Finnie

Kaz, you have a good point there. When I first saw them, I asked the breeder if the parents had done it. She didn't know. (And I'm not surprised, as her house was wall to wall cages, with many species- no way she could keep up with them all.) Well, she had put the 4 budgie babies in a cage with 4 or 5 Rosey Bourkes parakeets, because she thought "parakeets" ought to get along with other parakeets. When I pointed out the pluckings, she thought maybe the Rosey Bourkes had done it to them. Then she noticed that the Rosey Bourkes also had pluckings. And while we were watching them, we saw budgies biting the feet of the Bourkes. This is the first time I've gotten a budgie from a breeder. I've been searching and searching, and have finally found 2. (This one and a more knowledgeable one who I have been e-mailing with.) Both are about an hour's drive from me. These were the only spangles I have ever been able to find, so I bought one, in spite of the plucking. I hope it grows back, too, but if not, he's quite pretty on his other parts. :rofl: Come to think about it, she said she pulled the budgies out of the nest at about the time she put the leg bands on, so she could hand rear them, so I don't think they were even with the parents very long. (They were advertised as hand reared and weaned.) If they were plucked at that early of a stage, that would really mess up their follicles, wouldn't it? He is about 9 weeks old now (hatched Aug.1), so his moult should be coming up. We'll see how it goes.

Oh, thanks, Neville. I figured there were things about spangle I didn't know.

Not serious at all! Despite being quite deep it had completely closed over when we took the band aid off yesterday :rofl: Is it very tricky to do? Meshing is a pain........even Cec said the other day he hated that part of the job. Its slow and tedious and cutting the mesh gives you blisters on all your fingers. Yes, it does! I thought it was just me, holding the cutters to tightly.

I got a new bird today! I know he is spangle, but i was wondering if he is anything else. I'm sorry the pics are bad, he hated being annoyed by the camera, and I finally quit, even though I didn't get real good ones. (I can try again tomorrow.) "> (His shoulders have been plucked by the other birds his breeder had crammed into one cage with him. They were all like that. I'm hoping the new feathers will grow in okay.) "> "> He really didn't like to let the camera get behind him. There's no opaline there, right? But could there be recessive pied? I don't know how the spangle gene affects things, but I think he looks kind of blotchy in places, so I wondered about rec. pied. "> "> Well, thanks in advance for any input. I can try to get better pictures if needed.

Wow, Kate, what a great video! I've never seen one roll on it's back like that. They look like they are a lot of fun.

Well, I'm having to use regular cages, as I don't have actual breeding cages. So I have attached the boxes to one of the food dish openings, on the outside of the cage. I know they would prefer to nest up higher, but I was hoping they would adapt. Before she had a box, one of the hens was spending all of her time on the floor tearing up all the newspaper into shreds, so I was afraid she was planning to lay there, and I figured if she was willing to do that, she ought not to care how high up her next box was. Also, these 2 pairs were already bonded before I split them away from the other birds, and I had them separated for 2 weeks before I put in the boxes, because I was hoping to minimize the chances of cross-fertilization. (I want to know who fathers who.) They have been acting very flirty all this time, and I have witnessed a few attempted matings, but none that looked successful. I was hoping they were having better luck when I wasn't looking, but who knows?

I have 2 pairs set up in different cages. I put their nest boxes in 13 days ago. I would have thought that by now, they would be a little braver about going near the boxes, but they still won't even eat carrot sticks or millet that I clip on that side of the cage. I know I need to be patient, but I am wondering how long other people had to wait, and if this is a more common scenario than I realize. These are first timers, and my first attempt at breeding, so any advice would be extremely welcome! Thanks, Finnie

Congratulations, Neville!! That bird is gorgeous!

I have no experience, so what I say has no weight. But it is good for me to learn too, so I have an idea, and the experienced people can tell us if it is feasable or not. If you wait until it is necessary, and then just take out the hen, like Dave said, and then if you find that the dad won't feed the chicks, are there any older chicks from round one that you could put in with them? Maybe they would feed them. I've heard people say that younger birds will often ask for food from older siblings, and the older siblings will oblige. This seems like it might be a dangerous idea, if the older siblings won't provide enough food. What do you experts think?

Could Storm be a greywing? Because if she is, doesn't that lighten how her color appears? That could explain why she looks like a sky, but threw dark factor chicks.

I'm sorry, I forgot to get back to this post. So this one looks like a regular greywing, but since it is a girl, it has to have inherited the cinnamon gene from her dad. So in theory, I'm right? If you didn't know the genetic background, you would not guess it had cinnamon, huh? I read the article Kaz put a link to, and it perked my interest, especially about the opaline cinnamon greywings that his visitors all like. So I got to wondering if I could produce a bird like that, and how many cinnamon birds would I have to buy to do it, as I have opaline and greywing genes in my little flock, but no cinnamon genes. So I took a pen and paper and spent a whole evening figuring out what pairings and how many generations it would take me. (Don't worry, it was fun ) No matter how I worked it, I couldn't do it by purchasing one cinnamon bird, I needed to start with 2, male and female. Then it would take me four generations (and a lot of luck!) to combine all three of those mutations. So I don't think I will be attempting that. Oh well, that would be a pretty bird to see ( skyblue cinnamon opaline greywing). I don't see too many cinnamon wings in the pet stores around here. I did see a yellow face one once. It was pretty, but it was a hen, and I needed a male. I think if I ever stumbled across a cinnamon that was already mixed with opaline, I would snap it up, and then see about trying to add greywing. Oh well, it's all academic at this point!

Hen Hen Cock Cock Hen ? (Not sure, just guessing )

The top one looks like it could be a cock. If it was me and I had 7, I would buy just the cock, to even up the numbers. (Or if I could get away with more, I would look for a cock for every hen you have that is partnerless! ) My husband doesn't want me to have too many birds, so I understand having to be choosy. If you go to buy the top bird, just make sure he doesn't have any white on his cere. Sometimes my cocks have a lighter shade of blue around the nostrils, but I can tell it's not white. Good luck!

It's fun to have posts like these where we can test our knowledge Before I looked at the answers, my thoughts on the recessives were: 2 DF dom pieds and 1 SF dom pied. That seems to go along with what the others have said. Yay!

That's amazing! It sounds like a woodpecker!

Yes, my mum informed me this morning that he was a Grey wing. Out of all my pairs this is mums favourite. :)OMG......I forgot to mention before.I have always read about how if you candle the eggs at the right time you can actually see the little heart beating. I have never been able to candle and see this but today I used a smaller torch and Oh how exiting I could see the heart beating :ohmygod: okay so maybe not that exiting for anyone else but for me it was :boogie: I would be excited!!! Congrats!

I feel really sorry for those poor plucked babies. I'm so glad you were able to rescue them, Kaz. :happy-dancing: along with everyone else.

:happy-dancing: Ha Ha! Never was seed free! :ohmygod: I've actually been thinking of attaching some kind of flap at the bottom of the doors to direct the seed back inside. Or I could just open that drawer at the bottom a crack and let all the seed fall in there! :boogie: Thank you everyone, for all your compliments. This has solved my dilemma on how to house more birds without hubby complaining about cages everywhere. The dimensions are 33.5"w x 20"d x 40"h. How many birds do you think would be comfortable in that space?

I have two hens who get along great, too. Feeding and preening each other, following each other around and copying off the other. :happy-dancing: And they're not even sisters, they were introduced after quarantine. I'd say it's worth a try, good luck!

I found this cabinet at a garage sale, and since it had removable door panels, I got to thinking I could replace them with wire.... So I looked the whole thing over, and it seemed like a possible plan. I think it's new enough that the stain would not contain lead, and old enough that any fumes from it would long since have dissipated. The wood appears to be pine. I paid $20 for the cabinet, then went to the hardware store and bought 1/2 " vinyl coated wire mesh, and some bolt latches. (Another $39 spent) At home, I removed the inner shelves, the door panels, and the back of the unit. (I also gave it a good cleaning, using minimal water, some bleach, and some vinegar, and dried it out in the sun so as to not damage the wood. This isn't going to be the easiest cage as far as future cleaning goes.) Then I cut the wire into the necessary size pieces. The hardest part of the whole thing was flattening the wire after I unrolled it. In one of the panels I made a smaller opening for access, and fitted a square of wire for the door. (I had to go to a craft store to look for something to hold the wire door shut, and I found alligator clips, which work great, so another $1.59 spent.) Next I installed bolt latches. Two on the inside of the left door, top and bottom to hold it in place, and then one on the outside to latch the right door against the left door. I stapled the wire panels in place, and my husband helped by cutting the original backing down to a smaller size and refastening it to the bottom of the back. Then we put in perches, newspaper on the bottom, toys, feeder cups, etc.. and finally, the birds! All done over one weekend. Here are before and after pictures: Inside view: "> And the final product!: "> "> Not bad for $60.59! (And most importantly, my husband likes it. ) Well, and the birds too....

What sweet pictures! I have a little girl named Caitlin, too. She just went away to college! You will be really glad of these pictures in 18 years! (Believe me, it flies!)

I was thinking about budgie genetics the other day. (Isn't that normal? :emoticon112: ) And I got to thinking, we have normal black wings, all the diluted greywings, and the cinnamon wings. But since cinnamon is a sex-linked gene, and greywing isn't, couldn't a bird have both? What would it look like? So I searched the forum, and came up with only one tiny reference, easily overlooked: (Quote:) Appearance: In appearance the Cinnamon differs primarily from the Normals and Greywings in that its markings are cinnamon-brown instead of black or grey. The Cinnamon varieties, as the Standard indicates, correspond with the Normal varieties of the same body coloring. There is also a lighter form corresponding with the Greywings of the same body coloring (End of Quote) click here to see the post I found this in. It has another link to the article I quoted. So my question is, does anyone else know more about this? Have any of you ever had/bred/seen an example? My guess would be that it would look like a regular cinnamon, only lighter, and therefore, not really distinquishable, unless you happened to know the genetic background and were looking to observe a difference. There's no real reason I want to know this, just curiosity!

Hi Animal Lover, welcome!

This is my favorite one, too! (Looks like my Kelly)

I know just how you feel! I lost a budgie a couple of weeks ago, and now I am paranoid about the rest of them. Any little sign of fluffed feathers, and I am hanging the warming light onto their cage!