Finnie

then why the lack of iris rings?? he is far from being a baby now. Unless he is getting his rings very late, there is not a single sign of them coming in. Could he be recessive pied underneath all that df spangle?

Oh Ratzy!! How exciting!! Isn't it awesome to see the first tiny little pinkie?

Newest updates Colleen has laid 1 egg off the perch in her "spa". She keeps having egg-size poops, but hasn't laid another egg as scheduled, so hopefully she's done. Yesterday I found a half of a broken egg in Finnie's nest box. I'm sure it didn't have a chance with six fledgeling size babies in there. So I pushed each of the six out of the nest, and blocked the hole. After a bit, I went back and reopened the hole, to see if they would go back in, and as of bedtime, they hadn't gone back in. But, Finnie has laid a new egg in there. I'm hoping she will just keep the old babies from going back in, but not attack them. In the meantime, I am working on getting a kindy cage ready for them. As soon as it looks like they can eat on their own, I will move them over to it. Here's a shot of the half dozen: In Phoebe's clutch, one has ventured out so far, but has gone back in. He looks suspiciously like a clear flighted pied to me, as opposed to a dominant pied, so I will be doing some reading up on the differences, and also try to get some photos of this guy. It's rather difficult to feed and change newspapers in these breeding cabinets without a baby getting loose. Believe me, of the three that have gotten out so far, they can really fly well! I would be extremely paranoid if I were trying to breed outdoors! It puts having a safety door in a whole new light.

If there are no eggs in the nest box, you could just take it out until the weather cools off. That will give them time to get their "mating act" together. It's normal for them to mate anyway, even when they're not trying to lay eggs, so they don't really need a nest box now. And it's normal for the males to amuse themselves with other objects, too.

GB, don't feel bad. Thanks to this comment from RIP, I have learned something valuable, because I, too, have thought an opaline recessive pied bird was spangle before, and now I know how to tell it is not. Thanks, RIP and GB!

Since I like to have fun with Punnet squares, I gave this a try, GB. But I can only work out the percentages of each gene separately. I know there's a way to get percentages of all 3 combined, but it's too complicated for me. So, I think you said pair a grey bird with single dark factor to a green bird, split for blue with grey factor and double dark factor. I'm not sure if you mean single grey factor or double grey factor, so I went with single for both birds. Here goes. As far as getting green series or blue series offspring, you would get 50% green split for blue, and the other 50% just blue. Now as for the dark factor, 50% would have double dark factor (olive or mauve) and 50% would have single dark factor (dark green or cobalt). Then for grey factor, you would get 25% double grey factor, 50% single grey factor, and 25% no grey factor. Maybe someone will come along with a genetic calculator and get the percentages of each that would combine all three genes.

I have to keep vanilla on hand for hubby! He doesn't like all the fancy gooey flavors the rest of us like!

The plan is to sell them. There are no budgie breeders in my area, so I thought I might fill a niche. However, if I'm not able to sell them, I will keep them. But that would curtail future breeding plans, because there are 17 chicks, and that is a lot to add to my flock! I hadn't thought they would be this prolific!

Well, I know you all like photos, so here is a little guy peeking out from behind the Ice cream tub igloo. Here are more from their first day outside the nest box: Colleen is off to the spa. (Moved to my bathroom.) With all the doors shut between her and Sean, I doubt she can hear him, and with all the din in the basement, I doubt he can hear her!

You bet :hap: As my sister in law told me, gotta take one for the team!

Aww, Daniel. You haven't been around long enough. GB has a big heart. Get to know her better, and please, don't take offense so easily.

Update: Last night when I checked the nest boxes, I noticed that Colleen has laid a new egg! Her youngest of the 7 chicks is just 3 1/2 weeks old. I don't want Colleen and Sean to go through the stress of another round, so I'm planning to remove any eggs she lays. But I'm wondering, if I remove them too soon, will it just encourage her to keep laying more, but if I just leave the egg alone for now, will that cause a problem, too? I'm considering just leaving everything alone for another few days, and when the youngest is 4 weeks, put them all to the bottom of the cage, and remove the nest box. So far, the oldest two are staying out full time, and the next two are going in and out, which leaves 3 full timers inside the box. I prefer to take a hands off approach, but I will be keeping an eye out for any bad behavior on Colleen's part. All advice and suggestions are welcome!

How is 30th Jan to now, 10th Feb over a month GB ??? Dingo, How soon after they were laid did you candle them. You often don't see signs of life straight away. You could give it more, based on incubation time etc... or if you are 100% sure they are infertile, I'd remove them and the box and try again later if you wish. Let us know how you go. I think I misread this the same way as GB. I was thinking they were laid on Jan 4th and 5th! Went back and re read, and realized Maesie is right. Oops So if the eggs are only 5-10 days old, it sounds like maybe Dingo just candled them too soon?

Thanks birdluv. I was afraid that may be the case - I really wanted a talker, not that it matters that much, just thought it would be fun. Charka doesn't say much, just a loud squawk every now and then and a lot of garbled warbling, but I have noticed that Pretty Boy mumbles away to himself at night in a different kind of way than their daytime chatter. I talked to him last night when he was in mumble mode and he put his head on the side like he was listening to me, and mumbled something each time I paused but I'm probably wishful thinking! Anyway I'm... hopeful... but won't hold out too much hope then. ta Just to give you a little encouragement, I have a cage with two birds in my main living area. (The rest I keep in the basement.) One of the birds was fairly friendly from day one, and the other one has a liver problem (I'm assuming) and doesn't play or talk much. Because she is so boring, I think the friendly bird is bonding with me more than her. Anyway, I swear that lately his buzz chattering has evolved into a couple of phrases. (Hello pretty bird, and "pretty, pretty,pretty, pretty) Those are phrases I say to my birds constantly, so I would say, keep up with your key phrase, and sooner or later you may be pleasantly surprised.

He's still a cutie, Birdluv! It must be nice that he's so friendly, isn't it?

Naw, you didn't miss the picture! I didn't put one up of Kelly in this topic because she had her own topic in the Bringing Home New Budgies section, back in August.

Yes, Amy, I have two yellowfaced greywing hens! Sorry,about that! Here is Sorcha, who I bought in October. She is a YF mutant 1, or possibly Goldenface, or a combination of both. Also, she is cobalt. And here is Kelly, who I bought in August. She is a skyblue YF2 greywing. I think Kelly is yf2 because there is some suffusion of yellow into her body and wings, however, she has gone through 2 moults since I got her, and the suffusion is not turning her to a seafoam green, like I expected. So Kelly could be a yf1, likd Sorcha. But her colors over all are much more diluted than Sorcha's.

Hi Clearwing, Are you referring to my comment about the stringy thing next to the spangle? Because I went back and looked, and realized that the comment was meant to go with the picture above it, but there is another stringy thing in the photo below it, too. And in the lower photo, yes, it's next to Kelly, my yellowface greywing hen. But if you look in the photo above, there is a twiney napkin ring hung from the perch, and it its near the spangle, Donovan. (And Kelly is there, too, further to the left.) Sorry for the confusion. -Finnie

Good morning from Indiana. Sorry I missed this, yesterday. I didn't come on the forum at all. I, too was up at 6:30, GB, taking care of small puppy. (By the way, GB, what is "Nippers"?) We spent the morning at Sunday School and Church service, and then in the afternoon I made cookies for my husband, as it was his birthday, and I hadn't made him a cake. The big thing around here yesterday, though, was the SUPERBOWL!!! (Unfortunately, the Indianapolis Colts lost to the New Orleans Saints. 31-17.) The temperature here right now today (Monday morning) is -7C. We have about 9 inches of snow on the ground, and they are warning of more snowstorms coming this afternoon! OH boy!

Lack of natural light is a problem. There is one window, but it is small. To compensate, I have bought a couple of 5 arm floor lamps, and I've put fluorescent bulbs in some of the arms, and some light bulbs that are labeled "full color spectrum" in other arms. I don't put a lot of faith in the label "full color spectrum", because I think it is meant more for how the light appears in your room, rather than how strong of light waves it is emitting. But, hopefully between the two types of light, they will do okay. I also make sure they get calcium and vitamin d3 supplements in their water. Here are some photos of the lighting set-up:

This is what I meant when I said laft it longer to trim between beak trimmings :laughter: I was referring to the four weeks. Oh, gotcha! I agree, 3 weeks seems like a better time period.

I really do like having a "bird room"! When I talked my husband into letting me breed the budgies, my limit was going to be 12 birds, including any babies I kept. Once we set up the bird room in the basement, I suddenly felt more free to make my own decisions on what birds to buy and how many to keep! (My oldest daughter was living in that half of the basement, and she moved out and left all her stuff there, which I piled into one corner. I don't think she'll be wanting to move back any time soon! :laughter: ) I'm trying, Ratzy. My goal is to put up a little blurb about each bird with a few pictures. But I am slow. And right now photographing birds has taken a back seat to housebreaking the puppy. But I will re post a couple of pictures of the long cage, just for you. (By the way, the long cage is 65"wide, 21"deep, and 34" high.) (Note to Kaz, this is an old photo, and that deadly toy has made it's way in there, bottom left. It must have been one of my favorites, but I swear, I don't have it anymore. They like string type preening toys, but I'm being careful now to make sure the string parts are very short. ) Look, you can see that the hanger that string toy was on is empty in this picture! I think what happened was that it fell down to the bottom and got pooped on, so I threw it away. That was before I knew it was dangerous. Oh, and that beige stringy thing that's on the perch there, next to the spangle, that was a napkin ring I got at Goodwill. It's wrapped in twine or something, they love to tear at it.

Being the mom of five, I'm usually pretty good at helping people find stuff. But that doesn't mean my powers will work across oceans. But just in case, here goes. Mom's # 1 rule of looking for something: Look under the bed (or sofa, depends on the room you're in) Check, you've done that. #2, look where it belongs. (My kids never can find the things that have been put away properly. It's like in Snow White: "The dishes ain't stole, they's hid in the cupboard!" Then after checking all the places you think it could be, start looking in all the places you think it could NOT be. (After all, it's not somewhere you would expect.) My kids never believe this one. They say "Mom, it won't be THERE" This, of course, causes them to find the item. Splat, it sounds like you've already been checking unlikely places, i.e. the fridge. Have you checked the grass between the car and the house? My daughter found a set of keys that way once. I don't really know what else to suggest, but I'm sure you will find them, like Greg says, when you stop looking. Good luck. :rofl:

You wish Mr Dont Share Your Pieds McMinn :rofl: She's got you there, Dave! :rofl: :rofl:

Sorry, I just meant not to trim it quite so short so that I get into the blood. That kind of "longer" :rofl: I do think I'm getting a feel for it. I could tell that the last cut I made "felt" different than when I was clipping the dry, dead part. Next time I think I will be better at leaving a small margin. Thanks for the encouragement, Dave! :rofl: