cheap compared to what we can buy here!!!!! Get an eye dropper and put one drop (undiluted) onto the back of the budgies neck straight on the feathers. (I have by mistake put on more than one drop - like 5 or 6, without any issue). Over the years I've been using it (on over 200 birds) I have not had one death from Ivermectin Cattle Pour-On but have heard that occasionally like people certain birds can have an allergic reaction so it's not impossible but very unlikely. They will scratch at the spot initially but within the day will no longer notice it.

Don Burke did a segment on this on Burkes Backyard. He showed that blue budgies didn't glow like green ones did........... and another reason why blue budgies in the wild are rare. Not only do the predator like them more (coz because they stand out) but other budgies liked them less coz they didn't glow a brightly.

Looks very BOY to me. It's usually only those real young babies (just out of the nest) that are hard to tell. By now if he was a she you should have seen the cere pale out to a light fawn colour or almost all white with some light blue before it goes that nutty brown colour. Your boy is a boy. That deep blue starting to come through is his boyness!!!!! What a cutie - was that him coming up to check out what you were doing with that camera?

OM NOM NOM NOM............... :rofl: Silverbeet and spinach good.

Sorry Whoknew I'm not on here all the time just sporadically. Yes you should get some proprotion of YF blues - 50%. If you said her colour is green then most likely she is a YF blue not a YF grey as the yellow suffusion on the body of the bird turn their blue and aqua colour. Dominant pieds generally look like the cock with lots of body colour and a few ground colour (white or yellow) patches. Double factor dominant pieds have much more ground colour showing through (more of their body colour is "pied out"). Normal birds don't have the white patches on their wings and body. Have a look through this topic for Pics of Members Dominant Pieds and Pics of Members Normals for comparison. Her markings being grey might indicate that she has some other variety tucked away there too - possibly greywing.......

Both 5mg/mL Ivermecin Pour-On. Same stuff just different names. Ivomec was the first registered brand name of Ivermectin - after it came off patent other companies were allowed to copy and sell it so it now comes in many different brand names produced by a few different companies. The one you have found is one of those copies (we call them generic products in the industry) but still identical to Ivomec Pour-On. Most of these copies are significantly cheaper than Ivomec too - so it's good to shop around so long as you can get an identical product.

Look further! http://www.snopes.com/medical/toxins/canola.asp

They have been known to live off the bird for short periods. So treating the perches is a good precaution. Having said that - I didn't treat my perches and thought I had erradicated scale from my birds completely but then after reading that scale can remain unnoticed for 6 - 12 months AND I treat my birds at least 2x per year it's possible they are still there but just in very small numbers constantly being controlled by the treatment I use....... who knows.

Yes me too! My comment was just that you expect too much for them to have directional feather AND depth of mask - like I said they ARE split for clearwing after all (meaning they breed pure for pin heads). I was just stirring you actually . Probably a bit cryptic unless you breed clearwings I guess.

When I had pet budgies I used to try and think of unlikely and slightly unusual boy names. My beautiful Albino boy was Alfred (Alfie for short). I also had Spiros the budgie and currently have a Norman the weero. Naming dogs is more fun (and more of a challenge) because we are registered breeders we have a kennel prefix which goes first. Then for us all of our litters get named in alphbetical order - first litter all had A names. Last litter was H. The most fun part is when we keep a puppy and I can try and think of a registered name that goes with the dog AND a pet name that goes with the registered name. We kept 2 from our G litter so now have..... Rakaia Gone Blue (she is a blue) and her pet name is Freeze Rakaia Gotta Black Soul (she is black) and her pet name is Sinner You can tell I spend way too many hours in my car

I have alwaysed used nesting material and do not use a concave. The nesting material gives nesting mothers something to "chew up & throw out" otherwise they tend to chew up the box in an attempt to "make it nice" part of the nesting process. I let them throw it out and then after the first egg is laid they stop ditching the nesting material and I replace enough to cushion the eggs. Without this, even on a concave, rough hens can accidentally break eggs. With nesting material they don't. Nesting material is crucial for babies too. Stops mums sitting too hard on them, stops leg issues due to lack of grip, helps insulate the babies from cold, helps dry up poo and helps keep nest box environment right for baby birds. If using the plastic boxes just fill them up more so that the babies don't have to scrabble on the slippery plastic floor.

Hey come on Kaz they ARE split for clearwing!!!!!! I can put my best cock to a clearwing hen and come out with tiny pin headed things a bit better than the clearwings but nowhere near the cocks quality. But I think Shannons look more promising than mine ever did! Lovely hen Shannon and great choice of cock for breeding splits! You will find that the wing markings that come from these splits will be significantly darker. I guess the trick is then to work them back into your clearwings trying to retain the size increase whilst cleaning up the wings.

Yep I think I've seen it before in one of "THOSE" e-mails...... you know the ones that try to scare you with info that sounds like it might be real but is based on half truths. There was a huge "Toxic Canola Oil" hoax put around not that long ago and it says much the same as what you have quoted. But it was a hoax.

Not exactly true Pearce. Canola has been BRED from rape. It is no longer considered the same as the original rape plant which yes... is toxic but not "look at it and die sort" of toxic. This is because the plant has been highly selected and now breeds true with virtually none of the erucic acid of the orginal rape seed. In fact scientists cross-bred plants to the point that virtually all the oil produced by canola plants is now oleic acid a monounsaturated fatty acid. Even with the toxicity of rape people have been cooking with rapeseed oil for centuries (before the advent of Canola). Sure it was a bit nasty and at high temperatures vaporised a toxin that has been linked to lung cancer and ercic acid itself has been linked to heart lessions in lab animals BUT not like I said... "look at it and die" sort of toxicity. And insects will MOST CERTAINLY eat canola. They love it and farmers spend lots of $ spraying canola for nasty little insect plant eaters like armyworm, cabbage seedpod weevil, cutworms etc etc. Whether that means you can feed it to budgies in the plant form - I don't know. Sheep certainly seem to like it though........

i didnt understand what you exactly meant there. http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2463/385313...ee4192263_o.jpg This is the frontal of the pied hen. Sorry that was rather a large typo...... What I meant to say was 1 blue and 1 yf blue together gives you 50% chance normal blues and 50% yf blues..... The picture helped..... sort of....... she is a yf blue but I still can't tell if she is skyblue, cobalt (sky I think) but definitely a yf dominant pied (she might be a double factor dominant pied too - in which case all babies from this pair will be dominant pied. If you get any normal babies then she is only single factor dominant pied). After looking at both pics I am now not sure that the hen IS cinnamon - might just be the pictures. Are her markings (stripes on head and neck) brown in colour or are they grey?

Yep!!! Vet will want you to come in with the bird (unless US vets work differently to over here of course) but you are right - no harm in asking. I think you can get Ivermectin on-line. Look for Ivomec Cattle Pour-on but I think the smallest quantity you can buy is 500mL and it's not really all that cheap when you only need to treat a handful of birds. Might pay to ring around some of the avicultural societies and see if you can buy some off them in a smaller quantity. Ivomectin kills mites, they die - yes. Sorry, not sure if washing branches in chlorine solution (bleach) would kill mites. Persumably as they live mainly on the bird but can sometimes live on perches for a time (from what I've read anyway). I use a surface spray like Mortien Professional pack (no idea what an equivelent in the US might be - sorry - a synthetic pyrethroid surface spray) to kill blood mites on perches and breeding boxes (different form of mite that lives off the birds but feeds on their blood at night). I would assume any scaley mite that has ventured off the birds would be killed by this too. Have not heard of "bird protectors" so I can't comment. Can you post a link so we can see what they are? edit: just had a search and found out "bird protectors" are like a little disc you hang in the cage that acts like mothballs, emitting a vapour that prevents mites and lice. Dunno if they are any good. They are certainly not common over here.

Looks very normal to me Kate, it's just partially "pied out". Often the pied gene removes colour from the cere in patches too, just like the body and you end up with pink/blue mottled cere (feet too sometimes). The pink parts still look like a good colour for a cock bird (inos, lacewings etc all have ceres this pinky purple colour). I love judging these birds at shows (as I don't have pieds in my aviary) to see the amazing array of different colours and patterns ALL OVER their body.

Well it is a little hard to tell Exactly what they are due to the small photo and back of birds only but they are both dominant pieds. One is an opaline cobalt dom pied and the other looks to be a cinnamon yellow face sky or cobalt (can't really see) dom pied. 2 Dom pieds will give you 25% chance normals, 50% chance single factor Dom pied, 25% chance double factor dom pied. 2 and YFblue will give you 50% chance normal blues 50% chance YFblues. Am thinking that the YFblue is the hen and as she is cinnamon all male babies will be split for cinnamon, unless the cock bird is split for cinnamon himself. As the cock is also opaline all hen babies will be opaline and all cock babies will be split for opaline.

Yep, I'd give it a whirl then and see what you get - just remember that you will end up with clearwing split for dilute so if you then put 2 of those chicks together out will pop dilutes. You need to keep an eye on where the dilute goes so keep good breeding records. Another thing that you might find is that you get dilutes anyway as often breeders will use dilute to improve their clearwings so then you will know that the hen you are using is split for dilute. Good luck with it!

Well a lot of different things really. The few things that she cannot hide are Texas Clearbody and Lacewing which are both on the same allele as Ino so in hens you can only have 1 of these genes present at the same time. She could be masking spangle, normal, grey green, opaline, cinnamon - she could be split for blue....... you never know what might pop up.

No need to panick Cielito scaley face mite is very common and will come in with new birds they cannot be seen by the naked eye and often go unnoticed until the scale on beak and cere builds up to a point were you can see it. It takes 6 to 12 months for an infestation to build to the point that it can be noticed by us. On the photo on the cocks beak running down from the cere (above the corn residue) you can see some small furrows and some small holes right near the margin of the cere. This is caused by the mite. Check your other birds for these too. They can also appear on legs and vents of the birds so it's worth cheking and treating there too. Vaseline will kill mites that are on the areas being treated as it fills in the little holes in the beak and cere and suffocates the mites in their homes but it will not treat mites living in other areas of the birds body! Ivermectin can be used to eradicate scale from your birds entirely but you will need to treat them all at the same time with a spot-on treatment AND follow up with a second treatment 3 weeks as well as treating the perches weekly with something like Avian Insect Liquid or replacing them entirely. Hope this helps.

Yeh it does matter if he is split opaline. Opaline in clearwings is a real pain in the bottom. As you can only show them in Opaline AOSV where they don't stand a chance against the likes of cinnamon opalines. But if you know he is split for opaline you can at least keep any normally marked hens that appear.