Maddy

Good idea Nadene I'll do that. He pecks along the bottom of the nest box and chews the wood shavings so it might help to put something edible in there for him haha He's getting cheeky, he has learnt how to look out of the holes in the side of the nest to see where i am. If he spots me walking past (I take him to work) then he starts to call out for food...despite having a full crop haha This is going to be one spoilt bird. I also got my scales working today and weighed him. He weighed in at 39 grams

Hi everyone, just an update: The baby has been dubbed Harri (still not sure if it is a boy or girl) and its doing well. Onto day 3 and feeding is pretty smooth. Has a feed early morning (about 6:30) then it is usually begging for food again in a few hours so i give a little snack off a spoon. Then there is another feed at lunchtime and dinner with a snack in between if he's begging for it. The crop empties completely each night so he is calling for food early morning again. It eats well both off of a spoon and out of a syringe. I use the spoon for the snack and just let him decide when he's had enough. For the main feeds I use the syringe and boy does he know what it looks like already...it has quite the pair of lungs. I find i get more in with the syringe so i use that until he loses interest and/or he has a nice full crop. Then he has a little budgie doze for a bit to sleep it off. I'm going to get the pair of scales out today to weigh him as i just read its a good way to keep a progress record. I also have a question about weaning. Do i start mixing seed into the hand rearing formula to get him used to it? I heard about crumbles, is that like chick starter?

Hi everyone. Haven't been around in a while, been running into all sorts of problems. First a storm rolled through and a tree branch crushed my aviary, so Ive been looking to find a temporary solution. I also purchased my first house which has given me no time left to look after the birds, not to mention zero success at breeding last season so........ But i have 2 chicks so far this time (2 better than last time) however the hen is a newbie and seems to have forgotten that she needs to feed her chick (or the cock has im not sure) Its about 3 weeks roughy (i didnt write down the date silly me) and its pin feathers are just breaking now. I have successfully fed it twice today and it has been happily chirping in its sleep in between feeds. I knocked up a quick little birdy puch which i can wear around my neck so i can take it with me (I cannot leave it at home because 1. Im never there anymore and 2. the cats are crafty) I have my snake's old heat mat ready for tonight for when it gets chilly and plan to feed it once more before i go to bed. Im just wondering if anyone can give me some handy tips or some extra advice to help in my success. This is my first time hand rearing

Still not the best of luck here After having 6 chicks at one time, all of them are now dead. One died of yellow belly, another got crushed by its bigger siblings and the other four....well, I have no clue. They have been dying at about 1 week of age. They look perfectly fine (except for being dead) and have food in their crop. One I found yesterday morning on deaths door, freezing and in the same position as the others when i found them. I took her in and fed her, took her to work, kept her on a heat mat and she was fine. I woke up this morning and she was dead. She looked fine, still had food and it seemed as though she had died standing (or in her sleeping position). Its depressing. Does anyone have any idea what's happening? And why did she die? Did I do something wrong? I keep blaming myself.

I have done that, however, my back yard seems to have bred some kind of super-resistent spider that laughs in my face when I spray them directly with the liquidator lol. The hen seems to have finally picked up her game though, as the chick is still alive and has a full crop. Another chick hatched, but that one seemed to die of unknown causes.

I will Kaz. I'll have to do a thorough search, though I'm not expecting to find anything alive (unless its a spider, lots of those)

No because my flights open up into the breeding room, which is closed when I open the flights. So I would of seen her. It's just one big giant mystery

Funnily enough that was the first though that popped through my head. But then I remembered that she couldn't be because she only came out of quarantine last month. I had another look again today and she is still missing. It's got me baffled. On a lighter note, the chick is still alive

I see the spangle too Finnie. He is also lacking in facial spots which could be the spangle. The large poos are normal. But they are a pain to clean up, because it seems to go everywhere lol As fr transferring, I would wait until the chicks have hatched and are older (so not new chicks) or just wait until they have fledged.

But I've found I have the same results without trimming. So in nest #6 I had all clear last round. Now I have 4 fertile, without trimming. I checked the cock and hen flight. She would be the only grey bird amongst the two so she wouldn't be hard to spot I would think. I also swept up all seed in the flights this morning. So I am completely clueless as to where she went

Okay so we are up to round 2. A lot more fertile eggs, spread out amongst majority of the nests (so not just one) As I was cleaning this morning, I heard some peeps. Opened a nest and an egg was starting to hatch ( I could see the little pink head sticking out) But it is in the fail parents nest, so I'll see if the hen makes good of her second chance. Also, a little puzzle for you guys. I was cleaning the hens' flight and realised I had an empty cabinet. So I decided to put in an experienced hen I had gotten at the last club show. Well I looked...and looked....and was thinking to myself after two thorough looks at the hens "Where the **** is she?" I checked the corners, any holes, the cocks' flight. Everywhere, and no sign of this hen....it's like she was never there. Has this happened to anyone? You know, a hen turning phantom and disappearing off the face of the planet?

I have read several articles regarding trimming the vent feathers. From what I've seen it doesn't really change the success rate. Chick #2 died tonight. Fed it in the afternoon, came back late at night and it was so weak, crop empty. I couldn't save it. I just don't know what to do. These were the only chicks this round among all the pairs and the stupid hen wouldn't feed them. I'm so down. Its upsetting waiting for the day they hatch to have them die.

I'm gonna say girl

So another chick hatched this morning. I don't have to work till lunchtime so I can keep an eye on it. In the meantime, I thought it was overdue to remove all the empty eggs from my bird room 23 infertile eggs were removed. The really poopy one on the top is a DIS I removed from the nest with the one chick. Its really disheartening to have that many clear eggs, especially because there is another 6 out there I know is clear also, I just haven't removed them. I don't understand what I'm doing wrong. 1 chick out of 30 eggs is really bad. The other nest that had one fertile, I'm pretty sure that is a DIS as well. Shining the torch through, it looked very green. Can anyone enlighten me as to why my success rate is non existent?

My efforts were in vain, as I got back tonight and the chick was dead, still not fed. One of the other eggs is peeping, but I'm not sure if I should give the hen another chance or foster it out straight away

okay so I left home at 9 and got back at 12 and the chick still hadn't been fed. So I sprung into action, got some hand rearing formula, watered it down to a liquid and put it in a 3ml syringe. There is something magical about watching the baby take its first little gulps

1st chick hatched today. It hatched in nest #7 I took this opportunity to put some nesting back in the box, as the chick was just laying on the hard wood. Needless to say, the hen didn't like it and immediately began to kick some out. But she'll get over it. However the chick didn't have anything in his crop as far as I could see, but I don't know how long since he hatched. I couldn't see any egg remnants. But I have to go out this morning, so I'll have to check when i get back.

Thats what I thought, but I also though 'Hey, can't hurt to ask?' Considering I've never heard a chick inside the egg before

I was starting to lose hope for one of my pairs 3 eggs. The hen kicked out all the nesting and wanted to always have the eggs outside the concave on the bottom of the nest. This would cause them to roll around quite a bit when she left as there was nothing around them to stop it. Well, After checking again this afternoon and seeing a freshly laid egg and still no babies, I figured that that was it. But I lifted one of the eggs to my ear and sure enough, I heard a high pitched peep coming from inside. Needless to say it surprised me and I almost dropped it, can't say I've ever experienced that. I'm sure it just means its ready to come out, but just in case... Do I need to help the chick?

I had another look today. I compared the eggs with the veins with the clear eggs. They seem to be a bit darker today and especially compared to the other two. So I'll wait until tomorrow. If they haven't changed I'll get a picture. I also did an egg count today (with 3 eggs being laid today) and I'm up to 24, with 3 definite fertile and majority of others two early to tell

I'm hoping it is, I will be happy even if it's only 2/4 eggs. The dates of the 4 eggs she is sitting on is 5/3, 7/3, 10/3, 12/3 She was on and off the eggs for a while, but it seems now she's really getting down to it, so I would say after the egg laid on the 10th Which all adds up really, being the 16th that gives that egg 6 days to start showing. Its just the one red vein that got me worried. I'm used to getting a red glow and lots of little veins

I have been persistently candling eggs hoping for some fertility. While pair #7 has all three full (and I like the cock so that's a plus) the others all seem clear at the moment, but it is still early. However while candling the eggs in Pair #6's nest, I noticed two of the eggs have a large red vein forming around the outside of the egg. I cannot for the life of me find any information on this so I am assuming that they will form more veins in the next few days, but I remember reading something somewhere that it means they're bad. I dunno, I guess I'll find out. Pair #5 laid a fresh egg yesterday, with an 8 day gap between the others so I am inclined to chuck those ones if she lays more (and they are infertile of course) I have been meaning to grab a pen to mark eggs but I'm too scared I'll press to hard or get the wrong kind. I'm pretty sure it's supposed to be a non-toxic, water soluble pen...but I might feel better just not doing anything lol So there is a lot more going on this season, so much so that I realised today that I don't have any rings lol Luckily my club's member in charge of rings live two streets away. And just to jazz up this picture-less post, here's a picture I drew on my iphone last night http://i1191.photobucket.com/albums/z474/Pink-Budgie/Screenshot2012-03-15at114057PM.png

Actually, I did buy fake eggs only on sunday. I saw them and thought that they may work. She's not the best hen, but I figured if I put her to a really nice cock I may have some success.

I have a hen that wouldn't even let her eggs go cold before eating them. I only know this because I caught her laying, scared her out of the box when i checked, and she went straight in and ate it lol Needless to say I haven't bred with her since. But that's good news about the normal looking eggs

Can't sex with shape as far as i know. But from what I can see, the bottom left baby is a girl, bottom right is a boy, and the top is a girl and the middle I think is a girl. But like you said, it was taken with a flash, so I could be wrong about the middle one. You tell by the colour. See how the bottom left baby and the top baby have white around the nostril and the bottom right doesn't? White is a sign of female