Finnie

The plum eyes will turn black after a few days, so by the time the eyes start to open, mine have not been plum anymore. But I suppose that if you get the right light, you would be able to see a brownish, reddish color, even throughout their whole life. That's the way the cinnamon gene works in all parrot species. The eyes start out plum or red, and then turn to a dark red brown within a few days, but appear as black.

This is the same thing I was going to say, until I saw that Jenny already wrote it. If you get any spangle chicks that are not recessive pied, then you know the hen is not a recessive pied, and if you get both recessive pieds and normals, then you know the hen is split to recessive pied. Recessive pied spangles are very pretty in yellowface. You could use that new beautiful boy when he grows up, and that would also test the white mother for if she is carrying greywing. (Lol, look at me, breeding vicariously through your birds! You just go ahead and pair them up however you please. )

Agree with Jenny here. Do you know what the parents of the albino mother are?

Hm, well they are both very nice, English or not. Your seller might be a perfectly honest person, so I don't mean her specifically, but I have stood in seller's living rooms and had them directly lie to me, and they seemed honest until I got home and found out differently. So sometimes you never know. If you want to send me the Photobucket link to where you moved that photo to, I can edit it back in for you. (Use PM system.) Oh Pul-leez!

Yeah, RIPbudgies posted if for me, years ago. Now we are forced to go to Photobucket for our emoticons, if we care enough:

Yes, and if they don't sprout, that tells you the seed is not good for food, either. Sprouting a sampling of your bag of seed is one test for whether it is good to feed, or too old.

Are these all considered to be somewhat aggressive species? Do you keep them together in the same aviary? It must be an interesting mix.

Well, I think you are barking up the wrong tree with the nest box, but if it makes you happy to try, whatever! With a real hen, if she is already in proper breeding condition, then it takes about a week to 10 days to produce the first egg. But usually it takes longer than that, because first you have to wait for her to get into a breeding frame of mind, and then mate with the cock. While you are waiting, you should treat them with some iodine, like Robyn suggested, and see what happens. (Her bird is the one I was thinking of. She has an old thread about him.)

I agree with Hilly. That baby boy picture is undeniable! Plus, when a hen gets a brown cere, but you can still see some of the background/underneath color, there ought to be some white in that area. And yours just doesn't have any whitish look to it at all. If he seems otherwise healthy, you could start out trying to supplement him with iodine. I think there is info about that around here somewhere. :lol: Who needs rules, anyway? I could post a picture of my dachshund. Heck, we can ALL post pictures of our dachshunds!

Yes, the father would have to be split to cinnamon for it to show up. Either way, all of the boys will be split to cinnamon because they will at least get it from their mother.

You asked if you should start supplementing calcium more. What are you already giving them for calcium? The broken egg may be due to some other reason, so as long as you are giving adequate sources of calcium, I wouldn't worry about that. I might try adding more bedding material, and if they break another egg, you can give them a dummy egg or two. I have found with a couple of mine that were egg destroyers, that once they had a fake egg, they gave up on breaking the next real ones that came along. I can't presume what goes on in a budgie mind, but it's almost like they learn that the eggs aren't breakable, so they quit trying to break them. In any case, it seems to have worked a couple of times for me, unless it was just a coincidence.

Yeah, I think it should be fine. Your birds sound well cared for, so I doubt that you will be spreading anything to unsuspecting buyers. And I'm with you. It's important to keep a good reputation among your customers.

Actually, Jimmy, there is no lacewing gene. Lacewing is a combination of ino and cinnamon, So techinically, it IS the same gene for the ino part, plus add the cinnamon gene for it to be called lacewing. So a lacewing is, by definition, also a lutino. (Or albino if it's white.) This male has been paired with 3 different females, one pair produced spangles and opalines, another produced violets and cinnamons and now he has had 3 clutches with this female ( lutino lacewing ) and they have produced male and female cinnamons, violets and greens. Their has been 2 or 3 cinnamon females from him. So it sounds like he has produced lots of offspring for you, and if he did happen to be also split to ino, then you probably would have seen an ino daughter by now. So it does look like he must not be split to ino. Since spangle is a dominant gene, it is always expressed visually. So at least one of the parents of those chicks is a spangle bird. If neither parent is spangle, then an extra cock has gotten himself into the picture.

? So this means that they are discussing this over in that Other Place?

Purplish sometimes, often pink or flesh colored.

Hi Kathryn, That's a nice thought that you want to make sure you are sending off healthy birds. But preventative treatment for scaly face is not necessary. If there were an outbreak of scaly face among some of your birds, then a preventative dose to your whole flock would be a good idea, in addition to treating the ones with symptoms. By whole flock, I mean all the ones housed in the same aviary or cage as the affected birds- not every bird you own. I wouldn't treat any birds in breeding cages, unless you actually see physical evidence of scaly face on them. But to just dose a baby bird that isn't at risk for scaly face to begin with is an unecessary exposure to chemicals. I don't even know how young it is safe to treat them. As for worming them, I think people who house their birds in outdoor aviaries worm their flock on a regular basis, and people who house their birds indoors have no need to ever worm them, unless they bring in an infected bird or otherwise suspect their birds have worms. I think I have read that it would be recommended to worm any parents (from outdoor situations) before they are put down to breed. I have never heard of anyone worming a chick before it is sold, but if you suspect that the parents or the chicks do have worms, then I would not sell them at all until you are sure that they have recovered and are growing in a healthy way. It's my understanding that parasites in a young chick would cause side afffects that you would be able to notice, so if the chicks are healthy and properly developed, they most likely do not have worms. If you are comparing them to how puppies get wormed before sale, it is a different story. All dogs have worms in cyst form in their muscles. Mother dogs will pass these to their puppies, and all puppies must be wormed at least twice while they are babies. I haven't heard of anything like this in birds.

Looks like you have them all right except for the top one looks more like yellowface series to me than green series. I think he looks like yellowface mutant two grey. And then your double factor dom pied hen, it's hard to confirm that without seeing her back. But even then a bird can look double factor, but still only be single factor. It would depend on whether she ever throws any normal offspring or only dominant pied offspring.

Violet dominant Pieds would be very pretty. I can be hard to cut back to just two species. But if you have a dream and a focus, it can be hard to achieve if you are distracted with too many plans all at once. I am just getting started with Bourke's parakeets, and in order to do it, I am going to have to scale back on my budgies.

Hey- it's back! Someone must have fixed it. (Sorry for the off-topic, wessiri )

Budgie eggs take about 18 days to hatch, once the hen starts to incubate them. Some hens start sitting from the first egg, in which case yours would have been due to start hatching on Wednesday. But by that time, candling them should show them to be solid dark inside. So if you are still seeing clear eggs, then they are not fertile. If it were me and I wanted to try again with this pair, I would close up the door to the nest box so that the hen is forced to spend some quality cage time with the cock. Give them at least a week to see if they show signs of courting and bonding. Don't worry about witnessing actual mating. But some hens are known to be so excited about a nest box, that they go right into it to lay, and skip that sort of crucial first part. There is also the possibility that they just aren't in condition right now, so you can close up the door to the box until they look ready. Good luck. Let us know how it goes with your other pair, too.

I'm not really sure how long they carry the French Molt. It's been a couple of years since I looked it up, and it seemed like most of the articles were speculating, that healthy surviving birds could be carriers for life. But I also read things where some breeders keep French molt survivors in their flock and breed from them because they think it increases the immunity of their flock to it. You may want to research it for your self, and see if there is more certain knowledge now.

Yeah, drat those common garden variety half siders!

What makes you say the hen is part English? They look identical to me. Maybe it's just that photo.

Hi Alpaca-boy, haven't seen you around in a while! It's hard to determine gender without a photo, but from your description, I would say that a hen would get her brown cere sometime around six months old. So if it is only turning brown now, I would lean toward it being a male with an iodine or horomone problem. There are some mutations where the males keep their pinky baby cere color their whole life, such as recessive pieds and inos. Do you have any photos of the bird in question? By the way, my dachshund puppy is three years old, now. How is your dachshund puppy doing?

Yeah, definitely a boy. Even if the hen is older, she could still be his sister from a previous round, if you bought them from the same place. What did the seller tell you? Actually to me, they both look like they are around six months old. Old enough to molt off their baby bars and get mature looking ceres, but not old enough to get their iris rings. They are really cute. I, too have a soft spot for the greywings, especially when they have yellowface.