i have a batch of 6 young currently leaving the box and my only 2 normal blues have what i think is frenh moult. was wondering if there is anything i could do to prevent this from happening again and will the feathers eventually grow?

 

 

 

is this condition passed on from the parents or is it a safe bet to sell the parents?

thanks

Edited February 6, 200817 yr by KAZ

i have a batch of 6 young currently leaving the box and my only 2 normal blues have what i think is frenh moult. was wondering if there is anything i could do to prevent this from happening again and will the feathers eventually grow?

 

 

 

is this condition passed on from the parents or is it a safe bet to sell the parents?

thanks

Sometimes its nutritional reasons and other times not. I have had three chicks in a nest the same as yours upon fledging, two of those three grew back their feathers and full flights one did not.

If it was from the parents you'd be better off culling them instead of selling them- someone else may start breeding with them.

Hopefully its just an environment thing- cute pair of runners you have!!

Timbo, from my experience, those two look more like the ones that don't grow back their flights. But it's hard to say, as most of the cases I have had have grown back. Some drop their feathers & almost immediately grow what appear like normal flights & appear normal from then on, but some keep growing distaughted feathers two or three times before getting more normal feathers. I guess it depends on the extent of damage done be the virus, some bird seem much more prone to it than others, as you can have normal chicks & damaged ones in the same nest. If you read on the net articles from research scientists, they say that most birds become immune in under 12 months, but a few remain carriers, whether the ones that don't ever grow back normal feathers have a more chance to be carriers or not, is hard to know.

 

Once you have had one case it will probably spread, that has been my experience, but I have just learnt to live with it, as most pairs still produce normal chicks, some breeders use various virus sprays, but I have choose not to do that.

Edited January 1, 200817 yr by Norm

I've had them grow back from that stage. That is French Moult.

 

I'd be spraying everything with a good disinfectant. I use F10ss.

if french moult is a virus then how does it transmit?

in another cage i have more french moult and its very frustrating because i'm getting some beautiful colours. the parents of both lots of young that had/has the moult haven't had any contact with each other. i've never had the moult in the avairy but since i started breeding birds in the cages i had. all the birds are fed the same feed.

Edited February 4, 200817 yr by timbo.1

I have had a clutch of 4 and one gets it.... I don't know but it is frustrating. I had two over Christmas but they grew there feathers back.

 

I have two at the moment. I experience 1 in ten last year with it. For months I got none and thought I'd gotten rid of it.

They say it spreads from dust from feathers. In my case I had started out with Budgies again & was buying in new birds, that didn't have any signs of it, but maybe some could have been carriers. The first case I had was with one pair that I had already had two batches of young, with no problems at all, then on their third batch the last chick to leave the nest dropped it's tail & wing flights, but quickly grew them back & looked normal. This year I have bred a couple of batches from this hen; none of her chicks had any problems. Then I had a full nest of young with FM from a sister of this bird, I tried a second batch & had the same problem, so I stopped breeding with them. Then slowly I got some other nests with one or two FM's. In the same building where this batch occurred. In my other aviary complex about 200 metres down the hill, where the first one appeared the year before, I had no problems until just of late I have now started getting a couple of nest with FM. So it's hard to know how it spreads, it may have spread by me moving between the different areas, but why it took months to do it I don't know. Definitely some birds are more prone to it than others.

Edited February 5, 200817 yr by Norm

I've only had one french moult bird as of yet to date... He/she passed away unfotunatly, but since then i've not seen any... all my birds are in the same avairy and same cabinets near the aviary... :S?

thanks Norm thats sounds interesting. just another question now that FM is in my bird shed next to the avairy am i stuck with FM?

My experience with french moult is some birds get it and some don't. I have had three chicks in a nest get french moult and the other two dont. I have had chicks from the same eggs...half the eggs hatched and raised in a foster nest and no french moult and the others in another nest do get french moult.

I have had chicks that dropped all their flights either before leaving the nest or just after....and look like yours....and months later two out of three will be back to normal and one wont.

I think what I am finding in common is that some parents arent as good at feeding their babies and that puts the chicks into stress and they then lose their feathers. Some chicks lose their feather upon fledging which is also another stress condition and they must learn to feed themselves or the parents arent feeding them as well....and they lose their feathers.

My findings are...I believe its nutritional in some cases and stress in others. Some recover and some dont.

BUT...I do know that having a french moult baby or two in my kindie cage and fledgling aviary DOES NOT affect the other healthy ones in any way.

There is a chick I have....the WORST case I have ever seen !! She was from donor eggs. Three chicks raised in one nest from the donated eggs....one chick raised in another nest. Of the three chicks in one nest ...ALL lost their feathers......two regained them. Of the sibling in another nest raised by other parents....no feather loss at all. So that tells me nutritional...insufficient parental feeding.

This is a grey spangle hen...well she was until she lost ALL of her feathers. She is without a doubt the ugliest little bird I have ever seen in my life ! She has body heat that would fry an egg !! Red skin from the heat, no attempted new feather growth and will NEVER grow feathers.

BUT every time I think she would be best put out of her misery ( euthenased ) I look at her...perching, climbing, eating and singing...

and I melt. She has this " I'm a BIG BUDGIE, I am !!" kind of look in her eye and she dares me to do anything about it. So I pick her up and give her a cuddle and put her back and watch her run around on the perches just trying to be a BIG BUDGIE. Remind me to NEVER show her herself in a mirror as I swear she does NOT know she is a little scrawny naked budgie !!

 

Here is my little ugly grey spangle hen chick PLUCKER

 

 

Edited February 6, 200817 yr by KAZ

You go little Plucker!

Show them you don't need feathers to be a 'big budgie' .

 

I definitely think this is a case of 'it is so ugly it's cute', I mean look at that last picture

Soooo cute!!!! But it's sad she's sick

Edited February 6, 200817 yr by *libby*

Plucker has a best friend

 

That's priceless.

I agree with most of what Kaz says, as I had similar experiences, I’m not sure about the nutritional part, definitely different birds feed better than others, so it may have some effect, like the batches she mentions, where the fostered ones in two different nests turned out with & without, certainly seems to point to nutrition, but it could be the effects of exposure, where the virus was in one nest & not the other. But I’m more inclined to think that why you get some with FM & others without it is something to do with genetic susceptibility. I have had one bird in a batch without it & in others only one got it & all the others were okay & variation where a few got it & all the others were normal. The reason I think that they loose feathers just before leaving the nest or on leaving is I think because the feather shafts are weakened & it’s only after they start to try to fly [practice with their wings] that the feathers fail & fall out.

 

Reading what the experts say about it, they think it’s most likely that it happens in the egg, but if half of a batch of eggs hatch as Kaz states & get it & the other half don’t it doesn’t seem like it was already in the egg. It seems that birds are mostly susceptible very early in life, I have had a few birds that had already been in the aviary for a week or two & then lost some wing & tail feathers, but that’s the only time I’ve noticed any susceptibility to it in older birds. In these older birds the effect was very slight.

 

Timbo as to whether you are stuck with it of not, that’s a difficult question to answer, experts say if you get cases of it, it’s best to stop breeding for something like 12 months, then most birds will have become immune to it. In my opinion you would have to be very patient to do that if you’re a type that likes breeding birds & even then there is the case of the few that could remain carriers. It seems to be endemic in Budgerigars, so to me the chances of avoiding it forever seems a bit remote, so I’m just continuing to breed, noting which pairs produce it & trying to select birds that hopefully will eventually be immune to it. Whether this will work or not remains to be seen. As I mentioned earlier in this post I have bred with a bird that I think had it when young & she has had no cases. I feel that birds that even have it & then recover quickly must have some immunity, so I’m not removing them from my breeding, but others that don’t recover, will be left out of my breeding. I think I read the other day on this forum where some breeder bred from a FM & produced many show winners, but whether this bird had recovered or was still flightless it didn’t say. As Kaz said young birds in the aviary don’t appear to infect older birds, but again according to the experts all birds will be effected, but then mostly become immune, it seems to me that if they become exposed while young & sometime before they are bred with, could be a good idea.

 

As Kaz says the really badly effected birds that are even as bad as the one in her picture seem to be completely healthy in other ways & they seem to enjoy their life in the aviary quite well. I don’t even supply ladders for them, but they soon learn to quickly climb the wire to the perches & bail out from the perches when they want to return to the ground to feed with a plop, which appears to have no effect on them.

Plucker is adorable Kaz... Ugly?? No way... she's a doll

i removed the boxes out of the avairy and removed the birds out of the breeding shed and have circled FEB 1 2009 to restart my breeding. it will be a long 12 month wait. am i able to breed my parrots when their season starts in july as the bourkes are in the aviary with the budgies? thanks for all the info, and if you have anymore info keep it comming

If it was from the parents you'd be better off culling them instead of selling them- someone else may start breeding with them.

Hopefully its just an environment thing- cute pair of runners you have!!

 

 

Does "culling" mean what I think it means? Is it "usual" practice?

Trish

P.S I looooove Plucker....truly beautiful

Edited October 24, 200816 yr by Trish

If it was from the parents you'd be better off culling them instead of selling them- someone else may start breeding with them.

Hopefully its just an environment thing- cute pair of runners you have!!

 

 

Does "culling" mean what I think it means? Is it "usual" practice?

Trish

Culling usually means selling or not breeding with or seperating.

Culling usually means selling or not breeding with or seperating.

 

Thanks Kaz for your quick answer now I will sleep tonight!

How is little Plucker, for me it was love at first sight. I would be a hopeless breeder, I would be mothering and keeping all the poor rejected souls!

Culling usually means selling or not breeding with or seperating.

Thanks Kaz for your quick answer now I will sleep tonight!

How is little Plucker, for me it was love at first sight. I would be a hopeless breeder, I would be mothering and keeping all the poor rejected souls!

Plucker had other issues...seemed to have a dicky heart....she keeled over and died one night

Agree, Alot of people think that culling is KILLING or KILLING OFF birds. When it means what Kaz said ^ in the post above ...

 

 

I just wanted to add my 2 bob worth on FM as it is something that I have been reading up on in all the medical journals and speaking with vets and all that hoo ha ...

 

So basically in all the studies and research that has taken place in the last 50 years ... the conclusion has come to that FM is not caused by "one specific" factor but by a combination of several factors ....

 

NUTRITION - HEREDITY - OVER BREEDING & ENVIRONMENT....

 

It comes down to the testing they done on FM parents they fostered out eggs ... These grew into Healthy chicks .... They fostered out 1 week olds These Grew into FM birds ... and they let the FM parents raise which 50% were FM ... also tests done on FM parents and NON FM parents found that FM was present in the fostering of the FM eggs ... so that is another avenue to look at as well

 

So in that i will assume that nutrition and Genes play an important role in the whole FM thing ....

Or how the crop milk is produced ...

 

But that is my understandings of it at the moment ... This is something that I believe needs alot of attention focused on ..... If we were to continue to breed FM birds then the whole point of breeding FM resistant birds is a waste of time, money and life really .....

 

My thought though

Edited October 25, 200816 yr by Neat

I have to say that in my experience with french moult it is primarily nutrition based...the food and type and frequency and amount that is delivered to the chick by the parent/parents. I have worked out all the various situations where this has occurred, and seen all the old wives tales, and listened and learnt and also experienced. My experience shows me it is nutrition. This can also occur where some chicks in a nest are being fed well and others not as well and these chicks will show some FM and some not.

Edited October 25, 200816 yr by KAZ