Emma

And when you make that decision Daz, you'll find me hanging around like a bad smell

Whatever it is, it's gorgeous. You have some lovely birds Pearce

What sex is the chick? If it's a hen that looks normal, it's not clearbody. Hens cannot be split, only clearbody or not - so if it's a girl and she doesn't look clearbody, she is just normal. If it's a cock that looks normal, it could be a normal OR it could be split. Normal/split clearbody cocks will look like a normal, and there's no way of knowing until you breed him. EDIT: actually, to make things more certain for you, I actually looked at the tables (probably should have done that before I posted!) - if the hen was clearbody and the cock was normal and NOT split for clearbody, then you get 50% normal hens and 50% split cocks - so any girls are guaranteed normals and any boys are guaranteed to look normal but be split for clearbody. If for some magical reason the cock was actually split, you'd get 25% split cocks (that look normal), 25% clearbody cocks, 25% clearbody hens, 25% normal hens. In this case you can still tell straight away what they are - if the girls look normal, they're normal. If the boys look normal, they're split. I hope this helps! A couple of good reads, tables etc: http://www.bestofbreeds.net/al-nasser/article8.htm http://home.clara.net/np21/clearbody.htm http://www.birdhobbyist.com/parrotcolour/clearbody.html

This wasn't on ebay but I had to share:

Another dumb and at the moment entirely hypothetical question because I don't have access to any albinos: What would happen if you threw an albino into the mix (rather than a lutino) with a green series TCB? Anything? Nothing? Mostly curiosity and because I don't have a solid grasp of inos.

I had a rat that needed a huge tumour removed, but afterwards she pulled out every stitch and had a huge gaping wound on her stomach. We rushed her back and they stapled it instead. Staples are harder, but they still pull them out, the buggers. So in the end I cut the toe off a sock, fed her head and front legs through it, and secured with the sticky bandage tape (like a giant cloth bandaid) top and bottom. Foiled!!!!! (and not happy about it)

The links are just formatted as html instead of code:

Oh - and if I go with a normal boy for the TCB hen, does it matter the colour, or would there be a particular one that would work best - does anyone know?

They look like little porcupine chicks! Cute :bump:

Thank you Liv, that is wonderful, exactly the kind of thing I was looking for. I agree about her being tall and narrow, which is another reason why I was considering a normal boy for her - they seem to be more "solid" and beefy If I put her with a lutino cock, I'll get 50% lutino hens, 50% clearbody/lutino split cocks. If I put her with a normal cock, I'll get 50% normal hens, 50% normal/split clearbody cocks. Obviously the first choice is nice for immediate gratification, ie "aww, baby lutinos and clearbodies, yay!" but the ability to find a nice solid lutino cock (to improve her) is probably very limited, compared to finding a nice solid normal. But if I go with the normal, it means I get normal hens and split cocks. To be blunt - I get very confused when thinking about splits and future pairings, it makes my head spin a bit. If I want to get more clearbodies "back" (again assuming it's near impossible to find another TCB to use) I suppose I should take the split cocks and put them with a nice lutino hen down the track for: 25% clearbody/lutino cocks 25% lutino cocks 25% clearbody hens 25% lutino hens ================================================== So: pair my current TCB hen with a normal =50% split cocks and 50% normal hens take those split cocks and put them to a future lutino hen = 25% split tcb/lutino cocks, 25% lutino cocks, 25% tcb hens, 25% ino hens = what I want I'm thinking it will be easiest to find a nice solid normal cock now, and source a good lutino hen later. Thoughts? Am I way off? Does anyone have a better idea for how to improve her/future pairings etc? :bump:

*grin* Thanks Neat. Plenty of time, I'm in no rush. Although Maurie seems to be desperately in love with his red swing and things are moving fast. What would I get from YF mauve pied x red wooden swing? He's really smitten.

Aloe isn't very toxic, but can irritate the digestive system if they eat the skin. This one looks like Swedish Ivy, but it's a bit hard to tell. http://tbn1.google.com/images?q=tbn:oApl5d...st5/Slide11.JPG If that's what it is, it's non-toxic also. The last one is Schlumbergera - claw cactus or "christmas cactus". It's non-toxic.

The first one looks like a philodendron (there are many types). Some are poisonous (they might all be, I'm not sure). I don't recognise the second plant.

Hey guys, I would like to try my hand at breeding sometime later this year. I'm not ready to start yet - I want to go into it slowly, make sure I've learned as much as possible, prepared properly, have the right setup etc (plus, of course, allowing for settling in times and whatnot). I also don't really feel "ready" to do it yet. But I'm thinking in advance, and would like some help. The girls I bought on Friday are for breeding, but here are some questions for the future: ======================================================= Number of pairs First things first, should I get a third hen so that I will have 3 pairs to put down (eventually) or is two okay? Haha, let's face it, I doubt I'll be upset if someone tells me to go get another... ======================================================= Breeding for colour - violet/blue At the moment I'm not really interested in breeding birds to actually actively show (although I do want to breed show type). Obviously I don't want to blatantly ignore faults (and would prefer to correct them) but I'm not going all-out to have a perfect show bird, if that makes sense? I am particularly partial to blues/violet, pieds, and opaline. My new violet girl (http://i46.photobucket.com/albums/f136/sma...7_hens_blue.jpg) is gorgeous. What should I pair her with? I was thinking sky or cobalt (or violet if I can find one). Sky blues are growing on me quite a lot, and they will be a lot easier to find than another violet I think. http://www.budgerigarrare.com/violet.htm says that pairing a visual violet with a sky would be: 25% violet sky 25% sky 25% violet cobalt 25% cobalt (this is, of course, assuming that my girl is violet cobalt) This is basically a mix of my favourites, with no "wastage" in terms of what I personally think is attractive - all of the babies would be what I want. But are there any problems I'm not seeing? By that I mean the fact that I am still learning genetics etc and I read things about "wastage" because birds are split and you can't tell they're split etc. Can you see any hidden problems I should be aware of? Any undesirable outcomes? Do you think I should pair a normal cock with her, or another dom pied? I *love* DF dom pieds, but again if there is some hidden problem with doing that, I'll shy away from it. As pretty as I think they are, if breeding a bunch of double factors will mess with future breeding later, I want to keep that in mind. A normal sky will also be a lot easier to find, so I'll have to keep that in mind too. Any other suggestions for this hen? I'm totally open to ideas. ======================================================= Breeding for colour - green series clearbody From the reading I've been doing on TCB, you can either go TCB to TCB, TCB to ino, or TCB to normal. TCB to TCB is obviously the way to go for maximising your TCBs. TCB to ino will give you TCBs and inos (a clutch of little yellow TCBs and lutinos would make me happy) TCB to normal will give you some normals/split and there'd be a bit of "wastage". Here's my girl again: http://i46.photobucket.com/albums/f136/sma...ens_yellow2.jpg What do you think would be the best course? I'm thinking that finding another TCB is going to be a bit difficult, so it's probably going to be a choice between ino and normal. What do you think? She has excellent colour, almost no suffusion (at least I believe so!). What's with the sloppy spots though - should I worry about trying to fix those with a bird with good spots? (as I said earlier, I'm not really breeding to show, but at the same time, I'd like to fix any obvious, glaring faults) If I went with a normal cock, what colour would be best? Any other suggestions welcome! As I said, this is all for months down the track, I just want to have an idea of what to look out for if I see people culling or happen to see something in the store. I want to know of a few different types to look out for, rather than picking something that I think looks good and finding out it's really a poor match. If I know now, it means I can keep my eyes open over the next few months. Thanks in advance!

Oops, I lied. Maurie has a SHELL type (yellow) - rarely sits on it, but sometimes hops down and has a (vigorous!) chew on it. The girls have a CEMENT type (blue) - basically covered in little flat/rounded pebbles. Both cages have other types of perches so the birds aren't spending much time on the shell/cement ones. I think I'd be more concerned about them spending too much time on the shell ones (being a bit more lumpy), but as I said he uses it more as a chew toy than something to stand on. The cement/pebble ones are actually quite smooth - you'd think they would be lumpy and uncomfortable but they have quite an even and smooth surface. I wouldn't want to use them as the only type of perch though. It'd be like walking on pebblecrete all day - it's okay for a little while but if you're doing it all day it starts to pinch. For now I have made it so that the dowel and branches are higher in the cage so that they favour those, and the shell/cement ones are only used occasionally. But again, if someone tells me that they will injure my birds, I'll ditch them. Are they alright if used in moderation and aren't the ones that the birds spend 80% of their time on?

I love those close-up shots, especially of birds. Feathers are fascinating. Are the shell & concrete type perches detrimental? They don't spend much of their time on them, and like to chew on them. But honestly if you guys say they're terrible, I will take them out tomorrow. health > money

It's shell, and they only have one of them... don't worry, they're not all like that.. I knew someone would comment Basically the store didn't have any plain perches, and my cage didn't have any - so I grabbed them until I could go collecting branches I need to make up some dowel perches as "spares" so that doesn't happen again. Maurie likes his though, he spends most of his time on the normal perches, but occasionally he jumps down and has a chew. I wouldn't make it so that they had to stand on those all day, it's more of a chew toy than a perch - they don't spend much time standing on them. I also intend to swap them out a fair bit. If they're flat out bad, I will remove them.. but it was just all I had until I could get some branches.

I held him in one hand with his head still, then went in really close with the camera on macro

Cinnamon blue (opaline?) red rumped: http://www.piknersparrots.com/en/zpevavy.htm ?

I think that's mostly because I was standing next to the open door and the natural light is washing him out a bit... not sure

He's a YF2 mauve spangle.. he's also pied, but these days he is looking less pied and more scruffy :/ When I got him a month ago he had a band across his belly, but now it seems to have... shrunk. I think he is changing his mutations on the fly (no pun intended), just to confuse me.

The part that confuses me isn't the wings, it's the light barring on the neck - isn't that part of the opaline markings? Or is that part of the TCB also?

He looks like a bit of a fatty though, evidently the camera really does add a few pounds

How old are your daughters? Are they old enough to get involved in caring for them? It will be an interesting experience for them to follow. When I went and bought my first budgie, I took my twin sister and my 8 year old nephew along. Even though I was asking all the questions and calling all the shots, they kept giving me advice on how HE could care for the budgie.. hehe. Apparently people assume budgies are for kids