nubbly5

I don't want to get started on a "bag the vet" section but MAN some of the stories I can tell you of vet treatment would leave you gobsmacked. I've worked with many different vets across Australia in the ag industry for over 15 years now and have had pets and livestock for as long as I've drawn breath, I also have many vets as personal friends so have a tiny bit of inside information!!!!! I have come across some absolutely brilliant vets both diagnostically (which is rarer than you might think) as well as bedside (or should that be tableside) manner and business skills. When you find one that you respect, that respects you and the fact that you are THE CUSTOMER - stick with them and support their business coz they are kinda rare. Unfortunately as with all business and business people you get the whole range of good, bad, skilled and downright crappy AND unfortunately as the vet board says they don't HAVE to treat a pet if they don't want to. It's like anything, providing a good service will bring customers through the door. Provide crappy service and you might get them there once but people can vote with their feet too and most towns now have a choice of vet surgeries, although finding a good bird vet is a bit harder, there is still usually the option to shop around.

He's a he and he's seriously cute!

Hi All At the end of this breeding season I found that I was experiencing a few french moulters so I've take a couple snaps of feathers showing typical french moult symptoms as there seems to be some "stress" moulting being quoted around when in fact I think you will find it to be french moult. Frnch moult can affect chicks in various ways depending on the age that they are exposed to the virus (YES IT IS A VIRUS!!!!!). Usually the older chicks are the least affected or maybe not affected at all. I have had nests where the oldest chick is fully feathered and does not show any flight tail loss with the youngest of 5 chicks being completely bald! Death of hatchlings around 10days old can often be FM too and FM can cause higher numbers of addled eggs than you might normally experience. Chicks that are affected later may only lose their flights and tails after leaving the nest. Usually those that do not lose body feathering but only flights and tails recover very well indeed and go on to being 100% recovered. Baldies in my experience do not recover and if they do not die they go on to become your typical "runners". If you suspect FM in your flock, look at the feathers of your young fledglings. FM affected feathers usually show the classic pinched end and often have dried blood in the shaft of the feather. Also these feathers come away from the bird readily without much pulling compared to normal feathers with are much more strongly anchored in comparison. In the two photo's below you can see normal feathers on the left and FM feathers on the right. Note the very typical pinching of the top FM feather. This is often present without the blood in the feather shaft also.

Some albinos DO show light markings and hers are light markings. It's a show fault but does happen. I would say pretty close to 100% she is YF (or DF goldenface maybe) Albino. Lacewings generally have stronger markings (although I have had a few so poorly marked they resembled albinos but with a coloured cheek patch (either lilac (blues) or greyish (greys)). As this bird has a white cheek patch I'd definitely say albino. She is not fallow, even cinnamon oplaine fallows have stronger markings than your girl, they look very very close to lacewings and are hard to tell apart except for some slight colouring differences on wings and rump, cheel patch differences again too - I've bred a few of those :| when a fallow cock I purchased turned out to be split cinnamon I've seen quite a few white albino's with reasonably distinct markings (more distinct that this hen).

Hey Paul You have an angry Lutino hen. By the sounds of it though she is doing well if she is chirping and carrying on. Sick birds are quiet, immobile, fluffed up and look very unhappy. Your girl does look to be sitting oddly on the perch though (at least in the photo above). Might indicate an injury.....

If she is cracking seed and eating it she is weaned

Paul I end up using 1-2 drops coz 1/2 drop just doesn't work (sometimes i slip and the bird gets a "few" drops. I've never had an issue with adverse reaction. The vet won't sell you the Ivomec Pour-On as it's not actually registered for bird use and he would be liable for anything going wrong as he has perscribed it to you (also it's a good way for him to get extra money). The best thing to do is to (as you suggest) find a few people who will go shares in the product with you. There are some cheaper identical generic brands around too. Noromectin Pour-On for Cattle and Baymec Pour-On for Cattle. And yes there is an expiry date but this product is pretty stable if stored out of direct light (keep it in the box) and will be okay for some time after the dating.

Beats me! I rarely know what you are talking about..... (jokes of course!) See you there.

IMPORTANT!!!!!!! You all have to be clear about oral Ivomec FOR SHEEP and oral Ivomectin for birds which you can dilute in water. Ivomec Oral for Sheep cannot be diluted in water as it does not suspend. Ivomec Pour-On for Cattle is suitable for use as is and does not need to be diluted. 1 or so drops on the back of the head/neck. Gee I feel like a broken record...... I just keep saying this over and over. It treats lice, oral does not - Pour-On does as it travels around the birds through the feathering and contacts the lice to kill them. It treats worms, oral does too - Pour-On travels down to the skin and into the blood stream and kills intestinal worms (same as it does with cattle!) It treats mites, oral treats blood mites but not scale - Pour-On treats both scale mites (topically as with lice) AND blood mites (both topically AND systemically via ivomectin in the blood stream). I use Ivomec (or a generic brand) Pour-On for worm treamtent, lice treatment and mite treatment. Last pooh check - no worm eggs. Have not had scale mite at all since starting treatment, also very little feather lice except on incoming birds. Blood mite needed extra treatment of perches and nest boxes with a SP (synthetic pyrethroid) long acting surface spray both got on top of them with the combination of Ivomec Pour-On application and SP spraying. With the spot on treatment you DO NOT need to do a seperate oral worm treatment - waste of time, money and risks building worm resistance through the worms having many exposures to the same active.

Congratulations Splat! Big fingers crossed for the selections.

Well done Shannon! So exciting, your first show and such a good result.

Coz you said this "Not unless they are outstanding. Currently any mature bird with a Red ring is eligible for the Nationals." Oh yeah and I'M GOING - yay! I'll be the one propping up the bar >hic<

This is FM. When chicks are exposed later they only seem to lose flights and tails. You can tell coz the ends of the feather are pinched and sometimes you can see dried blood in the feather shafts. I have had nests where only a last chick has lost some flights/tail and other nests where I've had chicks fully bald and others only lose flight and tails a few days after going into the nappy cage. Mostly the chicks like these grow their feathers back okay. The baldies don't recover well. I would leave it in the nappy cage until it's flights grew back, which it looks pretty much like they will.

Our pre-selection flyer says black rings eligible.

DO NOT use the IVOMEC Oral as orally it needs to be diluted and it does not dilute in water (if you know what to dilute it with then go for it but otherwise don't try). Also it is not designed to be used topically and does not have the ingredients needed for the product to get through the feathers and skin. You need to use the Cattle Pour-On formulation if you are going to use Ivomec as a spot on treatment. My suggestiong is to sell you Ivomec Oral for Sheep to a sheep farmer unless you have sheep of your own of course! Also you cannot treat lice with an oral application as lice do not feed on blood and therefore will not be exposed to ivomec within the body of the budgie.

Are you saying that black AND mature red rings are eligilble? I always thought it was just the previous years i.e. 2008 rings (black) eligible for 2009 Nationals, 2009 rings (red) eligible for 2010 Nationals.

Hard to tell from the photos but she looks like albino with faint markings as GB says. The poorly marked lacewing's I've bred and seen have been more marked than that with a quite distinct cheek patch but that might just be the photo. One of the lacewings I bred I often benched as an ablino and only a couple of times did any judge pull it up........ and then reclass it as a lacewing. Can you try and get some pics of the head close up and also looking from the top down onto the birds back, wings and tail. Any slight cinnamon in the tail will also show it to be a poorly marked lacewing.

If there is one single thing I have learned whilst breeding budgies is not to sell birds before 12 months old - unless they are tiny sparrows of course. Some birds look average for a long time and then all of a sudden are gorgeous.

Well usually the black markings are replaced by body colour markings (but not always) and the coloured markings are thicker than the normal black spangle. Usually the normal will have some head and neck barred markings although generally thinner and fainter than a normal bird and the opaline spangle doesn't often have any barred markings. Usually opalesence is present on head and neck of opaline (often on normal too but opalines USUALLY heavier). Other than that there is sometimes very little difference between the two and questionable birds can come up from time to time. Sometimes, if you don't know the history of the bird, it'll come down to breeding results and what the bird breeds on. Having said that some questionable normals come up from time to time that seem to be a combination of both normal and opaline varieties.

Sonny is the YF dom pied pictured earlier right??? If so I would definitely say goldenface. The cobalt on his body is turning that sea green colour and the yellow on his mask is really deepening as he moults.

Kazzy, it's easier to think of each mutation seperately and they are usually expressed seperately so an Albino cock that is split for recessive would be expressed as: XiXi, Rr (as it comprises of 2 different alleles as you mentioned, and ino is sex linked so is determined on the X gene). The hen is expressed as XnY, RR in respect to these 2 different alleles. So the chicks can be expressed as: XnXi, Rr - male split for ino AND split for recessive XiY, Rr - female visual ino AND split for recessive XnXi, rr - male split for ino AND visual recessive XiY, rr - female visual and recessive (but MASKED by ino) In relation to these two different mutations. Hope that makes sense!

It is hard to tell olive from grey green in spangles. The only way to really tell is the cheek patch. Grey greens will be mottled steel grey and white, olives will be mottled violet and white. I have one that I'll try and get a photo of for you.PLUS olives are pretty rare in show budgies as the double dark factor birds are generally poorer in quality than these guys but not always.God! Sorry about the formatting.... dunno what happened there.

I would not have thought so. YF DF's and Albino's don't show markings just because they are YF. Markings are determined by melanin and YF is determined by reduction of the yellow ground colour from a normally green bird so two different mechanisms at work there. Really need a picture to make a better diagnosis of what is going on.

I have seen this appear and disappear on several different budgies. It seems to be sometimes when buff feathered birds are out of condition a bit and the feathers twist around and will not return to their original position well. Often handling these birds will twist the feathers enough that they stay like that for some time. A large very buff feathered dom pied of one breeder here was selected for the nats but would not feed in the holding cage, as he lost condition his feathers went like that. When he was removed and held on his own he regained condition and then his feathering settled again. I have had quite a number of different birds do this and have never culled for the problem. I certainly don't have an overflowing feather problem either..... I would assume, having seen some crested birds with crests on their back that if there was on on their chest it would look more regular and you would be able to pick the locus reasonably easily, even multiple loci look a little different to the feather disturbance.

Take your time and get a good idea of what you are after features wise. Be selective and think of complementary pairings for the birds you have already that you want to use. Definitely look for more feather but bird length is important too. Sometimes you can't buy both at once though! A strong opaline hen should be easier to find than a strong TBC hen but if you come across a good feathered TBC hen thats for sale, buy her for the TBC cock bird. Often hens are kinda harder to come by sometimes too so maybe look after the breeding season is over and when people have done a cull down. You might pick up some good birds then. Even put in an order with a breeder you respect and trust and who might be accomodating to you. I just noticed you had picked cock 2 for hen 2 as well. That was another couple that I quite liked the look of together.