Posted November 7, 201014 yr As many of you have read in my other thread which describes all the terrible incidents that have so far hampered my breeding success with new birds, finally I have SOME chicks. I will be starting a line of DF rung birds based on this cinnamon opaline cobalt cock bird which I am using AI to put across various hens. The reason for this is because he was a french moult baby and I do not want to pass on french moult through him in the nest box, and also he has difficulties mounting hens with his lack of flights on one side. The first his offspring were actually unexpected. Their mother is a tiny pet store bird who i was using as a foster hen, on the off days that the cock bird was not being AI'd to other hens, I AI'd him to the foster hen (not caring if it fertilised her eggs or not). It successfully fertilised 2 of her 4 eggs and they went on to hatch. The oldest is a cinnamon opaline cobalt like her dad, and the youngest (by 2 days) is a cinnamon opaline sky hen. I was curious to see if the tiny hens genes would be more dominant over the cocks, but i am pleased to see that the cock is rather pre-potent and these chicks are better than what some of my 'better' pairs produced last year. Cinnamon opaline cobalt hen: Both the hens - (sky on left, cobalt on right)
November 7, 201014 yr very nice birds dean. well done. id be stoked with them if i were you. congrats!
November 7, 201014 yr Author very nice birds dean. well done. id be stoked with them if i were you. congrats! There are.... *counting in my head* at least 7 other siblings (to various hens) feathering up right now and they are from very nice hens, not pet shop ones. If these two look this nice with their tiny mother, I think we are all going to be please with the others once they feather up! So far he has chicks to: DF Yellowface SF violet opaline sky blue hen (nice hen) = 1 chick (Single factor yellowface cinnamon opaline sky hen) Normal cobalt (pet shop hen) = 2 chicks (Cin Op sky and cin op cobalt hen as pictured). Normal grey green hen (very nice hen, laid 12 fertile eggs, but only 6 hatched due to various accidents and annoying fosters) = 2x hen, 1 x cock (3 chicks) from the cinnamon opaline stud cockbird (that i can be sure of) are feathering up now Normal light green hen (another good hen) = 1x cock, 1x hen feathering up
November 7, 201014 yr it sounds to me like this season is shaping up to be a good one for you dean. ill look forward to seeing pictures of your other chicks
November 7, 201014 yr Dean Dean those babies are gorgeous but I am very confused. You are saying they are hens but their cere colour is male ?
November 7, 201014 yr Author Dean Dean those babies are gorgeous but I am very confused. You are saying they are hens but their cere colour is male ? I know Kaz! I look at them and i think MALE as well, but their sister also has the same cere and I wonder if it's something to do with cinnamon+opaline affecting the pigmentation while they are babies? They are definately girls as they are from a normal mother and a cinnamon opaline cock. But yes, totally agree they have nice bright pink ceres with almost no white at all! Edited November 7, 201014 yr by Dean_NZ
November 7, 201014 yr Lovely chicks Dean, glad you are doing well now. I have had the same thing with my young hens they look bright pink like males but are hens. The one on the left you can see the white on the nostril. Edited November 7, 201014 yr by **KAZ** changed with into white
November 10, 201014 yr Author Thanks guys. Just found out there is a UBC show (and bring a plate lunch!) at the end of this month, really excited to see how these girls do. Perhaps by then some of the siblings will also be ready, I know there is a dark green cock bird that is really filling out well and should do great (50% chance he is a half brother, but the cock to that hen definately filled SOME of his eggs even though i AI'd the hen as well hehehe). Edited November 10, 201014 yr by Dean_NZ
November 12, 201014 yr Gorgeous Dean! At last some wonderful results to repay your tenacity in continuing with your show lines. I'd kill to have babies like these in my breeding room! Lucky you to have purchased such a good cock that breeds so true. And Kaz! Well I'm glad the master budgie sexer has proven to me that even you can get it wrong! I've never ever had the confidence to say that I get it right 99% of the time (and especially very young babies) as there are always birds such as these that can be tricky even at older ages. I've had a number of birds like this that trick you for ages until all of a sudden that "cock" grows up to be a hen (not often the other way around though, mind you....). Maybe 90 percent?! Hey?
November 12, 201014 yr Author Thanks Nubbly! Im really pleased about this dark green cock coming up, cant be 100% sure it was fertilised by the cock in the breeding cage or by the AI as the cock in the breeding cage definitely sired some chicks (he is split ino and there is a lute hen so i know he was getting jiggy with it!). But I also know the AI worked as the hen is split blue and there is a sky cock in there (in-cage cock is not split blue) and there are cinnamon-opaline hens. Next round I am swapping the cock out and placing my grey cock that cannot fill eggs with this hen so I know all chicks will be purely the offspring of the AI cock. Im with you on the 90% thing as well! Since following the threads and pics Kaz and others gave us to show how to detect sex in very young chicks I havent miss-sexed a chick yet, but im still not confident enough to give myself more than a 90% success claim lol.
November 12, 201014 yr Beautiful babies Dean! Is the cock bird cinnamon? He doesnt look cinnamon on my screen, but the chicks obviously are. He must have lovely dark melanin
November 13, 201014 yr Author Yes he has a lot of melanin as you can tell by the mild flecking. His throat spots are quite dark but obviously cinnamon up close, nice dark wing markings as well but his flights are very much cinnamon which you can really see with all the bars in the way in the pictures. I should try get some more of him, he is a super cock as far as stance, blow, length and width. His opaline markings are a little bit heavy (has the thumb print on the wing markings) and a judge friend of mine felt his colour was a bit pale but disagreed with my thoughts that the addition of opaline had a diluting affect which was the reason for his colour (I reckon opaline changes the colour to a pastel shade a bit lighter than normal which is then diluted further by the cinnamon)
November 15, 201014 yr a judge friend of mine felt his colour was a bit pale but disagreed with my thoughts that the addition of opaline had a diluting affect which was the reason for his colour (I reckon opaline changes the colour to a pastel shade a bit lighter than normal which is then diluted further by the cinnamon) Yes opaline does dilute out the colour a little but not as much as cinnamon. The combination of the two produce nice pastel colours.
November 27, 201014 yr Author So I went to the UBC show today. They were supposed to have barheads and young birds (i.e. broken caps and around that age) but they decided to just judge all birds together and have top 3 novice (barheads, broken caps both male and female), top 3 champion, best pied (hosting club was a pied club) and best in show. As soon as they changed the classes my heart sank because some of the broken caps were much older than my two cinnamon opaline sisters and the dark green cock bird. Also one of the first birds that absolutely caught my attention was a huge grey green barhead that I thought was in the champion class but found out it was in the novice class with mine! At that point I thought I would be lucky to get a third with one of the girls. Well they started judging and I saw them hover around that greygreen and they moved him next to my dark green (which was at the end of the line so they were moving the top three to stand seperate from the rest so everyone could see). Next they grabbed a lutino hen (broken cap) and moved it in between the grey green and my dark green. Then went back to judging the other birds. When they passed over the cinnamon opaline girls my hopes really sank. Lastly they came to my dark green bird (last cage in the novice lineup) and when they moved him in between the lutino and the greygreen I was amazed. I looked a bit closer and sure enough he was strutting his stuff better than I could have hoped. They went on to judge the champion birds and picked out a greygreen dominant pied barhead (amazing bird with a heap of back skull), an opaline greywing (was surprised to see this in second but it was a good choice after I looked at it) and then another pied I cant remember too much came third. The #1 champion bird was also declared best pied in show and then to my surprise the judges went back to the novice birds and started going back and forth between my dark green and the greygreen cock. I started getting real nervous as they were making motions with their hands and i could see they were talking about width of face and skull as they were making measuring gestures with their fingers and then pointing and making a sweeping motion from cere down the back line. Suddenly they moved my dark green barhead boy to the front! First place!!!!!!!! Then they put it next to the champion bird and started discussing and after a minute or two declared my darkgreen bird best in show! I was amazed to say the least! I was totally impressed with him as he came up through the nest and he really showed well but I never expected him to beat the grey green or the pied. I asked a few quick questions of the judges and they said the greygreen was a bit bigger and stocker and had bit more blow, but mine had a better sweep, more width of face and skull, a deeper mask and more back skull. They also said the greygreen was a bit loose in feather and got messier toward the rump whereas my boy flowed from cere to tail. They said the greygreen pied had more backskull but less blow/width of face and the backskull was not proportional to the blow so it made the head look flat and the mask was short plus it didnt stand as proud. SO long story short I came away from my first ever show with best novice bird and best in show trophy which I will get my name engraved into! So pleased! Pictures of the winning boy tomorrow after he has had a rest
November 27, 201014 yr Congats Dean, thats great news! I remember I did the same at my first show and was immeadiately promoted to open section. But that was a long time ago cheers Clearwing So I went to the UBC show today. They were supposed to have barheads and young birds (i.e. broken caps and around that age) but they decided to just judge all birds together and have top 3 novice (barheads, broken caps both male and female), top 3 champion, best pied (hosting club was a pied club) and best in show. As soon as they changed the classes my heart sank because some of the broken caps were much older than my two cinnamon opaline sisters and the dark green cock bird. Also one of the first birds that absolutely caught my attention was a huge grey green barhead that I thought was in the champion class but found out it was in the novice class with mine! At that point I thought I would be lucky to get a third with one of the girls. Well they started judging and I saw them hover around that greygreen and they moved him next to my dark green (which was at the end of the line so they were moving the top three to stand seperate from the rest so everyone could see). Next they grabbed a lutino hen (broken cap) and moved it in between the grey green and my dark green. Then went back to judging the other birds. When they passed over the cinnamon opaline girls my hopes really sank. Lastly they came to my dark green bird (last cage in the novice lineup) and when they moved him in between the lutino and the greygreen I was amazed. I looked a bit closer and sure enough he was strutting his stuff better than I could have hoped. They went on to judge the champion birds and picked out a greygreen dominant pied barhead (amazing bird with a heap of back skull), an opaline greywing (was surprised to see this in second but it was a good choice after I looked at it) and then another pied I cant remember too much came third. The #1 champion bird was also declared best pied in show and then to my surprise the judges went back to the novice birds and started going back and forth between my dark green and the greygreen cock. I started getting real nervous as they were making motions with their hands and i could see they were talking about width of face and skull as they were making measuring gestures with their fingers and then pointing and making a sweeping motion from cere down the back line. Suddenly they moved my dark green barhead boy to the front! First place!!!!!!!! Then they put it next to the champion bird and started discussing and after a minute or two declared my darkgreen bird best in show! I was amazed to say the least! I was totally impressed with him as he came up through the nest and he really showed well but I never expected him to beat the grey green or the pied. I asked a few quick questions of the judges and they said the greygreen was a bit bigger and stocker and had bit more blow, but mine had a better sweep, more width of face and skull, a deeper mask and more back skull. They also said the greygreen was a bit loose in feather and got messier toward the rump whereas my boy flowed from cere to tail. They said the greygreen pied had more backskull but less blow/width of face and the backskull was not proportional to the blow so it made the head look flat and the mask was short plus it didnt stand as proud. SO long story short I came away from my first ever show with best novice bird and best in show trophy which I will get my name engraved into! So pleased! Pictures of the winning boy tomorrow after he has had a rest
November 27, 201014 yr Wow that is excellent Dean, well done. Your bird sounds like a little beauty. Pics of bird and trophy
November 28, 201014 yr Author Grey green barhead I thought was going to win novice: Third place - Lutino broken cap hen: Champion division, 1st place bird - Grey green dom pied young bird: My dark green in the nest: Today (sorry pics arent great, other babies in kindy cage get skittish if i get too close and he stops posing): Havent gotten around to getting a picture of the trophy. Will do that soon i suppose.
November 28, 201014 yr Lovely bird Dean appears fuller in body than both the other birds pictured. Well Done! Looking good there Dean! Congrats on the results too!
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