nubbly5

Just to confuse you a bit sometimes we mad budgie people shorten dark factor to DF and then sometimes we also shorten double factor to DF. If you see DF spangle that means double factor spangle and what THAT means is that the bird has 2 copies of the spangle gene. DF dominant pied is a generally understood to be a dominant pied with 2 copies of the dom pied gene...... umm sorry about that.... confusing I know.......

Welcome Kate Xena is a skyblue and Stewart and Simon are both cobalts. As Neville says, is because of the dark factor gene. The mum has no dark factor genes (light green) and the dad has one dark factor gene (dark green). In blues no dark factor gene gives you skyblue, one dark factor gene gives you cobalt. Just for interest, if you get 2 dark factor genes in a bird the colour in greens is called Olive and in blues it's Mauve. Olives look well.... olive - similar to grey green but with a better depth of green and a violet cheek patch. Mauves are an unusual, sometimes almost blackish purplie type of colour, which often looks quite patchy - hard to explain it really.

Sparkle - Definitely cinnamon Mermaid - Definitely opaline Otherwise what Jen said.

I currently have a cinnamon cock who does this too and it seems to be that if he is out of condition a bit then his feathers twist around on his chest or if I've held him for any length of time (and sort of pushed the feathers out of place). They go back again but are often sprialled around. Have had other birds do this on occasion too without any lasting effects.

Gorgeous babies Splat - just love the direction feather you have throughout your stud!!!

Just purchased some to try as well although my birds do get reasonable access on non-rainy days (sometimes even on rainy days when I don't get the shutters closed in time). I'm not expecting to see a major improvement to be honest but might really help those birds that have been in the breeding cabinets for a couple of rounds. We'll see.

My Fav! In the flesh this boy was STUNNING as a UBC and he looks pretty good now as he is growing up. Looking forward to getting a personal look again soon!

Did you mean to say that? Ooops ...... um bred like mad may have been a better term to use there....... snh snh snh

Nice pick up Dave but my my where are you going to fit them all

opaline also dilutes body colour. cere colour is unusual though - more like a fallow cock. Not saying it is a fallow mind you, just that the cere doesn't scream hen to me. AND you will often get differently coloured feathers in a young bird that is going through it's first moult. I guess that when this bird is fully moulted it's markings will all be the same cinnamon colour (colours tend to brighten and darken as birds moult into their adult plumage).

Eldest chick maybe cinnamon. Not usual to see dark pins coming through - thinking you are seeing plum eye still. Lacewing red eye is like albie or lutie red eye - really red. You can see it before the chicks eyes are open.

Just for some information. As far as Australia is concerned the WBO give us 4x rosettes. The ANBC give the rosettes to the state that are currently hosting the Nationals and that state is required to award the rosettes at one of their main shows. WA gave these rosettes at the WA state show in 2008 and for that we are required to submit photos of the winning birds to the WBO. So from Australia's persepective these are not necessarily the top 4 birds in the country. This is because at our Nationals we don't have a best in show etc. I assume this is probably not the case for other countries. OMG Young Dilute to die for from Italy!!!!!!!!

Years and years of selecting for type and not taking into account selection for fertility has a huge bearing IMO. As a show breeder I can say that if I have purchased a bird for a few hundred dollars, I'm happy if I get just one chick from it. I'll then use that to breed again particularly if it has good features and the cycle perpetuates itself. After decades of such breeding affects can be seen in feather and size definitely but also in those things we have been unknowingly selectin against (fertility and immunity to disease). In nature the fittest survive to breed and the ones that nreed the most have most chance of passing genetic material on so natural selection is for health and fertility not feather and size. I generally have reasonable breeding success as I don't give them too many chances on the whole although I will put extra effort into a bird if they are very good. For example I have one huge blue cock who when I put him in a breeding cabinet would not even look at a hen no matter what hen I put with him. He would chat happily to cock birds in the flight though so for the next 12 months he lived in the hen flight, then in the following years he is 2005 rung, he has bred like buggery. My birds live the first 12 months in mixed sex flights and from them on if they are "normals" they go into single sex flights. My specialist varieties go into mix sex flights. Others who are obviously chatting and pairing and I see mate but produce no fertile eggs I will do fertility checks on over a few weeks, generally they get a second chance after rearing someone else's chicks as that sometimes fires them up too. If after 2 rounds they are still not firing I will generally get rid of the cock (unless he has positive sperm sample). Hens that either do not go to nest or do not lay (internal layers) I cull almost immediately. Some birds I will AI and have done so with 2 particular cocks who have great sperm samples but just didn't fill eggs for some reason (probably didn't know the front from the back of the hen) and these 2 I have bred successfully from. 1 I have now culled as I can't be bothered AI-ing if I can help it and I have plenty of his babies and the other, a dark green, I will continue to AI and use as he is lovely and his chicks are lovely AND he is a dark factor. Interestingly even though these cocks seem to have been too stupid to breed properly, their chicks have no such issues.

Lacewing. That means I'm gonna have to watch out! Right?!

GB beat me to it! You might get a cinnamon or an opaline surprise........ if he is split for either of these. ....... or masking them for that matter - as GB said.

God that's an attractive bird though!

1 and 2 greywing spangles, 3&4 greywings & 5 most likely greywing. So hen definitely is a dilute opaline spangle and the cock is most likely greywing/greywing. All babies greywing/dilute. Clearwings are way lighter than this - even the heavily marked ones have less wing marking and much less obviously grey in the markings. Top 2 have clear spangle tails and spangle wing markings but in grey. Also chick one has tell tale spanlge colour patch on rump. Dilutes don't have the strength of body colour of these chicks and body colouring and wing colouring are much more alike (even, similar, same tones....) in a dilute than the distinct difference between wings/body of these chicks.

Definitely NOT scaley face. Scale starts as tiny holes in beak and progesses to what looks like little channels down the beak and then to full blow scale around cere and edges of beak. Budgies out of condition and moulting often have cere's that look like this and hens will often shed a whole layer of their cere as they go in out of condition.

Yep grey bird is split ino. Caesar is also split ino. Ino can tick along in the cock line for a number of generations especially if you only get a couple of chicks each time and they are boys...... then out pops those ino hens later on down the track. Same happens with lacewings - which is why I now have YF white lacewings from a cobalt cock that I was not really aware was carrying lacewing to a nice YF hen. When I checked back his grand father was definietly split lacewing.

Noooooooo, whilst I was away Grant found one of my hens with what he thought was a broken wing. He put it into a holding cage and said it was very hangry and tucked in straight away to some seed. When I got home I found that it was not a broken wing at all but what looked like a general lameness not sure what from but it looks like maybe a night fright and crash. I stufed her immediately into the heat box and crop needled her with broad spectrum antibiotics and emergency soft food for several days incase it was an infection of some sort causing liver swelling and pressing on spine (this sometimes casues leg paralysis). But after a few days of no improvement and the fact that I was due to go away again, I put the poor girl down. Bugger of it is that she was in one of my pairings so now I have to find another hen for this pairing I always kinda worry about making up pairs too early in case I jix them somehow but I stil can't help myself.

unless the cock is split for lacewing.

They are in a separate breeding cage, I'm not actually colony breeding, and even if I was, I don't have another dominant pied..... , the only other cock I have is a cobalt normal. The mother is recessive pied presumably (no iris rings), if the chick is definitely DF dominant pied, the mother would have to be dominant pied as well...? The chick did have the white opaline down...... Now everyone's confused..... Dean_NZ - Thanks for the explanation about the potential for white chicks from 2 YF2 parents, I never really got that bit about there being SF & DF YF2 and how that breeds on... their is to explinations for this out come 1 the hen is to young but i dont think so she to me looks to be rec pied but ... and 2 she is a dominant pied hen from a domanaint pied / rec ped hen causing badley marked dom pie and holding the rec gene the iris rings dont always show also kazzy pointed something out to me today when questioning my own chicks mutation out comes she has come to a conclushion as i two agree with her that split opaline cocks get the white down All my chicks are hens.....father is opaline, mother is not...... as do split cin chicks get the plum eyes for first few days as we have norm cocks split for opaline who had white down in nest ..... just a thery at moment also hen is a gf sky blue and father mauve which explains the beautiful colours father is cobalt, not mauve mum could be opaline as i had one for ages who never visually looked opaline but defenently was kaz only just explained to me that their is a way to tell this is beside the point, as if the mother is opaline as well as the father then all the chicks must be opaline regardless of sex...... its if the barring on head is broken going lenghth ways across from eye to eye like this - - - - - - insted of full bar with out brakes and mabe dad is df dom just heavly marked only another cluthch will tell the truth of the matter next time put mum with a normal split opaline split rec pie cock that way if you get a opaline cock and a few rec pieds you will have your awnser dad can't be df dominant pied as there are 2 normal chicks in the latest round.... (see above) hope this all made sence pm me if you need more explained oh and if she has the broken barring she is defenently rec pie (gf sky recessive) and dad yf2 mauve df dom (yf2 (or gf) cobalt dom) this gives 100 percent dom chicks however there are normal chicks... the new chicks look to me to be mabe comming out like harliquine (??) breed opaline gf norms so mum probbly is rec dad may be split rec haven't got any recessive chicks as yet, chick from first clutch has iris rings. love to see chicks frount and back when feathered up as this would help me solve your mistry I assume there is sf & df golden face as well as sf & df yf (or yf2)...? okay, this has got all a bit confusing....... but somethings are standing out a bit. Opaline cock bird to non-oplaine will breed all opaline hens and all split opaline cocks (the white down on first round chick might be explained by split opaline as GB says) but other varieties also have white down - albino's, lacewings, etc so maybe the extensive white on the baby is to blame for the white down also. If you have normal hens (non opaline) something is not right but looking at the chicks 2 are oplaine and the white is impossible to tell at this stage - assume maybe actually a boy (which would be split oplaine) OR it is in fact opaline just you can see due to white being so extensive. If cock bird is breeding normal babies (non pied) he can only SF dominant pied and one would then have to assume that the first round chick is also only sf dom pied. Except for one thing that I'm not sure of - CAN YOU have a dominant pied recessive pied...... that is a recessive pied that "masks" dominant pied - 2 genes for rec pied one for dom pied OR are the 2 varieites mutually exclusive??????? Because the only way the first chick is df dom pied is if the cock AND the hen donated a dom pied gene. As far as YF goes there are 3 versions of YF - gf, YF1 & yf2. YF1 in sf is yellow faced, in df is white faced. YF2 in sf is yellow faced, in df is yellow faced with less body suffusion GF in sf is golden faced with heavy body suffusion, in df is golden faced with little body suffusion. I think.....

Can you re post some pics of the texas clearbody greywing/cinnamon from a couple of different angles, like front back and wings head etc in bigger sized pics and I will try and work out for sure if it's greywing or cinnamon for you.

What Dean says. If he is in fact DF golden face all babies (if you breed him to a normal blue or white lacewing etc) will be SF golden face and will present with golden face but strong body colour suffusion. I'm not sure if you can get different types of yellowface within the same bird............ so I can't sensibly answer if you would get a gf split yf or if you did, what that might look like - could be a great experimental mating if you were willing to try but you would need a known df yf (this presents as a white faced bird) mated to a df gf. If I wasn't so focused on exhibition budgies, this would be a mating I would try. Mind you, I might know someone who would know and I'll ask them about this. Edit: hang-on maybe that's not the question you asked...... did you ask about gf split yf OR........ gf or yf lacewings? If gf or yf lacewings then also what dean says and I have a couple of beautiful examples of YF white lacewing hens in my aviary.

Thanks Guys! About the congrats AND the commiserations.