Looking terrific !! Also interesting to note I am not the only one with birds who are moulting

Kaz, a lot of these are young birds not yet moulted out of their baby feathers so some of them are less than 3 months old and some are moulting out their baby feathers. My adults are not yet moulting but I think the cooling weather will stir them up. Mostly it seems that my birds moult a bit later than birds in Perth.

Kaz, a lot of these are young birds not yet moulted out of their baby feathers so some of them are less than 3 months old and some are moulting out their baby feathers. My adults are not yet moulting but I think the cooling weather will stir them up. Mostly it seems that my birds moult a bit later than birds in Perth.

Yeah I knew that Funny thing is half my birds are moulting and the other half raring to breed.

Yellow faces, Cinnamons.

 

I have only bred 3 YF babies this year - one of them a YF white lacewing shown previously in the lacewing section.

 

The other 2 are nice but the hen is quite heavily flecked.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

How many birds total this breeding season Nubbly?

Dave, I ordered 150 rings (my normal amount and usually I use just about all of them but a few). This year I had to order an extra 30 rings and have 4 left in total. So the best breeding season I've managed so far.

 

I think having a continuing season from Sept to March without a break in the middle (Jan - Mar and then Sep - Dec) was helpful. Also we had NO spring. It went from winter to summer without much variable stuff during spring time so the birds kicked into condition and were not affected by weather variations early in the season which normally affects chick hatchability and survival.

Wow that's a LOT of chicks!

Is it?????? See I'm not really sure compared to other breeders what is good, bad or ugly. I did have clear rounds, a few DIS and a few chick losses. The total was approx 180 chicks from 24 boxes with 2-3 rounds per pair depending on the pair.

 

All you hear from many people is "how good" everything is going or conversly "how bad" everything is going without any real facts and figures shared.

 

Looking at it critically I guess I used 60% of the boxes for 3 rounds and the rest for 2 so say 2.6 rounds on average this season. 176 chicks rung gives 67.6 chicks per round. Divided by 24 boxes = 2.8 chicks per box per round over the season. Considering there were a few clear rounds I guess this is not too bad overall.

 

What do other people expect on a TOTAL chick per box per round output per breeding season?

 

Honestly I don't know if this is good or not really! Still been the best year I've managed so far so I'm pretty happy in relative terms.

Edited March 31, 201015 yr by nubbly5

Is it?????? See I'm not really sure compared to other breeders what is good, bad or ugly. I did have clear rounds, a few DIS and a few chick losses. The total was approx 180 chicks from 24 boxes with 2-3 rounds per pair depending on the pair.

 

All you hear from many people is "how good" everything is going or conversly "how bad" everything is going without any real facts and figures shared.

 

Looking at it critically I guess I used 60% of the boxes for 3 rounds and the rest for 2 so say 2.6 rounds on average this season. 176 chicks rung gives 67.6 chicks per round. Divided by 24 boxes = 2.8 chicks per box per round over the season. Considering there were a few clear rounds I guess this is not too bad overall.

 

What do other people expect on a TOTAL chick per box per round output per breeding season?

 

Congratulations I think you have done well!

 

Like you I like to break down the results just so,and in reality some pairs are brilliant and some drag the chain a bit!

 

I have used 20 boxes this round starting out March 1st and have 16 pairs with 102 eggs in total

 

As of this morning I am on 7 chicks since they started hatching on Sunday, so I will keep you posted so we can compare.

 

I have been told a success rate of 50% on pairings is good so if you take that into account on your results you must been doing well.

 

I have also been told 2 chicks per box is a good result and seems to be more common in some of the bigger birds of today.

 

So well done!

Edited March 31, 201015 yr by KAZ
fixed broken quite tags

I've heard 50% chick to egg ratio is what you should aim for too... I think that figure was on here somewhere. Where they got this figure from I'm not sure but hey.

 

I think your birds are looking great, you've rung more than ever before, and most are growing into fine healthy birds. Can't knock that. In my books you're doing a great job.

Thanks Jetrick & JB! It's something I've always wondered about really - exactly how good or bad my breeding results were relative to others.

 

Anyway all thats left to show now are my grey greens and BES and then I'll close this thread off and start again on a new one in September for our 2010/2011 season. It's hard to get my head around the fact that our new rings will turn up in September again - so used to them arriving Jan. But I'm looking forward to another season and have already planned a few pairinings in my head based on results from this year.

 

So here are the grey greens. There is one absolutely stand out boy in this lot. He is a full brother (from a later nest) to the grey that won Commended at our WA Young Bird Derby but he has better buffier (if thats a word) feather and looks amazing (if a bit scruffy) just on his first moult. This is him here!

 

 

 

And this is Holy S*&t and Holy C%$p's brother. I've bred a handful of sisters and brothers to these boys all with a similar look and all very long birds. None quite as eye catching as the first 2 brothers though!

 

 

 

 

 

I've heard 50% chick to egg ratio is what you should aim for too... I think that figure was on here somewhere. Where they got this figure from I'm not sure but hey.

 

I think your birds are looking great, you've rung more than ever before, and most are growing into fine healthy birds. Can't knock that. In my books you're doing a great job.

 

 

I think you'll find most exhibition breeders are happy to achieve 2.5 chicks per nest per round, thats an average. But it seems the better the quality of the stock the harder it is to maintain numbers. You've done well congrats cheers Clearwing

okay here goes my very last post in this thread. It's been a rewarding breeding season and I'm looking forward to 2010/2011 with excitement. The only poor results have been my fallows with only a couple of splits bred and a couple of half mutant semi-********* chicks at that. I need a restart for this variety or a long rethink on where to go with it if at all. Otherwise I'm really happy with how my planned pairings have worked out.

 

So the very last ones are my BESs. The first 3 are older chicks and I only initially put down one pair. In the last round I paired up 2 pairs one for colour preference and one split. The colour pair bred 4 chicks and the split pair only hatched one but quite a nice little on at that with good feather for a BES. Of the first 3, 2 are big birds like their mother (5th place at Busso bought at auction) and one is smaller. The 2 big chicks will be really useful in the breeding program but the hen is a bit strongly coloured.

 

Breeding these things is a lot like clearwings, I've decided. You breed for good clear colour and few markings and down goes the size. Try to upsize and you bring back the body colour and the wing markings taking the birds closer to the raw cinnamon dilute rather than the selected clean BES.

 

Why on earth I started with BOTH clearwings and BESs is beyond me but more or a reason to drop fallows now maybe......

 

 

This and the bird below are the same. This is one of the large BES from the first round. He's nice with good size and colour and not too heavily marked.

 

 

The next two birds are the same. Again one of the big chicks. Too much colour and slightly heavier markings but will still make a useful stock bird.

 

 

 

This is the one chick from the split to BES pairing. Great feather but already you can see the heavy body colouring so she'll end up closer to dilute than BES. She is fully cinnamon but obviously without some of the colour and marking modifyers that better coloured and less marked birds have.

 

These next 4 were from a pairing chosen for me by RIP for best colour and although small birds, they do have good colour and should not be too heavily marked.

 

 

 

 

 

So that's it.

 

Thanks for visiting and I hope you enjoyed this thread!