hmmmm... interesting... If I was him I'd be asking for a paternity test...

okay, time for a quick update.

 

I was quite discouraged about this year's first round, mainly because I was putting my birds down earlier than usual to suit my timetable not theirs and partly because all indications pointed towards my hens being just a tad past their best in fertility terms. :rofl:

 

So to be honest I haven't been checking on them too much just making sure that their water is fresh, their seed is topped up, they get their daily soft food and that their breeding cabinets are clean.

 

A couple of days ago I decided to meet my fears head on and check on egg numbers and fertility and I have been pleasantly surprised! :rip:

 

So here are some highlights:

 

Blue Greywing pair are on 7 eggs and 5 are fertile.

 

Sky Clearwing hen and Cobalt Normal Cock are on 6 eggs and 4 are fertile

 

Violet Clearwing pair are on 5 eggs and 3 are fertile

 

Sky Clearflighted Pied hen (Magic's Mum) and Champion Opaline Cock are on 6 eggs and 5 are fertile

 

Normal Green Pair are on 5 eggs and 3 are fertile (they're still laying)

 

Lutino Pair are on 4 eggs and 2 are fertile (they're still laying)

 

Normal Blue pair are on 3 eggs and 1 is fertile (I hope they're still laying)

 

Opaline LGreen Spangle hen and Rec Pied cock are on 5 eggs and 4 are fertile

 

Rec Pied hen and Violet Normal cock are on 6 eggs and 5 are fertile

 

Lutino hen and DGreen Opaline cock are on 4 eggs and 2 are fertile

 

Champion GGreen hen and DF Yellow cock are on 4 eggs and 3 are fertile

 

I have about 5 pairs that have just started laying so it's too early to tell. :rofl:

 

And then some disappointments- :rofl:

 

Violet hen and Magic - some clear eggs, not encouraging

Top Spangle hens and their partners - no eggs

DF Yellow pair - no eggs

 

In fact I've discovered a pattern. I have some "special" cabinets I had made specially a couple of years ago and to be frank out of the 4 cabinets during these past 2 years I've only ever had 1 pair successfully lay and raise chicks and even then it was after 2 dud rounds. To add insult to injury I've always put my Best pairs in them 'cause they are roomier than my average cabinets.

 

I have come to the inevitable conclusion that the nest boxes are not secluded enough for the hens to feel safe. So today I have asked Daz to flat pack me some of his nest boxes and I will ve making the necessary adjustments.

Edited April 18, 200916 yr by renee

First chick hatched last night to Magic's Mum and Champion Opaline Grey! Nice big chick and is already well fed .... photos later- Kaz and I have a Show to go to today!

Well chickies are hatching out nicely .... yes, photos coming soon.

 

But time for a serious discussion. Over the past 3 days I have lost 3 chicks and I've decided to change the way I intervene.

 

You may recall that my first chick hatched out a week ago and today I ringed it. However, there was a 4 day gap before anymore hatched out so I transferred her over to the Greywing nest so the maiden mum could get the hang of feeding and transferred her 2 newly hatched chicks to the original nest. Another chickie had hatched out to Magic's Mum (where the rung chick came from) so I figured she could raise these three- no probs, right?

 

WRONG! To my amazement she refused to feed all 3 newly hatched chicks. So I started feeding them top ups with protein powder and Calcivet every few hours but after 36hrs they were looking very weak so I transferred them to other nests- but they didn't make it. I cannot tell you how pissed off I am.

 

So I have started to rethink.... All that intervention, and lets face it, disturbance to the hen, obviously didn't work. Time to change tactics.

 

So from now on I am NOT going to intervene but let nature take it's course. I'll still consider transfering/fostering chicks after 24 hrs, if they're still alive, but no more stressing.

Renee you have learnt a valuable lesson. Don't move chicks around unless you really really have too. The hens feed a crop milk to the newley hatched and slowly over time the hen feeds different mixtures to the different age chicks. She is quite capable of feeding a day old crop milk and 15 day old seed. What you inadvertantly did was to interrupt the hens natural cycle. Four days between the next egg hatching is enough for the hen to think she needs to starts the next round. Now this is not to say that this happens to all hens cause it does not. Mark this on your breeding card for future reference.

 

Budgies don't need our intervetion to get the hang of feeding. Either they do or they don't. It is genetically programmed into them and they may well learn from being fed as chicks in the nest.

I'm sorry to hear that Renee. I've had hens neglect chicks before and its not a good feeling.

Well chickies are hatching out nicely .... yes, photos coming soon.

 

But time for a serious discussion. Over the past 3 days I have lost 3 chicks :glare: and I've decided to change the way I intervene.

 

You may recall that my first chick hatched out a week ago and today I ringed it. However, there was a 4 day gap before anymore hatched out so I transferred her over to the Greywing nest so the maiden mum could get the hang of feeding and transferred her 2 newly hatched chicks to the original nest. Another chickie had hatched out to Magic's Mum (where the rung chick came from) so I figured she could raise these three- no probs, right?

 

WRONG! To my amazement she refused to feed all 3 newly hatched chicks. So I started feeding them top ups with protein powder and Calcivet every few hours but after 36hrs they were looking very weak so I transferred them to other nests- but they didn't make it. I cannot tell you how pissed off I am.

 

So I have started to rethink.... All that intervention, and lets face it, disturbance to the hen, obviously didn't work. Time to change tactics.

 

So from now on I am NOT going to intervene but let nature take it's course. I'll still consider transfering/fostering chicks after 24 hrs, if they're still alive, but no more stressing.

 

Renee - I wouldnt dream of moving chicks until at least 4-5 days old. From my experience they rarely survive and in actually fact i have probably killed them, just by handling them!!!! Generally the first time i TOUCH a chick is when ringing them, and only after using hand sanitiser. I see lots of posts with pictures of babies being handled at a very young age and cant help but think is it really NOT necessary.

So I have started to rethink.... All that intervention, and lets face it, disturbance to the hen, obviously didn't work. Time to change tactics.

 

So from now on I am NOT going to intervene but let nature take it's course. I'll still consider transfering/fostering chicks after 24 hrs, if they're still alive, but no more stressing.

 

Renee - I wouldnt dream of moving chicks until at least 4-5 days old. From my experience they rarely survive and in actually fact i have probably killed them, just by handling them!!!! Generally the first time i TOUCH a chick is when ringing them, and only after using hand sanitiser. I see lots of posts with pictures of babies being handled at a very young age and cant help but think is it really NOT necessary.

Well thanks for the Heath. I'm always very careful about washing my hands before handling my budgies. Any way your advice confirms what I'm leaning towards. :glare:

Since my last post it's been drama stations round this neck of the woods. I have had soooo many problems with hens not feeding chicks and lost about 15 chicks in the past 10 days

 

As I stated at the beginning, my best hens this year are maiden hens and unfortunately I have had major issues.

 

A few hens decided they were not going to feed their newly hatched chicks ....

 

And then some others decided that they wouldn't feed anymore than 3 chicks so the 4th, 5th, etc chicks died too.

 

And if that wasn't enough heartche one of my cocks went feral and ate a nest of fertile eggs

 

Anyway, off to the breeding room to photo the survivors.

Since my last post it's been drama stations round this neck of the woods. I have had soooo many problems with hens not feeding chicks and lost about 15 chicks in the past 10 days

 

As I stated at the beginning, my best hens this year are maiden hens and unfortunately I have had major issues.

 

A few hens decided they were not going to feed their newly hatched chicks ....

 

And then some others decided that they wouldn't feed anymore than 3 chicks so the 4th, 5th, etc chicks died too.

 

And if that wasn't enough heartche one of my cocks went feral and ate a nest of fertile eggs

 

Anyway, off to the breeding room to photo the survivors.

OH NO

im sorry :|

Since my last post it's been drama stations round this neck of the woods. I have had soooo many problems with hens not feeding chicks and lost about 15 chicks in the past 10 days As I stated at the beginning, my best hens this year are maiden hens and unfortunately I have had major issues.A few hens decided they were not going to feed their newly hatched chicks ....And then some others decided that they wouldn't feed anymore than 3 chicks so the 4th, 5th, etc chicks died too.And if that wasn't enough heartche one of my cocks went feral and ate a nest of fertile eggs Anyway, off to the breeding room to photo the survivors.

OH NO

 

Yeah, tell me about it. Any way some of the survivors .... had some issues with the camera settings so didn't photo them all

 

 

 

 

Edited May 5, 200916 yr by maesie

what a rough time.

 

I hope its all onwards and upwards from here.

Your babies look good so i hope you have no more issues

what a rough time.

 

I hope its all onwards and upwards from here.

Your babies look good so i hope you have no more issues

 

Thanks Liv, very sweet of you to be so supportive

 

You're right, the survivors look fine and are progressing nicely. My heart bleeds for the hatchlings that were studiously ignored

Its frustrating when lots of problems occur beleive me. The chicks look very good and for your sake I hope the season improves.

Edited May 5, 200916 yr by Pearce

Renee, why do you think this is happening?

Wow Renee thats a crazy time you are having there... keep at it though, I am sure you will pull through...

Renee, why do you think this is happening?

 

**** happens Daz but obviously I blame myself.

 

In part it is because they are maiden hens and I've always had troubles with the 'first timers' but mainly I think it is because I put the hens down when they were going out of condition (ie ceres were beginning to change) and although the ceres coloured up nicely once the cocks were introduced I think they were just past optimum condition so once the chickies started to hatch they were not interested. Although 'logically' I would have thought that maternal instincts should have been stronger.....

 

So in effect I guess this is a studied lesson on what happens when you put your interests ahead of the birds. :sad: Ironically they went down only 4 weeks ahead of when I usually put them down but a month is evidently a lifetime in budgie fitness.

 

On the week end I pulled 1/3 of the birds out of the cabinets and am just carrying on with birds that show best condition for breeding.

 

The move is up in the air, no confirmation that we wil be moving at all now, so I'm just putting it out of mind.

Edited May 5, 200916 yr by renee

I haven't updated for ages. Not much to report really, everything has settled down now and over the past 10 days I have been transferring chickies over to the Nursery holding cage.

 

Some chicks:

Grey Opaline

LGreen Spangle

GGreen Opaline

The Clearwings wouldn't sit still .... so I'll try again another day.

 

This year I have removed the cock birds 10 days before fledging and transferred mums along with the fledged chicks to the Nursery. Of the 3 hens only one looked ready to go again, so after a 5 day break in the Nursery she has gone down again to another cock.

 

The reason I've done this is because:

I want to give the hens a bit of a break so they don't go straight down again

It means I can change pairings with no trouble

I can clean out the breeding cabinets between rounds with no adverse effects

It reduces the risk of parents attacking chicks

 

I've also experimented by removing the cock 10 days after the hen started incubating the eggs. I wouldn't recommend this for every case, but it's working fine in this instance- I moved the cock onto another hen. I won't let her raise all the chicks, maybe 2 or 3 and I'll foster the others.

 

Here's the nest in question: All SF & DF Spangles

The nice thing about the chicks that are coming out of the nest this year is that about half of them are as big as their mothers at fledging- not all varieties, but the Normals, Cinnamons and Opalines in particular.

 

Getting the pairings right has helped but I also put it down to the soft food they get daily, in particular the latest addition of Muscle XL Protein.

The chicks are looking fantastic Renee...congratulations

The chicks are looking fantastic Renee...congratulations

 

Thank you Kaz - They should give you a run for your money on the show bench

thay are good babys form good pairing pair rite get good babys

thay are good babys form good pairing pair rite get good babys

 

Yes, in a nutshell. Though the most successful nest so far was a pleasant surprise. The hen is a fantastic feeder and her Dad's genes are being passed on to her chicks. Sometimes pairings just meld together well and POP! out come the chicks

i no what you mean is good

Some lovely chicks Renee