Finnie

I really like your website, Phil.

I don't agree. The cinnamon gene will show itself in a hen fully. A hen cannot be split to Cinnamon. She's either a Cinnamon, or not. Oops, sorry to be unclear. I didn't mean the hens would be split (which of course, I agree is impossible). I meant that if any of the cocks had been split, you would think they would at least throw one cinnamon hen offspring and reveal that they were split. But some breeders have had male budgies that never threw a cinnamon hen chick, even though they were split to cinnamon. And then the cinnamon passed down through the male line in hidden form until several generations later it surfaced.

You're welcome, dillster.

Awesome, Bad Hair Day, thanks! I've bookmarked it, and now I'm all set for next year, in Toowoomba.

Here's a llink to a recent one http://forums.budgiebreeders.asn.au/index.php?showtopic=31885&pid=377184&st=0entry377184

I'm putting this in Off Topic, because even though it's partly about budgies, it's really mostly about Parrotlets. A parrotlet breeder contacted me about getting some breeding pairs of budgies to use as foster parents for some of his parrotlets, who I guess tend to lay fertile eggs, but then abandon their nests. A google search didn't bring up anything about budgies raising them, but I did find some info that suggests that budgies can foster cockatiels, and vice-versa. So I just wanted to ask any of you with other birds besides budgies, whether you have any experience with this. Thanks, Finnie

Sounds like a great time was had by all! I tried to find a link to the live feed, but I think I was too late. Or else I just didn't know where to look. Maybe next year someone can put up a link so us non-Aussies can see, too.

Crusty? It should go smooth and chocolatey first. It kind of looks like the beginnings of scaley face mites. You could give them each a drop of ivermectin as a preventative, just in case. I see that she also has a few pin feathers. Less in this photo than the previous one. Is this the tail end of her molt? When mine molt, they often go into breeding condition afterwards.

Looks good. What is "moved to" for? I also just remembered that I like to write down the color of the chicks eyes when it hatches. Plum ones will turn to black after a little while, so it's helpful to remember which chick it was. That could easily go in comments. But on mine, I have a space for eye color.

Sounds like that has already been done, dillster.

Are you sure the other 8 were DIS, and not just infertile? Since they were all cracked, can you remember any event happening during the time period that could have upset the hen and caused her to knock them all around? The lack of a concave is not necessarily the reason. I have one nest with no concave, and various hens have used it successfully. And if you have provided nesting material, that can help the hen keep the eggs where she wants them. I have had fertile clutches fail to hatch though, after a storm caused night frights in my birdroom. It's fine for her to have a second round. Sure, she had to produce a lot of eggs and sit on them for a long time, but she didn't have to also feed and raise chicks for the four weeks that usually takes. She should be fine, as long as you can tell she is still in good condition. Maybe this next clutch will turn out better.

A. Looks like a boy in first photo, but girl in second, so yeah, that one's hard to tell. B. Male C. Male D. Possibly female E. Definitely female I'll look forward to what other people say.

Lol, too funny, BJ! Dillster, just go to the Breeding Journal section of the forum, and you should find plenty of new bub photos. People are posting them all the time, I don't know why you can't find any. Or do a search for newborn, or hatchling.

I'm not meaning to nit-pick, but rather to help unravel the mystery. You mentioned earlier that there was no cinnamon, back to 3 generations. So you have two listed here, the Albino father and lacewing mother, plus the parents of the albino father, who were also inos. So what about the next generation back, the parents of these last mentioned inos? All you need is one male split to cinnamon among any of these, and that split can remain hidden for several generations. Normally you would expect it to show up in a hen chick here or there, but I have heard of breeders being surprised by something they didn't know had been there all along.

I know I'm seeing this rather late, but in addition to taking out the mirrors, something you can do to promote harmony would be to make sure there are two (at least) of everything. Such as feeding spots, drinkers and swings. Budgies like to do the same things at the same time as each other, so with two of everything, they won't have to chase each other away from stuff. And welcome to the forum. I hope you are still around!

(This is mentioned in BJ's link) Once the bird gets comfortable eating the millet from your hand, the next step is to hold your hand a little further away from him so he has to stretch or put his foot on your hand to get at the millet. Then progress to making him fly to your hand to get any. That way, he is coming to you, and you don't have to move your hand towards him. Eventually he will get so used to this, that when you do move towards him, he won't mind. So, it's been a few weeks since you wrote this. How's his progress coming along?

Lol, is this autocorrect at work, dillster?

Hi Jono. I'm glad things went well at the vet visit. I know you are excited about breeding your budgies, but putting them down to breed when their health is questionable, and also so soon after they have moved to a new home, is usually a recipe for disaster. I'm kind of surprised that this has been posted for five days now, and I'm the first one to say anything. Maybe they all don't want to rain on your parade. My advice for a good budgie breeding experience would be to remove that nest box and throw away any eggs they've laid, and let them heal up and rest a few months first. It may be hard to do if you're excited about the egg, but your poor cock has already been through enough, being neglected and allowed to remain sick with the scaley face until you got him and started giving him a better life. If you care about him, you really shouldn't put him through the stress of feeding his hen and chicks for the next three months. It's recommended that budgies be fully fit before beginning the breeding process. Did you also treat the hen with ivermectin?

Nice job. I might add that "date laid" is probably more useful than "date candled". Knowing when the first egg is laid can be good enough, if you assume the rest are laid every other day, but occasionally a hen varies. Sometimes there are problems when they hatch, and it can be useful to see at a glance what date the last one or two were laid, when you are trying to decide how long to keep waiting on them.

It all sounds pretty good. I have a couple of ideas for you. One is to cut those long perches shorter, and put them so that they run front to back, one on each side of the cage, and more on the same level to each other. Part of the budgie mating ritual is that they fly back and forth from one perch to another, and the way you have them arranged makes that a little difficult. The other idea is, if you can mount the nest box with the cage door to it closed, they can look inside, but not go inside. Then when you think they are ready, and you open the door, they are all the more eager to get inside the box. I've also heard of people partiallly covering the opening with cardboard, which the hen then has to chew and gnaw away to "make" her own nest, and which can stimulate the breeding instinct. I've never tried that, but it sounds like something a hen would enjoy.

I get your joke, now, sorry I'm a little slow on the uptake!

Hi Broke90. The poor guy! He does look bad, doesn't he? Did you give Rose a drop of the ivermectin, too? I don't know how well a budgie with scaley face can recover, once it has gotten bad. But if the one in that link to the FAQ section could make such an improvement, maybe yours can, too.

I guess it goes without saying, that both parents are split to greywing, as well as blue! Your chick isn't a fluke. Genetics is all a matter of percentages. Depending on what the father brings to the party, and what the mother brings, for every trait, the offspring will get one gene from each parent. And each parent has two genes to offer, so it's a 50/50 chance which one they will give to the baby. So taking the green color, for example, Huey has one green gene, and one blue gene. We know he got the green one from his father and the blue one from his mother. Now when he gives a gene to his children, it can be either one. This chick happened to get the blue one. If Huey goes on to have 100 more children (lol, not likely!), you could expect 50 of them to get his green, and 50 to get his blue. But it's very random, like rolling dice, so it wouldn't really end up 50 of each. Then this chick's mother gave it a blue gene, as well, so now that tells you that she has one green gene, and one blue gene, just like Huey. If you keep breeding this same pair, the percentages will work out to be 25% of chicks get a green gene from each parent (they have two green genes), 50% will get one green gene and one blue gene (you won't see the blue, it's recessive, so far, all green colored chicks), and 25% will get two blue genes. It's this last category that your baby falls into. You can do the same thing with the greywing gene. As you learn more about budgie genetics, you can figure out the other genes as well, like the dominant pied, and the spangle genes. (I think your hen here looks like she's spangle.) There's also opaline in the mix, and that's a little more complicated, because it is a sex-linked gene. With this pair, a chick has a 25% chance of being blue, and a 25% chance of being greywing. Multiply those together to get his chance of being both, and that is 6.25%. If you figure out all the possibilities that these two parents can make, there are a lot of different combinations. So the percent chance of any particular combination is pretty small. I wouldn't say he's a fluke, but rather a lucky roll of the dice. (Man, sorry this got so long. I'm this close to deleting the whole thing and replacing it with: Wow, what a cute chick!)

Oh, yes, I was mistaken But still there may be an Albino daughter, because of crossingover (well, only 3% of possibility ) Well, if the ino gene crosses over to the other chromosome, that one has cinnamon on it too, lol! Thank you very much for you help You're welcome. I still hope someone can come along who can explain why the albino hen has brown spots, which is your original question.

I agree with the others, but keep in mind, that after the second round, you will have to face the heavy heart then. Sooner or later, you're going to have to throw away eggs. You might be able to avoid throwing away eggs, at least ones that you believe to be fertile, viable eggs, if you take the hen away from the chicks when they get to be around three weeks old. Then you would leave the father to raise them. And if the hen lays any new eggs off the perch in her new, solo home, you can console yourself with the thought that she probably hadn't been mating with the cock during that period, and the eggs are no good anyway. But this idea is causes unnecessary meddling with the breeding pair, and I wouldn't really recommend it to a novice. (And once you get past the novice stage, you probably would have no qualms about throwing eggs away. ) Alas, breeding budgies is not for the faint of heart!