Finnie

Hi! I just wanted to jump in with a reminder about quarantine. You said your husband brought two new ones home today, so now there are four in your aviary. It's important to keep the new ones separate from the old ones for at least 30 days, to make sure neither set has any illness they could pass on to each other. You mentioned that they all came from the same shop, so if they were all bought within a close time frame, and had been together before anyway, then it's all okay. But if it's been a long time, that shop's newer birds could have something the older ones didn't have. And you would definitely be wanting to quarantine your future hens, when you find them.

Hi Meagan, welcome to the forum.

I understand how you feel, Jabberwocky, it seems sad to leave the sick bird there. But I have to agree with Kaz, because "rewarding" the shop owner by buying up the sick bird just condemns the next bird that comes into that store. And the next, and the next, and the next. So you might be able to save one or two, but you enable them to harm many many more birds. Better that the shop owner learns that mistreating birds loses him money, so he will stop. Yes, the first few birds suffer, but hopefully it ends sooner.

Cool. Does this mean we will be getting to see some chick pictures?

Hi Robbo, Everyone with aviaries must have missed this question. I only have what is called flight cages, which are about 5 feet wide, and 3 feet tall. But from past experience, I won't put a clipped budgie into my flight cage anymore, until I know it can fly. So I would assume it might be the same in an aviary. The budgie I had a problem with could climb the wire to get up to the high perches, but then when something freaked her out, instead of flying, she would crash to the floor of the cage. You said your budgie can flutter down from a height, so I guess you would have to judge whether that is sufficient for when it tries to jump off of your aviary perches. Sorry I can't be more help.

Thank you guys for the input. I got kind of busy over the weekend, so It took me a while to get back with any pictures. I agree about the grey factor being out. Nubbly, I was thinking the same thing, because what I can see on his cheek patches is violet, not grey. Also, the chicks all have violet cheek patches, but they are different shades. KM, I think Nelly might be violet. Yeah, it's hard to tell. I think almost all of my birds look like their color is stronger around the neck. But here is a photo with her in the front. I was pretty sure that both her dad and her mom might have been violet factored, so maybe she is too. So when I threw out the grey green theory, I started thinking more about the violet. I have a bunch of photos of the chicks to put on, but my son is breathing down my neck for the computer, so I'll try to come back on here in a few minutes. To be continued.... okay, so I'm experiencing technical difficulties with my computer. I had a problem with my network adapter, and it got resolved, but now Photobucket is frozen, and I can't close it, or open a new window, so I think my problem is with Internet Explorer. Pictures will have to wait until I can get this fixed.

In this photo he doesnt look cinnamon...his markings look grey AND if he was cinnamon his colour wouldnt be that strong either is Mum definitely skyblue or could she be sky violet or carrying violet ? That' a good point about his body color not being washed out. I've wondered about that too, before. Here is another old photo of him where he looks a little more cinnamon, but yeah, still not conclusive. I also looked up cheek patches, so now I know they should be grey on a grey factored bird. His are pied out, so it's hard to see their color. I will definitley have to try to get better photos of him tomorrow. The hen COULD be violet factored. She probably is. But she is definitely sky, not cobalt. Both of her parent were sky, and all of her siblings. I even tried to see if I could have been wrong about her parents, and really looked hard at her to see if there was dark factor, but there just isn't. I'm not sure if the photos at the top of this thread show her very well. I'll have to get some good ones of her, too. Oh, she is in my siggy! The one who's not yellowface.

Okay, now I have a new theory. It is true, as Kaz mentioned, that some of the babies look like they are olive green. Based on the parents, though, I should be getting 100% single dark factor offspring. But there is quite a bit of variation in their shades of "dark green". So now I'm beginning to wonder if Mystery might be.......Grey Factored! I don't have a good front on shot of him, but here is his back again, and it shows pretty much the same color as his front: I know that's not much to go on. Tomorrow I'll work on getting some better photos of Mystery. And I'll have to get some shots of the chicks once they feather up a little more. But in the meantime, I have a couple of theoretical questions about grey factor. 1. Would grey factor make greywing markings darker? Some of the chicks have lighter markings, and some darker. (Actually, there's even one who now that it's been a couple of days, he's so dark, I'm convinced he's a normal.) 2. To tell the difference between olive and grey-green, you look at the tail, right? And blue = olive, but black= grey green, right? That won't help me with Mystery, but it might with the chicks. 3. What color cheek patches could I expect for a grey green? (I know where to find the answer to this last question, I'll go look it up myself. )

Sounds like a good plan. You have some VERY beautiful birds!

GB, I'm sorry to hear you are going through a rough spell. We will miss you, hopefully you won't be away from us for too long. It can be hard to balance birds with the rest of life, and I agree with you, the kids need your attention. (I know sometimes my birds and my time on the forum competes with the time my kids need.) I hope it all works out well for you, so that you can stil enjoy the uplifting aspects of your birds. (Hugs emoticon goes here.)

I think that's exactly it. I'm not even really all that interested in breeding inos, but I was so surprised, that I just really think this chick is cool! Hezz, sorry if I confused you! I was just referring to what kinds of recessive mutations that can be lurking in our birds that we don't know about until we breed them. Is your aqua colored hen a yellowface?

Budgerigars do need grit,anyone that tells you otherwise is an idiot. That's pretty strong, PJI. Could you elaborate a little more? I always understood that ground oyster shell is a good source of calcium for them, but that budgies don't require grit for their digestion, like some other birds do.

Oh, then it won't be conclusive. Unless you still get a sky blue baby, then you will know that both parents only have one dark factor.

What a surprise I found this morning, Ariel and Kelpie's 3rd chick has hatched with pink eyes! (At first I thought it had no eyes and was dead. ) This is Ariel when he was young: (The recessive pied in the front.) I had no idea he would be split for ino! Well, I suppose he could be split for just about anything. It will be interesting to see. But since about half of his hen chicks can be expected to be inos now, that only leaves the other half to show any opaline or cinnamon. So unless there's a whole lot of girls, his potential splits may never show up. I have him paired with a sky blue opaline hen who has the potential to be split for greywing, so I guess that increases the chances of seeing whether Ariel is /opaline, cuz the boy chicks could have it. And it's funny about greywings. I've had greywing chicks from every pair I've put together, excepting one pair who only had one chick survive. I usually pair up a blackwing with a greywing so that I will at least get splits, but even the times when I've paired two blackwings of unknown background, I've still gotten greywing chicks. So it wouldn't surprise me a bit if I get greywing chicks from this nest, although I'm not expecting it. But I wasn't expecting INO either!

Kaz' veggie ideas are good. Also keep in mind that it will take them quite a while to get used the the strangeness of the new veggies, so keep trying the same kind over and over. If he rejects it the first time, don't give up. After he gets used to it being there and gets curious, he'll start to play with it, then eventually realize he can eat it. That pet store sounds awesome. If only all of them were that way! So I think it's a safe bet to assume that those owners would be on top of any scaley face if it cropped up. If your budgie didn't bring any scaley face mites home with him, then until you get a second bird, you probably won't have to worry about it. If you ever do get Buddy a buddy (lol), just make sure to quarantine them for a month, so you can make sure the new one doesn't have anything.

My sister sent me this link. I thought it was pretty cool. Kind of like our budgie parents, only bigger! http://www.ustream.tv/decoraheagles (Except for you have to wait for their dumb commercial to end . And it's night here, so you might have to check it when it's night over there to see in daylight, lol.)

Except he can't be olive because his mother is sky blue. So he does look like a greywing to you?

Don't panic, Nathan. You still have about 18 to 21 days before the egg is due to hatch. They will probably lay more eggs, one every other day, until they have as many as they intend to lay. There's nothing you need to do right now, other than making sure they have clean water and plenty of food. (Have you started reading the articles in the FAQs section yet?) Don't check the nest box more than twice a day, once in the morning and once in the evening, because if you constantly check it all day, you might upset the hen. But when you check, just look at then hen to make sure that she can move around normally and that she doesn't look sick. You have a lot of reading to do in the next few weeks. Better get busy!

Hi Kristen, welcome to the forum. I looked at the big version of your photos at Webshots, and I really don't see anything like scaley face on him. (That doesn't mean he doesn't have it, just that it doesn't look like it from the photo. We can't really diagnose things very well from photos on the internet, but we might be able to, if he had a more obvious case of it.) In light of the trust issue, I think you can safely skip the ivermectin for now, and only treat him later, if it becomes visibly noticeable. Even if he has it, and it gets more noticeable, it won't be too late to treat him then. You certainly sound like you're not about to let it get out of hand. But I just don't think he has it. I see you are in NY, and you said you got him from a pet store. What kind of pet store was it? Were the other birds they had in good shape, did you look them over for signs of illness? Could you go back and look at them now, 5 weeks later, and check if they have any scaley face showing? (It might not be any of the same birds still there, but if they were spreading scaley face, their new birds might have gotten it, too.) Generally though, if it's a major chain pet store, they keep things pretty clean, and you probably wouldn't see any birds with scaley face. It's the small "family" owned pet stores that sometimes take deplorable care of their stock, and you might see all manner of problems with those. I think it's strange that your ivermectin says to treat once a week for three weeks. Ivermectin is supposed to kill all the mites with one application. Mine is the cattle kind, which I got from Tractor Supply Co. It contains 5mg/mL (not sure what % that is), and I just use a small pipette and put on 2 or 3 drops. But then, I've never actually had scaley face mites in my birds. I just treated a hen once that had a weird beak issue, just in case, and it turned out not to be scaley face after all. And once I treated my whole flock because I was afraid one of them might have had feather mites. Other than that, I've never needed to use my Ivermectin. Oh, I forgot to mention, maybe the change in his diet has caused him to have dry skin? It sounds like he's not getting any seeds, except for his once a week millet treat. Does he seem to like his pellets and eat them well? Or does he go nuts over the millet as though he's starving? We've had a few good artilcles on here lately about pellet diets, and why budgies are natural seed eaters. It's just a thought on why he might be itching and flaking. I don't really know what would cause those symptoms. Maybe someone else will know.

Neville, what is a bird is both violet and mauve? Is that equally as hard to tell from violet and grey? Grey and violet are both colour adding factors so the birds will always have an underlying shade of blue. Your birds cheek patches are not the right shade for a bird that is just mauve but they are a deeper blue than is usual for a grey. This could mean that she is a violet grey or she could be just a grey with brighter than usual cheek patches I think what Neville is saying here, is that she could be grey AND violet, on any shade of blue? Well, here is what I think. You want to pair her up with Whizzbang, right? So I looked him up, here he is: He looks like a Golden face Sky Blue, to me. So, if she is mauve and he is sky blue, you will get all single dark factor offspring. If any come out sky blue, then you can rule out mauve. If any are grey-factored, you will know about that too.

Hey Ralph, do your parents have a safety filter on your computer? My Safe Eyes filter will often block photos that people post, if they aren't on Photobucket. (I can see Phil's photos, so they're not blocked for me.) But often I will have to temporarily disable my Safe Eyes filter in order to see certain pictures. In those cases, the pics just show up as a small box with an x in it, and once I disable the filter and hit refresh, then the photo comes up. If this is the case for you, you will probably have to ask your parents to enter their password, if they will. Otherwise, if you end up emailing with Phil, he can just send them to you in an email.

Well, pretty much, you buy birds that have those mutations, and then breed them together! The cinnamon and opaline are sex-linked genes, and were explained above. Spangle was explained above. Dilute is a recessive gene, so both parents have to be dilute or split to dilute in order to get any dilute babies. And yellowface is recessive to green, but dominant to blue, so you will need at least one parent to be yellowface, and the other can be either yellowface or blue. Color breeding is fascinating, but make sure you also learn about how to care for breeding birds and chicks in the nest. How to breed budgies is a lot more than just how to mix and match their colors.

This tail looks very blue to me, and if I'm not mistaken, aren't greywing tails meant to be grey? So could that be a sign that it's normal? Here are the wings of the same chick. I'm pretty sure it's opaline.

Yes, I would say my eye is definitely untrained. I have a hen chick that hatched last fall, and she was born with plum eyes, so I expected her to feather up cinnamon colored. But she turned out greywing. So I am sure that she is both, but heck if I can see any cinnamon at all! She just looks a little paler than the other greywing chicks from that clutch. At least I don't have to worry about messing up anybody's show stock, when I combine the cinnamon with the greywing. Mine are all just pet types.

Start here, with some of the articles on this page: Budgie Breeding FAQs and then go through the rest of the FAQs. It's a pretty complex question you are asking, and there is a WHOLE lot to learn before you start. It's pretty normal for a hen to take her time getting familiar with the nest box, so while you are waiting for her to do something, you can be brushing up on all the different things you need to know. You will definitely want to make sure you read through the information on how to properly feed budgies. The other most important question to ask yourself, since your hen already has a nest box is: Are you sure she is old enough? (At least one year old, more if she is slow to mature.) If she's not old enough, you need to remove the nest box. She can have it back later, when she's old enough, and you have learned what you are doing. Well, there is a ton of information to be found here. I hope you enjoy reading all about it. And by the way, welcome to the forum.