Here is my latest addition to my feathered family. 5 1/2 years after my Charlie laid me her first of many dud eggs, she finally came through with this little beauty.

 

Here's a cute close up from 10 days ago:

 

 

And yesterday, when she had her first unassisted outing from the nesting box. She's a little terror and quite bitey like her mum.

 

 

http://i107.photobucket.com/albums/m314/ho...MarchMedium.jpg

 

She's lost her lovely 'baby bars' though - I love their stripy little heads but this one seems to have grown out of hers early.

 

Here are the proud parents:

Edited March 13, 200817 yr by Elly
picture #3 oversized, turned to link, no more then 450x450

YAY!! how exciting to have a baby after such a looooooong wait!

My guess is a pretty Sky blue cinnamon hen

Gorgeous! your mums a sky greywing and dads a grey normal split cinnamon

And your little bubbas a cinnamon sky hen

She's gorgeous isn't she!

 

The trouble I had was that Charlie's getting along a bit now (she must be around 7 years old) and I told her this was her last chance! I think she was so excited that an egg finally hatched that she neglected all the others. She didn't sit on them much and just focussed on the baby instead! So this was the only chick that hatched, but that's okay, it makes it easier to talk hubby into keeping her Not that its hard these days; he's certainly relaxed his view on how many budgies is too many.

haha you're telling me!

I had 20 in dec of 06... i now have well over 100 (Laughing out loud)!

She is quite the cutie you did enter her picture in the Budgie of the Month Contest I hope

she is very cute... lovely colouring.

Hi Leanne,

 

Charley may well have known that looking after more than one chick was too much for her. I was probably a good thing. Most breeders will not use a hen past the age of 4 as hatching and raising a clutch takes too much out of them and it is not uncommon to lose an old hen if you breed with them.

 

The baby is absolutely adorable. She does have her baby bars, they just don't go all the way down to her cere... that is fairly common, some barely have bars at all.. they are all diferent. Hers just look very feint at the front.

 

Mummy deserves lots of pampering now :sad: What a good girl. Dad looks like a nice budgie too.

 

 

Feathers.

What a sweet Baby .... enter that picture for Budgie of the month ! It's a winner.

such a cutie

The little bub is adorable, the parents are gorgeous too .

What a beautiful baby! Are they the parents of the three grey babies i got off you?

Hi Bea! No, these aren't the same parents - same Dad though. It was a very strange thing; when Flash (the greys' dad) and Paris (the greys' late mum) were busy making those beautiful babies, Charlie and Maverick , my other two adults (who were cage partners of 4 years or so), went a little bit silly. Charlie just went nuts, getting very distressed, pacing and carrying on when she heard the other babies. So I put a nesting box on just to keep them happy but nothing ever came of it. Mavvy was 7 years old so I really didn't expect anything, but they seemed happy to "play house' and Charlie was certainly less distressed. Fast forward 18 months or so and I'd unfortunately lost both Maverick and Paris, at different times and probably six months or so apart. After Mavvy died Charlie was really distressed (as you'd expect), and I kept her separate from the babies for a while until she got back to her normal self. Over the following months after Paris died unexpectedly, Charlie and Flash gradually became 'quite close'.

 

I know its not recommended to breed older birds, but I felt so sorry for ol' Charlie girl that when they really started getting smoochy I thought I'd give her one last chance to fulfil her budgie destiny! To be honest I was about to clear the nesting box and get rid of the eggs when GracyLou finally hatched!

 

Unfortunately today I've discovered another problem with my "mature mother" but I'll put that in a new post ...