Finnie

Hi! Welcome!

Oh, Birdluv, I am so sorry to hear this.

Nice to see a photo of him. What does he weigh? My pet types usually top out in the 30s, but I hear that the show types get twice that size.

You've done a great job! It looks like Chicken Hawk is having a lot of fun. And, Yum! Whoppers are my husband's favorite!

Thank you for your response, I really appreciate it. However I am more confused now. Someone on another forum told me the following classifications : Picture 1 is a Dilute If it is, you can't see it from this photo. Picture 2 is a Skyblue Cinnamon Doesn't look cinnamon. Picture 3 is a Gray-Green Opaline As Nev said, yf, not green Picture 4 is a Light Green Opaline If we could see the back, we could find out if this is true. Pictures 5 & 6 are Yellowface Type 1 Cobalt This is what Neville said for Picture 5. But for Picture 6, no. Picture 7 is a Violet Greywing. Not even remotely greywing. Also, I will be posting more pictures later today and would appreciate your reply on them too. I'd say the person who told you those is wrong. Did they base that on these same pictures, or were they looking at something different than what is here? Better pictures that are not blurry or overexposed, and showing each bird's front and back would help a lot. Also, as you are going to add more birds to the lot, numbering (or naming) each one will help make it less confusing, so we don't get them mixed up.

That sounds about right. My mothers usually keep their chicks packed full, and sometimes when I pull them, they weigh a lot. They lose some in the first 24 hours, or until they take to eating the formula readily, and then steadily climb back up. Also, they will put on weight through the day with each feeding, and then lose some of it over night when their crop empties. As long as the first weight of each morning continues to rise, then you know that there is a net gain, and they are growing.

I sounds like you have really gone the extra mile for this one. I'm sorry for you that it doesn't seem to be working. I agree with Macka. There are some birds that are just not as fit as others, and most of those don't ever make it out of the nest box. Others do, but they live shorty and sickly lives. If the vets have tried everything, that's probably the best you can do.

I don't know if my method will help you or not, but this is what I do to keep the formula warm throughout the feeding. I used to use a thermometer until that broke. Now I just test the temp with my finger, but I'm planning to replace my thermometer, as I trust that method better. I get the formula hotter than I want it, because it has to sit and thicken for a minute before you can feed it. (Or else it will thicken in the chick's crop.) So then it's going to cool down to where I want it, but then I try to stop it from cooling too much by keeping it warm in a large mug filled with hot water and a wash cloth. This is inexact, so what ends up happening is that the mug over warms the formula, and I remove it and let it cool again. Over and over. BUT, for the most part, it keeps it in pretty close range, and only takes a few seconds to get it exactly the temp I want. (The instructions on my canister say to feed it at 105 F, but that as long as it is between 102 and 108 it is close enough.) Usually for one chick, it eats what it needs during one cycle, and I wouldn't need to re-warm the food. For multiple chicks, a few moments in the warming mug between chicks is usually all it takes. (Roughly the amount of time it takes me to clean off the prior chick, put it back, get out the next chick and weigh the next chick. Do it long enough and you work out a rhythm.) Pictures explain better, so here is what I mix my formula in: In my microwave, 7 to 11 seconds makes the water just right, depending on how much I am making, and then stirring in the powder very thoroughly evens out any hot spots. Then here is the mug: I fill the bottom part of the mug with water and nuke that for about a minute, then I roll up the cloth and let it soak up the hot water. I will usually cover the whole thing with a piece of paper towel, as I think that helps hold the heat in. Athough I don't know if it really does, it just makes me feel like it does. I hope this is of some help to you. I was in the same predicament, when I had to save some newborn chicks once, and running back and forth to the microwave just wasn't working for me. They say necessity is the mother of invention, and I don't remember how I came up with this, but I guess by trying different ideas.

Hi Rashu, welcome to the forum! I think that by 7-8 months of age, most females would have gone into breeding condition by now, and the cere would have turned brown, or at least be starting to go brown. I think that for the most part, Winter looks like a male. I wonder if it is possible that it is a male with a lack of testosterone, causing it to look and behave a little more feminine than a normal male.? There are conditions that can cause a male budgie's cere to look like a hen, such as lack of iodine, cancer, and low hormones. I haven't read about any females with conditions that make them look or act male (for instance, never getting a brown cere) but I suppose that is a possibility, too. I'm leaning towards male on this one. Edit: I looked again more closely at your photos, and based on this one: There is no white on that cere at all, just dark blue and light blue. Male.

:lol: (That's why I wanted to make that part clear right away! )

I'm sorry for your drain issues. It's sounds very frustrating. This happens to me all the time. I constantly have to go back and separate my lines. When you want to make a new paragraph, just hit enter twice, and then you'll still have a space when it shrinks it back up. I don't know why it does that, but it's been happening ever since the forum switched over in 2010.

I'm happy to say that the chick in question here has grown up fine. I kept my eye out for any further signs of trouble with her, and there were none. Her flight feathers look fine to me, and she flies well. Here's some pics: I was concerned about French molt for a while, because there was a different problem chick in that nest. When I pulled the chicks from the nest and started hand raising them, the youngest one looked "off" to me. There was something not quite right about it. In fact, it held its head back at an odd angle, and moved around in circles a lot. Sometimes it would bend its head back so far, that it would fall over. But it was always able to get back up. I remember thinking that it would probably be a waste of time to feed it, as it didn't seem well, and I didn't think it would live. But for the next week, it grew well and its pin feathers grew in more each day, so I started to get my hopes up. Then one day it just took a nose dive, and by the next morning, it was dead. I had been doing a lot of reading up on French molt, just in case, and the timing of this chick's death was in keeping for deaths in the nest from French Molt. But I never saw any other single problem from any of the siblings. (Except there was one chick that had died earlier, at two days old, which I had thought at the time was lack of feeding on the mother's part.) And there were two dead in shell eggs. (Plus three clear, it was a huge number of eggs- 10 of her own and two fosters.) So I don't know. Are two dead chicks and two dead in shell eggs enough to go on for thinking French Molt? Expecially considering that the chick with the bleeding pin feathers never developed any further trouble? With no actual French Molt fledgling chick, I guess I'm going to assume it was something else.

Have you looked into whether there are laws in your community prohibiting people from altering their property so as to flood other people's property? I'm not sure if you would have any recourse there. But here, we have laws like that, and you are not allowed to put your neighbors in a situation like you are in. One guy built berms around his property and planted trees on them, I suppose for privacy. Well it caused all the drain water to back up to the west of him, flooding properties for at least a half mile. The county came in and forced him to build drain pipes into his berms to restore the natural flow of the water. We actually have drain commissions, as this is quite a big issue here. It sounds to me like you have an extremely valid complaint, and shouldn't have to go to such expense to remedy what the other property owners caused. Might be worth looking into.

My opinion is meaningless, as I am not an exhibition breeder, but I think the top set of birds are extremely nice, and the bottom set are grossly exaggerated. Not attractive. Maybe the Australians should consider themselves lucky that they haven't yet achieved such a standard. Okay, rereading that, it sounds a little inflammatory. What I meant was that I think the photos of the top Australian birds you guys post on here are already quite nice, and don't need to become over-exaggerated. I'm shutting up now.

Oh I love this picture. If I had seen it in the first place, I could have saved myself paragraphs of typing! I liked Neville and Kaz' answers. Short and to the point. How come I always have to drone on so long? I think he's a cinnamon, too, isn't he? Oh, and to answer your question above, no it isn't that any white at all indicates female, it's more like an overall whiteness does. A tiny bit of white around the nostrils doesn't mean anything, but because there is a "rings around the nostrils" myth floating around, it just throws people into confusion. Usually when I am sexing a budgie, I go by what the majority of the cere looks like, and I ignore the tiny nostril rings, if there are any. The only way nostril rings matter is if they are so big, they cover a large portion of the cere, but they wouldn't just be rings then, would they? (Oh dear, droning on again... )

Hi L1B2, welcome to the forum! When I first heard of the "string and nut" method, I thought it was hocus pocus. That was because I thought they meant a nut like you would eat, from a tree! Turns out that you use a metal nut, as in hardware. And I guess if it is accurate, it has something to do with magnetic fields that may be given off differently by males and females. And that causes the nut, when it is dangling from a string, to move differently. From what I have read since then, I believe it may actually be accurate, but I don't think 100%. So, looking at your two, I would say that yes, your dark green dominant pied is a male. But the recessive pied I'm not so sure if it's a female. In some of your photos it looks one way to me, and in other photos, it looks the other way. Just goes to show that a photo can be innacurate, depending on lighting and angle. Well, a recessive pied male will not get a blue cere. It will stay pink, or sometimes a pinky lavender color. A recessive pied female will have the same color cere as all the other mutations have for female, that is, white or light blue with white, up until they go into breeding condition, when it will turn to brown. Would you describe the cere as more of a pinkish color, or more of a blue and white color? Because this photo looks like a male, but the kind of male that gets a blue cere: For a recessive pied, it shouldn't be so blue, but rather more of a pinkish lavender. (Your other photos make it look like blue and white, which would mean girl.) But if I had to guess based on these photos, then I would say he's a boy.

Again, a late response on my part, so it may be too late to help. Sorry. I just wanted to point out that 10 hours of sleep per night is not enough. So if you try 13 to 14, maybe that will help. Another suggestion, although not really about squawking, you have all your perches set up so that your birds have to fly front to back or up and down in that cage. They can't really fly that way, more like hopping. If you rearrange the perches so that they run front to back, and are located far apart from each other, some on the left side and some on the right side, then this will allow the birds to fly a little farther when they want to stretch their wings. Something as simple as that MIGHT make them happier, or get along better. Hey, is that a sewing machine table they are on? I have TWO sewing machine tables I use for cage stands. They are great! And I LOVE their little Chrissy stockings.

I realize this is an old thread, and the person only ever posted once and never came back to the forum. But I'm just now catching up on stuff I missed while our internet was out over Christmas and beyond. Maybe this person has their settings so that they will get email notification of any responses in their topic. So just in case: Hi Sandi, welcome to the forum! I love your bird, he is totally gorgeous. I'm working on breeding one like that myself. I agree with Nerwen, yf2 spangle. I think he is also cobalt, and possibly opaline. Usually on an opaline spangle, the markings will be changed from black to body color. But occasionally the bird will still have some black markings along with the body color markings. I have a cinnamon opaline hen, and some of her markings are clearly brown. But it is also common for spangles to look opaline, or have "opalescence", even when they are normals. So I can't say for sure. But I do think that the body color showing all through his wings and mantle is absolutely beautiful! Anyway, I hope you will come back to the forum.

Hi! Welcome to the forum. I answered your question in your other thread.

First of all, welcome to the forum! Second of all, I would like to encourage you to use the "house" cage for quarantine purposes, as it only needs to be for a month or so, and that short of a time period really won't be detrimental for your bird to be in the small housing. And quarantine is definitely worth it, which leads me to Third of all: This is copied from your other thread: I would think that after this experience, you would be convinced of the importance of quarantine. It's not always possible to tell just by looking that a new incoming bird is free of disease. If you read the articles on the page of Kaz' link, you will learn, among a lot of things, that even healthy birds can be carriers of different germs and bacteria, but which they are immune to. There are two things that can happen when that healthy bird moves to a new home: 1. The stress of the move can lower its immune system, and cause a breakout of a disease that the bird was previously immune to. or 2. Your own bird might not have ever been exposed to the potential disease that the new bird is carrying. Your bird might not be immune to it, and so a seemingly healthy bird could stilll spread disease to your own bird. (Now, granted, this last point can still happen after the quarantine period when you finally do introduce the two birds, but by quarantining first, you are lowering the stress, and taking that out of the equation.) It also goes both ways. You say your boy is a survivor of a previous outbreak that killed off your other birds. Well, chances are, that he was exposed and developed immunity to that disease, and could now be a carrier. But the new bird might not be immune. So you don't really want to test whether he is or not until he is settled in and you know he made the transition to his new home and feeding style with flying colors. I hope this is helpful for you and gives you some food for thought. Oh, and I just caught your reference to "the best in the district". That in no way means that their budgies are guaranteed free of all germs and bacteria. I know of no living organism that is. If they are the best, I'm sure they will still recommend that you quarantine, and they will probably be honest with you about the potential for birds transmitting diseases, even if they believe theirs to be extremely healthy. Good luck.

Hi Tazzie's mum. Your yellow and green pied cock must be split to ino. Since the mother is also an ino, then your creamino chick can be either a boy or a girl. (If the mom weren't an ino, the choice would be limited to just girl, since ino is a sex-linked gene.) All the information about inos, whether lutinos or albinos, can also be applied to creaminos. But you would also want to learn a little bit about the yellowface gene, which if you search this site, you can find a lot. In a nutshell, though, in order for two green series birds to produce any offspring that aren't green, they both have to be split for a non-green allelomorph. (In other words, green split to blue or green split to one of the yellowface genes.) Since you've gotten a yellowface offspring, you know that one of the parents is green/yellowface. The other one then must be either green/yellowface, or green/blue. If it mattered to you to find out what each parent was split to, you would need to breed them both to blue series birds, and then 50% of those offspring would be visual for the green bird's hidden gene.

I thought the same thing, Neville. It's hard to tell if those faint markings around the neck are actually opaline. When I didn't know that the mother was not opaline, I assumed the chick was a boy. I think that with this one, the only way to know for sure if it is opaline, will be when it gets older, and its gender is not in any doubt. It's a pretty chick, Hanbie. Maybe you can give us updated photos when it grows up?

Not a problem, GB. I lost track of a lot of forum stuff around Christmas, and am finally now just seeing this. What ever happened in your lacewing nest? (Or maybe you wrote it in a different thread that I still haven't found yet.)

I've also read that any of the seeding grasses are good to feed them green. I wonder how easy it would be to dry it and store it?

This one's a little trickier because of the lack of markings. At least we can tell it's a sky blue. Also looks male to me. And looking around the back of his neck, I think I see opaline. I also think that is must be a dilute, due to its paleness of color and faint grey markings I think I imagine I can see. Although combining cinnamon and greywing would also make it that pale, too. (I'm assuming you bred this chick, so you know the parents?) Also, it looks like it could be a dominant pied, since your other one is dom. pied. Maybe this one might even be a double factor dom pied? So perhaps it is an opaline dilute dominant pied sky blue male. Thank you! I have his parents and brother's picture.. Here is his parent's picture. Father is dominant pied, and mother is just nomal. And this is the brother - same as his father. Thanks for the photos, they tell us a lot. From this pair, all girl chicks will be opaline, and all boy chicks will be normal. So they must both be sisters. Both of the parents must be split to dilute, or at least some kind of greywing. I suppose the cinnamon option could still be possible if the father is split to cinnamon. I don't really know how likely that would be. And she must be a single factor dom pied, since the mother is a normal, not dom pied. So I still think she must be an opaline dilute dominant pied sky blue. (Actually, a back shot of the father would make it more clear if he is opaline and dominant pied. It's not easy to see in these pics.)