Posted April 28, 200916 yr ive uploaded all my pics of my birds and other stuff to photobucket, go to take a look http://s569.photobucket.com/albums/ss137/mattdog12/
April 28, 200916 yr Author nice birds there matt LOL Thank you, By The Way let me know which bird you think is worth putting in for budgie of the month :mallet: Edited April 28, 200916 yr by KAZ edited out shortcut language which is not allowed
April 28, 200916 yr Author You have a lot of opalines in your aviary matt Yeah, I'm thinking about getting some more yellow splits, and some yellowfaces to put in there, only trouble is its hard having to put more boxes in there, as you can see its already crammed with them, i was thinking of putting some up on a higher level maybe....maybe you might have some idea's :mallet: Edited April 28, 200916 yr by KAZ edited for shortcuts which are not allowed. Please save staff some time editing your posts by not using shortcut language.
April 28, 200916 yr My ideas are to keep the aviary for flight and enjoyment for the birds and make breeding something done in cabinets seperate to the aviary.
April 28, 200916 yr Author Okay will do, where abouts do i go to enter my budgie in the competition..
April 28, 200916 yr As far as colony breeding goes, this has to be one of the better setups i've seen. Plenty of identical nestboxes placed at the same height etc. I would still personally recommend kaz's advice - leave the aviary for fun, and build cabinets for breeding to which you can attach your breeding boxes. Im sure you will find it a much easier way to go in the end
April 28, 200916 yr Author As far as colony breeding goes, this has to be one of the better setups i've seen. Plenty of identical nestboxes placed at the same height etc. I would still personally recommend kaz's advice - leave the aviary for fun, and build cabinets for breeding to which you can attach your breeding boxes. Im sure you will find it a much easier way to go in the end i tried that once, had 10 cabinets all paired up, they were in their for about 3-4 months....they were paired up beforehand and not one of them was interested in the boxes im still having success in the aviary's though, pairs have eggs and are sitting them with no problems....
April 28, 200916 yr Yeah its a different system that requires a little more knowledge about your birds. With colony breeding, birds always have the option so they'll breed when they want to. With cabinet breeding, we may put in birds that aren't ready or have not adapted to being in a cage (as opposed to an aviary). There is an adjustment curve for both bird and breeder. I had similar problems with birds mating in the aviary, but as soon as i put them in a cabinet they would stop and lose all interest. It will work for some birds straight away, and with these birds that do clue on quickly, you can seperate them and pair up one experienced cabinet bird with an unexperienced bird the following season. There are also some birds who prefer being able to climb on top of the nest box and explore it before they will breed so internal VS external boxes require consideration. That being said, its entirely up to you how you breed your birds. Perhaps you could try both - some cabinets with the rest breeding in the aviary and slowly change over. Personally i prefer having greater certainty over parentage Stops me getting all greys or opalines or pieds etc. Edited April 28, 200916 yr by Dean_NZ
April 28, 200916 yr Author Yeah its a different system that requires a little more knowledge about your birds. With colony breeding, birds always have the option so they'll breed when they want to. With cabinet breeding, we may put in birds that aren't ready or have not adapted to being in a cage (as opposed to an aviary). There is an adjustment curve for both bird and breeder. I had similar problems with birds mating in the aviary, but as soon as i put them in a cabinet they would stop and lose all interest. It will work for some birds straight away, and with these birds that do clue on quickly, you can seperate them and pair up one experienced cabinet bird with an unexperienced bird the following season. There are also some birds who prefer being able to climb on top of the nest box and explore it before they will breed. That being said, its entirely up to you how you breed your birds. Perhaps you could try both - some cabinets with the rest breeding in the aviary and slowly change over. Personally i prefer having greater certainty over parentage Stops me getting all greys or opalines or pieds etc. Lol, yup, and besides, i love watching them fly about and actually have room to play, mate, and excersice..... and the best part about colony breeding, is even if the hen was a opaline, the babies could be lutino's yellows or any color for that matter, as a number of males tend to get a bargain with the 1 henbird
April 28, 200916 yr As far as colony breeding goes, this has to be one of the better setups i've seen. Plenty of identical nestboxes placed at the same height etc. I would still personally recommend kaz's advice - leave the aviary for fun, and build cabinets for breeding to which you can attach your breeding boxes. Im sure you will find it a much easier way to go in the end I agree the colony set up is quite good. Nest boxes may be a little close together. I used to colony breed also.
April 28, 200916 yr Author As far as colony breeding goes, this has to be one of the better setups i've seen. Plenty of identical nestboxes placed at the same height etc. I would still personally recommend kaz's advice - leave the aviary for fun, and build cabinets for breeding to which you can attach your breeding boxes. Im sure you will find it a much easier way to go in the end I agree the colony set up is quite good. Nest boxes may be a little close together. I used to colony breed also. Will it do any Harm to put nest boxes on a different height?
April 28, 200916 yr yes because the hens fight for the highest best looking box. Making them all the same height and looking the same, the hens will have less chance of fighting. I cannot say they wont fight because colony breeding generally does have alot of problems with it. Personal opinion really.
April 28, 200916 yr Yeah its a different system that requires a little more knowledge about your birds. With colony breeding, birds always have the option so they'll breed when they want to. With cabinet breeding, we may put in birds that aren't ready or have not adapted to being in a cage (as opposed to an aviary). There is an adjustment curve for both bird and breeder. I had similar problems with birds mating in the aviary, but as soon as i put them in a cabinet they would stop and lose all interest. It will work for some birds straight away, and with these birds that do clue on quickly, you can seperate them and pair up one experienced cabinet bird with an unexperienced bird the following season. There are also some birds who prefer being able to climb on top of the nest box and explore it before they will breed. That being said, its entirely up to you how you breed your birds. Perhaps you could try both - some cabinets with the rest breeding in the aviary and slowly change over. Personally i prefer having greater certainty over parentage Stops me getting all greys or opalines or pieds etc. Lol, yup, and besides, i love watching them fly about and actually have room to play, mate, and excersice..... and the best part about colony breeding, is even if the hen was a opaline, the babies could be lutino's yellows or any color for that matter, as a number of males tend to get a bargain with the 1 henbird A number of cocks to one hen eh..? Sounds very interesting. Perhaps with colony breeding one should have a "recovery cage" for hard working hens?
April 28, 200916 yr Author Yeah its a different system that requires a little more knowledge about your birds. With colony breeding, birds always have the option so they'll breed when they want to. With cabinet breeding, we may put in birds that aren't ready or have not adapted to being in a cage (as opposed to an aviary). There is an adjustment curve for both bird and breeder. I had similar problems with birds mating in the aviary, but as soon as i put them in a cabinet they would stop and lose all interest. It will work for some birds straight away, and with these birds that do clue on quickly, you can seperate them and pair up one experienced cabinet bird with an unexperienced bird the following season. There are also some birds who prefer being able to climb on top of the nest box and explore it before they will breed. That being said, its entirely up to you how you breed your birds. Perhaps you could try both - some cabinets with the rest breeding in the aviary and slowly change over. Personally i prefer having greater certainty over parentage Stops me getting all greys or opalines or pieds etc. Lol, yup, and besides, i love watching them fly about and actually have room to play, mate, and excersice..... and the best part about colony breeding, is even if the hen was a opaline, the babies could be lutino's yellows or any color for that matter, as a number of males tend to get a bargain with the 1 henbird A number of cocks to one hen eh..? Sounds very interesting. Perhaps with colony breeding one should have a "recovery cage" for hard working hens? its all equal, 10 males to 10 females....they were paired up beforehand ....ive noticed a few times males have interrupted my lutino yellow and voilet split mating, but apart from that, ive only had 1 henbird die, but that was unknown cause, she layed 8 eggs for a clutch, and the next morning i found her dead stiff on the floor of the aviary with no injurys and such....think she may have starved herself or became eggbound, not too sure, my guess is she had drained all she had into looking after the eggs and just died
April 28, 200916 yr its all equal, 10 males to 10 females....they were paired up beforehand ....ive noticed a few times males have interrupted my lutino yellow and voilet split mating, but apart from that, ive only had 1 henbird die, but that was unknown cause, she layed 8 eggs for a clutch, and the next morning i found her dead stiff on the floor of the aviary with no injurys and such....think she may have starved herself or became eggbound, not too sure, my guess is she had drained all she had into looking after the eggs and just died Are the nestboxes in there all the time ? Do you rest the hens elsewhere for awhile or do they lay clutch after clutch ?
April 28, 200916 yr Hello and welcome If you want more birds, I would get a second aviary. Use the breeding aviary only for breeding pairs and any birds that are not breeding and young birds unde 12 months old can live in the second aviary (with no nest boxes)
April 29, 200916 yr Author Hello and welcome If you want more birds, I would get a second aviary. Use the breeding aviary only for breeding pairs and any birds that are not breeding and young birds unde 12 months old can live in the second aviary (with no nest boxes) im a bit dry on the cash at the moment, so i cannot afford another aviary, as for the hen's, this is their first clutch, all my hen birds are 2-3 years old, and my white albino is a bit younger, about 9 months, but other then that, 3/4 of my budgies are show budgies and are of mature age, so they should mate up nicely...
April 29, 200916 yr If you wanted to you could put the young babies in a small flight cage until they mature. That is what I done, saves you buying a whole new aviary.
April 29, 200916 yr Author If you wanted to you could put the young babies in a small flight cage until they mature. That is what I done, saves you buying a whole new aviary. theirs only 2 that are young, ive taken them out but i still got 20 left, bought 2 more today, a mature bonded pair of a olive green crimson wing and a lutino yellow split with white patches, the are going to have excellent results with breeding
April 29, 200916 yr Author Excellent news. indeed, my skyblue tame budgie had scaly face yesterday, so ive taken him out and put him in a hospital cage and dabbed the scaly face treatment on the infected area's, he had it mostly on his feet
April 29, 200916 yr did you use ivermectin? If you do not have that you can try vaseline or olive oil. it drowns the mites and suffocates them. Works a treat.
