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.

 

I am confused about how you Al'd your french moult cock.

 

I am also confused with the French Moult as some chicks have recovered fine and the breeders have gone on to breed them fine but others won't breed with them at all. I have queries on this forum plus also the Talk Budgies forum - not sure if you are a member there too or not. Do you have experience with french moult? Neville has been very helpful. It helps to get information from people in the same country.

 

Lovely birds by the way. Gorgeous colourings. I hope your breeding season picks up. Other club members down this way are having similar problems to yours when we had our last meeting in November.

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.

 

I am confused about how you Al'd your french moult cock.

 

I am also confused with the French Moult as some chicks have recovered fine and the breeders have gone on to breed them fine but others won't breed with them at all. I have queries on this forum plus also the Talk Budgies forum - not sure if you are a member there too or not. Do you have experience with french moult? Neville has been very helpful. It helps to get information from people in the same country.

 

Lovely birds by the way. Gorgeous colourings. I hope your breeding season picks up. Other club members down this way are having similar problems to yours when we had our last meeting in November.

 

The AI process essentially involves milking the semen from any given cock bird and applying it to the reproductive tract of a hen that is laying eggs. It is not a process I would recommend as firstly you can damage cock birds by trying to milk them, thus rendering them infertile, and secondly I have learned after some time that the window in which you can successfully fertilise an egg is quite narrow and you would have to be home every day at the exact time the hen lays an egg to successfully AI. It is much more productive to leave the hen and cock to do their own thing and such a cock bird could be placed with one hen in the morning and one hen and night and successfully fertilise both hens and those eggs could be fostered out and the cock used again in that fashion before being rested for a while in the flights if required. AI was indicated in this instance because I did not want to risk passing the french moult on by having the cock bird actually raise his own chicks and furthermore he cannot successfully mount and fertilise hens given the balance issues he faces from feathers lost through french moult.

 

Here is a post I made earlier explaining french moult:

French moult post (Post #6, by me)

And to answer your question, I am more familiar with french moult than I would like to be! Most breeders can say that! I have been fortunate to only have perhaps 5 french moulters of all the many young I have bred, but it's always heartbreaking to see a promising youngster start dropping flights and tail feathers etc.

 

Yes, I am aware many breeders were having terrible breeding results last november and high rates of french moult. The same was said last year when we met in hamilton to discuss breeding at a venue in te rapa, kingsgate hotel i think?. At that time i was still using lesser quality show stock and was the only one there to have had reasonable breeding and zero french moult. After I sold those birds and purchased better show stock, I had my first ever terrible breeding season ever. You can read about it, it was pretty awful! And I didn't even put everything in there!

 

Im having a pretty good season so far. Numbers not at my usual, but I am producing far better quality and setting myself up a nice family line that has already had success in show.

 

And for everyone else, here is the latest to fledge, the new cinnamon opaline sky blue hen. Full sister to the cin op sky and cin op cobalt first pictured on this thread, and to the cin op violet pictured a page back:

 

 

Comparison shot:

 

Edited December 30, 201014 yr by Dean_NZ

One word: Wow

Love, love, love the feathery "trousers" on your birds

Love, love, love the feathery "trousers" on your birds

 

I never really thought about it until you mentioned it lol. But the trousers on the violet posted earlier are pretty stylin!

love them Dean! Great colouring on them (bright) and the heads!! love them, the last two siblings look so cute sitting side by side