Finnie

I think I must have missed this part. It sounds interesting, though. Short of going back and scrolling through 44 pages of posts, do you know if I should look toward the beginning, middle or end to find it?

We are meant to count 18 days from when the hen starts to incubate the eggs. Supposedly that starts around the time she lays her 2nd or 3rd egg. But apparently, some hens will start to sit from egg 1. So, if egg 1 was July 21, then egg 3 was, maybe, around July 25. So then roughly you are looking at somewhere between Aug 8th and 12th. You may still have a whole week to go. But here is a sure-fire trick to get your baby to hatch: Come on here a few days before you expect your chickie, and post that you still have 2 or 3 days to wait. Guaranteed, your baby will hatch that same day!! (I'm just kidding, but honestly, this happened to me several times. I'm sticking with it as my theory! )

They are coming along nicely, Cory. I thought it was interesting that in neither of your dom pied nests did you get any normal (non pied) chicks. But then I went back and looked at Zuzu, and he is df dom pied, so that explains that one. (All of the chicks of that pair will be dom/recessive.) But I think Sonny looks like sf dom pied, so it's interesting that he didn't throw any normals. As far as clearflight pied vs dom pied, I used to think clearflight meant only the primary flights were clear. But I've asked around, and the answers I get just confuse me. So now I just call everything with the banded stomach a dom pied and everything with a clear stomach a clearflight pied. (Even though I know that's probably wrong. ) One breeder I know told me that you can tell by whether their tail feathers were clear or marked. She even showed me on my babies, but what she showed me seemed to be the opposite of how she was saying it. So I just smiled, nodded my head, and gave up.

Five hatchlings in two days! That's got to be some kind of record!!! Wow. I'm glad it's you and not me that has to take care of 100+ chicks. Plus setting up more pairs. What a glutton for punishment! No, seriously, congratulations on such a successful season. I'm glad everything's going well for you.

Libby is right, Tomlou. You've seen pictures, and you know you are expecting a chick, but the first time you actually see one, it is an amazing surprise! I'm excited for you. Pretty soon you'll be posting the happy news!

Thanks, Tomlou! I noticed the obits, too, after I took all the pictures! I feel a little guilty about airing people's dead loved ones on the internet, but there's no way I'm re-doing the whole photo shoot! I always think I am picking out unique mutations, but when I go down and look at my flock, it seems that almost all of my birds are light blue, grey wings and yellow faces, in some combination or other. I guess there is a trend in what I like. I have never even yet owned or hatched out a light green normal! And speaking of 15 budgies, I guess I better go change my number of birds kept from 15 to 19.

I agree with this. I have coated wire for some of the cages I have made, and there are places where the birds have chewed off the coating. It's not a problem in my situation, because they are small cages, and indoors. But in an aviary situation where it is exposed to the elements, and you would need to hose it down somtimes (I assume) it seems like it could become a problem.

I like this one. And Will could be Willie, if necessary. (As in Wilhelmina.)

Thank you, Squeak!

Every once in a while I go around to check the pet stores to see if they have any budgies with mutations I've been wanting. Lately I've been on the lookout for a cinnamon opaline cock. Then the other day I decided I would also like to have a yf2 recessive pied hen. (I could breed one of my own, but that would take a couple of years.) So I went out looking. Of course, if you go out looking for trouble, you will find it, and I did. I came home with four birds! Introducing, Athos, Porthos, Aramis and d'Artagnan! (you can guess what I've been reading this summer ) Athos Porthos Aramis d'Artagnan They aren't exactly cinn op cocks and yf2 rec pied hens, but they have their redeeming qualities! Athos and Porthos are actually cinnamon opaline hens, not cocks. (I know I've given them boy names, but there are no girl Musketeers! ) So I still have no cinn op cock, but now I have three in hens, so I figured I can breed them and get cocks split for cinnamon and opaline, and then breed those back to the hens. So three hens is not too many. And they also double as yf2 pied hens. In the store I had myself convinced that maybe, just maybe, they were recessive pieds. (Due to their blotchy wing markings.) Unfortunately, they have their wings clipped, so it makes it hard to tell what they really are. I am pretty sure they are nestmates, though, because they are so much a like. Aramis was also at the same store with the girls. I got to thinking he could be their nest mate, as well, and thus could be split for cinnamon. Besides, he was so pretty, I couldn't pass him up. That brown on his tail is from the substrate on the floor of the cage in the store. It looked like they had reptile litter in their. A lot of the birds in there had brown tails. I've bought birds from that store before, and it wears off. The reason I want a cinnamon opaline cock is because my ultimate goal is to breed a sky blue cinnamon opaline greywing. So Aramis fits in with those plans, even if he isn't cinnamon or split to it. (But if he turns out to be, that could jump me light years ahead in my plan!) Now, d'Artagnan was from a different store. But he, too, is a yf2 opaline, so he looks a lot like Athos and Porthos. (I doubt if they are related, though, since it was a different chain of stores. One that I know buys from a set commercial bird dealer.) When I first saw d'Artagnan, I thought he might be cinnamon! But then I could see that his markings are just a dark grey. But his coloring is so unique, I just had to have him. To me he looks like a pale, greenish, bluish, greyish color. I've never seen a budgie like him. I think he's either got a grey factor, or he's mauve. And I think the unusual color comes from the yellow bleeding into it, plus the greywing washing it out. I think he's at the tail end of his first moult, because his cap is broken, he has a few pin feathers, and his clip-job is growing out. So I don't know if he will stay this color, or if it will change as he goes through a second moult. I guess it's 'wait and see', like everything else that has to do with budgies! :rofl: I also think d'Artagnan is some kind of pied, but not sure on that, either. I had hoped it was rec. pied, but I think his cere is too blue for that. Same with Aramis, cere is not pink. But Aramis could be a df dom pied, or a combo pied. Well, here are some more pictures of the lot:

It kind of looks like it might be a greywing spangle, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was a normal spangle. Gosh, sorry to be so helpful! The markings on the very tips of the primary flight feathers look darker than the rest. Maybe after it moults out, it will be a clearer difference.

Hi Drew! I think if you get a second budgie, chances are Sol will bond with it, instead of you. Which is okay, but if you want him to bond with you, I would give it some more time. You would need to quarantine the new one for 30 days, during which time you could be working on taming them individually. A lot of times you can tame them when you have more than one in a cage, but it takes more work. There is no need to automatically take a newly purchased budgie to the vet. Just keep them separated for 30 days to make sure neither one has any symptoms. (If you see signs of illness, that's a different story.) Oh, and I think your cage is a little on the small side, but hard to tell, unless you give us the dimensions. It looks like a tight fit for two.

What a wonderful aviary, GB! Your workmanship looks very nice!

This website is okay http://www.budgieplace.com/colorsguide.html also this onehttp://www.officialbarrieshuttbudgerigars....rsmutations.htm Before posting links elsewhere try looking at the wealth of info already here at BBC forum We do have a wealth of information here, but do we have a page that explains it all in beginner's terms? I started to look for a link to paste here, but it looks like everything is separated into many different articles. As for the link to the Budgie Place, that is where I learned the mutations, before I even knew about BBC. "Easy Peasy" is a very accurate description!

They are beautiful! (And it looks like GB was right about the opaline.)

Ratzy, these are your babies, right? Don't forget that siblings feed each other, and they may not have grown out of it yet.

Hi Finnie. Thank you. I will try to post a couple of photos, soon. I may be getting a few more budgies this afternoon. I am going to meet a breeder in a neighboring city. Well...okay... But then you are going to owe us TWO SETS OF BUDGIE PICTURES!!

I love this picture of the tail pins! (And I'm no good at guessing mutations this young. )

You got it right! Unfortunately, since the chicks with only one greywing gene look normal, you can't tell which ones, if any, are split.

I'm not sure, but I've heard someone say before that if you change the perches and everything around in her cage, it might disrupt her from laying. Might be worth a try. Oh, and welcome to the forum!

Hi Rasur! Welcome! Do you have pictures of your budgies you can put up? We love pictures, here. I like spangles and yellowfaces, too, and I'd really like to see some!

Yea That was a surprise, never expected Jasper to be split greywing, and it looks like a full body color greywing too since his body feathers are coming out a very bright violet skyblue. I'm really excited about him, the youngest one also looks like a greywing I'm starting to think that being split for greywing is more common than I thought, for pet shop budgies. I was surprised when it turned out that all four of the black-winged parents I used last time turned out to be split for it! I bet your yellowface with the bright body color will turn out really beautiful! It will be interesting to see how it moults out.

I've been following this thread, and today I wanted to look it up again to see Kaz's ingredients, and for the life of me, I could not find it. I was checking all the different forums that seemed feeding related, and even the faq's section. I finally found it by looking up 'this week's active topics'. That's when I noticed it is in the 'Breeding Show Budgerigars' forum! I never thought to look under Show Budgies! Could we maybe get this moved to the food and nutrition section, so it's easier to find if someone wants to know what to feed their breeding birds?

Is that a greywing I spy at the top there? (The yellowface?)

Here's a picture of the parents :rofl: I'll post a new thread for an update on my entire flock, I know you've had some chicks too. I really want to see! :hap: Is that Snowflake and Oliver? My how Oliver has grown! Here is a link to my first breeding journal, where you can see some pics of my chicks: Finnie's Breeding Journal