Finnie

Budgie Owner might be right. But it's hard to tell from just that one photo. The one on the right looks ambiguous to me, like it could go either way as it develops. They are very young, aren't they? Welcome to the forum.

Thank you for all your compliments, everybody. Sorry I had to post and run yesterday, Dave. I was actually reading your thread to catch up on it, so I could have posted in there for you. But then just as I got to the part about Tess being sick, I had a daughter bugging me for the computer to do homework. I tried to put her off and keep reading, but it was getting late, and I had to log off. And now, just as soon as I log on again, another daughter is calling me to get picked up from somewhere, so I have to run off again. But as for Flynn, I could have done without the yf2 and the opaline, but I was hoping that if he is dilute, like I think he is, and Finnie is a greywing/clearwing combo, then all the chicks will be either greywing/dilute or clearwing/dilute, and then hopefully I would be able to see a visual difference between the two. I don't know if opaline will mess that up, but at least I should be able to tell from the males, unless they all turn out to be the same. Hey, I still haven't gotten a chance to read more about Tess. I hope she is going to be okay. I'll have to go straight to your journal next time I get a chance to get on the forum.

Thanks, guys! Good thing you posted, cuz I think I was over my photo limit there. I found some, although they are not really ideal photos. Flynn is yf2 dilute (at least, I hope dilute) sky blue. I chose him for Finnie, because I thought it might clear up once and for all whether she was a full body color greywing. If so, and if Flynn is actually a dilute, then the chicks will all be split for dilute, and I should be able to tell whether they are clearwings or greywings. (In theory, anyway )

I've been pretty swamped around here lately, and haven't had a lot of time to get on the forum. I also realized that I haven't really taken many photos of Finnie's latest clutch, and they are getting pretty old, already. So the other day I took a bunch, and of course, since the are mine, I think they are cute, so I thought I would share. Oldest chick, male cobalt, either greywing or clearwing Second oldest, they are both the same. The third chick was born with plum eyes, so she is a cinnamon opaline greywing (or clearwing). Turning out to be yf2 sky blue. This is the fourth chick, she looks basically just like the third one, only she wasn't born with plum eyes, so she is just opaline greywing. Also yf2 sky blue. Chick 5 looks to be not opaline, so he must be a boy. (I didn't mention it, but the dad is an opaline, and Finnie is not, so sexing this clutch is a piece of cake.) There were 9 eggs, but three of them didn't hatch (1 DIS and 2 clear). So there was quite a gap between the 5th and 6th chicks. So chick number six is a full week younger than chick number 5 (And two weeks younger than chick 1.) Too soon to tell what this baby is, but look at what a good feeder Finnie is! Now for some group shots. This will likely be the last time I breed Finnie. She's over three years old now, and these chicks make 20 she's had over 4 clutches. Since she's my first hen ever and is very special to me, I think she deserves a well earned retirement. I guess I should hunt up some photos of her and Flynn, the father. But I don't think I have them on Photobucket, so it might take me a while to get those on here.

I know it's been a couple of days, and I'm just now reading this, but here is what I would add: If you know he's eating millet, and you know he's eating grass seed, but you're not sure if he's eating the seed mix, I WOULD NOT remove the seeds he is eating!! This is not the time to try to force him to eat the seed mix. Until you're sure that he's out of the woods, KEEP GIVING HIM THE STUFF YOU KNOW HE CAN EAT! By the way, I'm sorry for your loss of the other one. Have you contacted the breeder yet for a replacement that is older and fully weaned?

I hope you are feeling better soon. It's really hard to carry on when you are sick.

Kaz, can you show us a photo of the flaky bran? I'm wondering if we call it something different over here. Also, I've noticed that the porridge oats tend to clump up, kind of like bits of granola. Does the flaky bran do that, or does it stay flaky?

You can't automatically assume that pet shop birds are unhealthy. There are some bad pet shops out there, but there are also a lot of good ones. And if you are looking for breeding stock, whether it's for pet type or show type, the last thing I would do is pick an unhealthy one and hope to "improve" it by breeding it. What kind of "bad stuff" are you talking about?

Hi Kaitlyn, welcome to the forum! A lot of people on here already have threads showing their bird rooms and breeding set ups. Look in the Breeding Section, and the Cages and Aviary Section, or do a search for Bird Rooms. Here's a couple to start you off: link link link

What I have done before is to start working on hand taming them as soon as they start to get feathers in. I play with each one for about ten to twenty minutes, and then I put it back in the nest. Actually, I play with them a little bit from birth, but it's not until they start to get some feathers that I keep them out for longer play periods.

From here I can't really say if your eggs are fertile or not, but usually chicks will hatch every other day. So for the hen with two chicks and four remaining eggs, figure that it would take 8 days for those four to hatch. You said it's been one week, so in theory, you still have one more day for the last one. Plus you could add on a few days to wait, just in case, since they don't always develop exactly on schedule. But a gap of a week sounds like at least three of those chicks didn't make it, if they were even fertile to begin with. And if three didn't make it, I wouldn't hold out much hope for the fourth. You asked if those four could have been the hen starting a second round, so they might be "younger" eggs. You don't mention if the chicks that hatched are still living. If they are alive, and she is feeding them, then I think it's very unlikely that she would have started a second round this soon. But if the two chicks died, then yeah, maybe she decided to start over. For your other hen, how much longer than three weeks has it been? Because normal incubation is 18 to 21 days, from the time the hen starts sitting, which like Splat said, isn't always from the first egg. A lot of times it's from the second or third egg. So three weeks would be just about right for them to start hatching, and again, two days between hatches, so it could take ten more days for the last egg. Do you have a small torch you could reach back behind the eggs and shine it through them, towards you? If the eggs look completely dark and solid, then you know that a chick is in there, although you don't know whether it is still alive or not. If you just see a clear yellow glow, it is an infertile egg, or one that has not been incubated long enough yet for blood vessels to appear. Once the blood vessels appear, you can sometimes see them, and also the glow of the egg will take on a pink/orange hue, until the chick grows so big that it makes the egg just look solid. If your library doesn't have any good information on breeding budgies, then you have come to the right place! Look through our Budgied FAQs section, especially the articles on breeding. Also, search the forum for "colony breeding" and you will come up with a lot of threads where people have found out the hard way about the pitfalls that come with it. (Cabinet breeding is safer for your birds.) Oh, and by the way, Welcome to the Forum!

I really feel bad for you having so many ups and downs. The drama can be hard to take. I hope things start to smooth out.

I think it can be hard to tell the difference between a lightly marked greywing and a heavily marked dilute. Someone with more experience than me might be able to tell you. My guess, looking at the darkness of the cheekpatches and throat spots would be greywing, not dilute, but I could be wrong.

How old were the chicks when they died? And how old are the survivors now?

I always thinks it's amazing how budgies are kind of hard-wired to want the company of their own kind. And how they automatically know that preening each other is the right thing to do. I can just picture how cute the two of them are together!

If I am reading this right, does that mean that you go through all 37 cages doing the egg check, then start over and go through them all again to do the poopy scooping? And the same in the evening with the soft food dishes and egg checks? I've always wondered how those of you with so many nests can manage to get around to all of them. (My max is 6, and I know I am a slow person, but that's probably all that I could handle.) Would it be too unwieldly to do everything for one cage before going on to the next one? And then you would just be disturbing each cage the one time? But perhaps that would really lengthen the amount of time it takes to get through all 37.

That all sounds good. At first glance, I thought you were going to list some long complicated rotation schedule, but on reading it, you are basically feeding fresh veggies during the week, your mash, as you call it, on weekends, and adding apple cider vinegar a few days a week. It looks to me like a nice healthy diet. If you are concerned about her calcium levels, I wouldn't just rely on cuttlebone. You might consider a liquid calcium added to the water. And one thing you didn't list, I always have a mineral block in my cages. There is usually calcium in those, too. If your egg biscuit mix includes the shells, you have some calcium there, as well.

This doesn't help tell what the egg looks like, but it tells about how the chick develops, and was interesting. http://msucares.com/...cks_embryo.html I'm going back to look at several other interesting-looking links that came up in my Google search.

That's really sad, Dave. I hope Quiche turns out to be Okay.

I had a reply typed where I had conceded that I had a boy look, but I just want to make sure that it is an Iris ring before I concede. The photo is a little out of focus at the eye and the eye looks like it is turned in the eye socket which may give the appearance of an iris ring. The colour in the eye looks too far toward the edge of the eye to be an iris ring. Then again it could just be an iris ring in which case I will post a photo of myself with a dunce hat on. In Fordmob's defence, I also thought that to me, the iris ring in that photo looked more like a thick eye lid. Maybe I will be wearing a dunce hat, too.

Dave, I'm thinking I have read before that the sperm can stay viable inside the hen for fourteen days. If so, then I suppose that any given one of your first eggs could be fertilized by unknown cocks? You have very nice looking birds. I like all the spangle. Maybe you could name Dumb's mate "Stupid", and then their chick could be "Completely Hopeless" !

Opaline on a spangle turns the black markings to body color.

Great recommendations, guys! After reading this, I went right over to Ebay and purchased a copy of the Taylor and Warner book. Can't wait to get it. (I also put some of the others on my Wish List at Amazon.)

Oh dear! I hope my husband doesn't see that shirt!! They already think I need help.