Finnie

Thanks for your reply! The tricky thing about this cage is that those feed containers are built in to the cage (there's a better picture of one just at the top of this thread). So I'd have to replace them with ones that sit exactly in that gap, or risk having an escapee from the cage! The seed part sits outside the cage, though, so I think I will be okay because the only bit that's in the.... 'firing line' will be the part the bird stands on... so I'll just keep a close eye on that to clean :bump: ? You know, if those food and water container do end up getting fouled, you could always leave them in there empty to fill the gaps, and put different ones up higher in a cleaner location. I'm often trying to rearrange where things go in my cages, and some configurations foul up the food and water, and others don't. Sometimes you just figure it out by trial and error.

Ratzy, they are adorable!

Here are the best pictures I've been able to get. I don't seem to be able to get close enough to him to use the macro setting, he keeps flying away, so the pics are either blurry or too far away. Is it possible for a lutino to have really dark eyes at a young age and then have them turn to a lighter, brighter red? Because he honestly started out with black eyes, when I was constantly checking him for iris rings. I've had him about 4 months now, and his eyes look "less black" but not really red. Maybe they are on their way to lightening up, if that makes sense?

....So Finnie goes off to search some more.... It occured to me that by adding an 's' to eye, it is no longer a three letter word. Then I was able to find this topic, which I knew was somewhere, but I didn't know where to look: Topic about eyes in hatchlings But that is primarily talking about newly hatched chicks. And when I got to the end of it, I noticed that I had already posted about this yellow guy with the not-red-but-not-quite-black eyes. And nobody came on after me in that thread to tell me that my conclusions were wrong. Maybe that was just an oversight. Anyway, I don't want to hijack that other thread away from it's discussion of hatchlings, so I will ask here: If you have an adult budgie with plum eyes and iris rings, does that indicate cinnamon?

okay, so I tried to search for information on different eye colors, and this is all I could find: FAQs Actually, if you type 'eye color' into the search engine, it comes back that you used a word under 4 letters. What I'm trying to find out is if there is a mutation that has dark plum eyes with iris rings. I have an all yellow budgie with iris rings. I never thought he was a lutino, because even though his eyes have a slight dark-red tint in some lights, they usually look black. So I've been figuring that he was a DF spangle. But if he is, he must be masking something that causes that reddishness. I was thinking maybe that's what plum looks like, but I couldn't remember what mutation has plum eyes. Or I suppose maybe he is lutino after all, just with the wrong shade of red eye. I don't think a picture will help in this case. I can try to get one, but with my skills, I'm sure it will come out bad. Just suffice it to say that the eyes look black unless you get it in certain light, and then they look like a dark plum-red. Has anyone got any ideas? Also, while we're at it, what are all the possiblities of eye colors/ iris ring combinations that a budgie could have?

You are making great progress. I noticed something- your play gym has a copper bell. You should remove that, because copper is toxic to budgies. I really don't know why they sell them like that. Your cage looks a lot like mine! If so, it's a great size, isn't it? Did yours come with wooden perches that are bumpy-like?

Well, I hope Finnie and Phoebe have more, but I don't want Colleen to overdo it. It would be nice if she stops soon Do you have any picture's of the young from this discussion, i would love to see what you ended up with. Lib Finnie and Patrick's offspring: Finnie had 9 eggs, but only 6 hatched. There's a mauve greywing, maybe dilute in the lower right, you can barely see. Here's a better picture of that one: Now she's on the left. She looks like she's grey, but since there's no grey in this breeding, she must be mauve. So this clutch had 3 greywings and 3 normals. All dom pied except for the mauve normal on the right. And I actually think they are all hens. There are 2 or 3 that looked iffy, buy now they are showing a little white on their ceres. I put Colleen and Sean's babies in a cage with Phoebe and Bailey's, except for the three I'm keeping and two that I have sold. (Colleen had 7 eggs and 7 babies, and Phoebe had 5 eggs and 4 babies.) So they are mixed together in the following photos. There are actually 6 in that cage, some got into multiple photos. 4 boys and 2 girls. It's interesting to note, that where you see two birds on one perch, they are siblings from the same clutch. No, I had no idea! I had two of the pairs set up to get greywing splits, but never thought that the normal parents were split already, and even the pair that were both normals produced greywings, so I guess I have splits all around!

Finnie and Patrick have two chicks so far. The third was due yesterday, but didn't arrive, so I candled, and it looks like there are 2 or 3 clear eggs. Since it has been over a week since the last egg was laid, I can assume those clear eggs will stay clear. So I will expect egg #4 to hatch tomorrow, and I will also be expecting another miss down the road a bit. We're having an early taste of spring here, and I am starting to get busy with outdoor work. So it will be hit or miss with me getting onto the forum. But I will try to come on and post updates if anything interesting happens.

I'm with GB, Jimmy and the pet shop. Boy. And in your other post about his mutations, he looks like a boy there, too.

Aww, I was going to say recessive pied. Show how confused I still am about pieds.

Based on those photos it seems to indicate she is also very young.Do you mean because the iris rings are so dark? Because they must be dark since I couldn't see them visually, only with the camera flash on her face. I've read that even birds without iris rings actually have them, they are just too dark to see. Maybe Phoebe is one of those. (I've owned Phoebe since last February, so I know she is over a year old, and I guestimated her birthday to be in December sometime.)Now I'm going to want to get pics without flash so we can see what her iris rings normally look like... ...Oh well, so much for getting non-flash pictures of Phoebe. They all came out blurry. But I could tell that her eye rings are NOT visible just by looking. Especially when I look at my other birds, and their iris rings stick out a mile! But at least I could tell that both of her eyes are the same, not one with and one without a ring. I don't know if that means anything, though.

Very nice, Ratzy! They are really cute. It's amazing how fast they grow, isn't it?

I can tell that my second round of eggs/chicks is not getting the press that my first round did! I don't seem to be posting new pictures for each new egg as it is laid. Finnie now has eight eggs, and one has hatched! (So I guess that really means 7 eggs and one chick.) As for Phoebe and Bailey, I was going to let them go a second round, too, to keep Finnie and Patrick company. (In case I needed fosters.) But by the time Finnie had 8 eggs, Phoebe still hadn't laid any. Then I got the idea to swap my pairs around so that I can test breed Phoebe to a normal and Bailey to a normal. So Finnie and Patrick will just have to do their best. They are my only pair breeding this time around. That is probably a good thing. I'm getting too many birds down in my basement, and the dust is starting to permeate the non-bird areas. I've sold one baby, and one of my older hens. It's a start. Tomorrow I am taking 13 of the babies and another older bird to a bird fair, so hopefully I will sell a lot more. I've got to make room for 8 new chicks! My two test pairs will not be put down to breed until I feel that I have been able to sell enough birds. If I find I have no market, it makes no sense for me to keep breeding more than I can keep myself. But it certainly has been a fun adventure! I'll try to keep up with current developments and photos as Finnie and Patrick's second round progresses.

I was finally able to get some good pictures of Phoebe's eyes: right Left So it looks like she has iris rings on both eyes. I don't know if that helps or not, but at least we know she isn't missing any iris rings. I have separated Phoebe and Bailey, because they didn't seem to be trying for a second round of eggs, and it occurred to me that my other pair, which I also separated, are both normals. So I mixed up the pairs and put Phoebe in with Sean and his kids (not in a breeding cabinet, in a large "kindy" cage). And Colleen's spa cage has come back downstairs, and I put Bailey in with her. I will give them some time to adjust, and then my plan is to put them into breeding cabinets, once I feel like they have gotten used to each other. Then, hopefully, it won't be long until we have our test breeding results.

Is this what is meant by "backlining"?

You take very nice pictures, Birdluv. The snow covered trees are pretty.

So if I have it straight, now, we have 3 dominant and one recessive? Which of the ones colored above is the one we normally think of when we just refer to "dommie pieds" Also, I haven't heard of "variegated pied" before. What do they look like? But I thought it was the clearflight pied that combined with recessive pied to make dark eyed clear.

Welcome to the forum, Fiona!

Wow, everyone! Thank you for all the discussion on this. Several of you have suggested doing this, and I agree. I will pair them up separately with normal partners next year, if I am still breeding by then. And the plans I have for Dave involve a normal greywing opaline hen from Sean and Colleen's clutch. I think someone mentioned above that maybe some of the pieds are on different alleles? That is something I will have to look into. And I guess I will have to get a clearer idea of the pieds in general, because I thought there were just three, dominant, clearflight and recessive. All those other names like Danish and Harlequin, etc, I always thought those were just extra names for the same three, so I never bothered getting them straight. I guess it would help if I learned all the proper names.

Father is opaline, so oldest chick with the white down is a hen, right?

I see, Kaz is right, it does upset people. I'm sorry about that, joy4me.

There is many ways, but it wont get talked about out here in the " open" I had a feeling that would be the case. Unless you were passing on what you've heard other people do, like Joy4me's example. I have a dog breeder friend who has had a couple of occasions when a pup was born with a congenital defect and had to be put down. She said they made a box for it with a hole to fit over the tail pipe of their car. I guess with carbon monoxide poisoning, you fall asleep first, and then die in your sleep. That sounds kinder than, say, wringing the neck.

And Macka, why does a burned stick come to your mind when you describe your wife's cat?!?!

If someone really did have to literally cull a bird, is there a kinder way to do it than "knocking it on the head"? I hope I am never called on to have to do this, because I don't think I could stomach doing anything violent to the poor already suffering creature.

So, does this mean that Monster's mother laid new eggs after the hot spell? And the new eggs are only 6 days behind Monster's egg? How many eggs perished during the hot spell, and did you leave them there or throw them away?