hi all its been a while. Still no eggs to date. Have built a new flight to house my non breeding birds. was having a lot of interest and disturbance in breeding boxes with other bird hanging in the fronts with females constantly defending and little time for breeding. Have moved non breeding birds into new flight and the result looks promising in breeding cages., much calmer and far more interest inside breeding cages almost to the point of obsession.

 

Some pics of modified setup

 

 

First egg today. Titch and Donald will hopefully be proud parents soon. Titch is sitting and Donald is dutifully busily feeding her.

 

Edited July 15, 201311 yr by paulie

Yay. It's so exciting when you discover an egg in the box. Good luck, I hope it all goes well

good on you.

 

good on your birds too.

 

I have birds laying in the aviary at the moment. so far no fights over nest boxes. 3 have laid 4 more yet to lay in there chosen boxes.

Good to hear its going well L__J. Titch has laid her second egg on the 16th or late on the 15th, she is looking ready to lay her third. a question i have that i hope someone can answer is every time that titch comes out or the nest box Donald will try to mate with her. is this the usual activity i should expect during the laying process? or do i need to separate the pair?

Hi Paulie, yes it is very normal for them to keep mating

Thanks Nadene.

Tink laid her first egg about half an hour ago.

yeah this is funny behaver the hen will come out to do a massive poop and the male wants to jump on her lol.

 

I find it funny watching it.

Titch has now laid 3 eggs and had laid every 2 days and is due again tomorrow and at long last Tink has started and is laying, she now has 2 eggs the last laid today at abt mid day. its all very exciting and the perseverance is beginning to pay off. also looks like tweety is just abt ready to lay as well.

 

also have a new addition to the flock. Brutus he is a beautiful green and is massive. will try to pair him with mary a large grey. here is a picture of Brutus

 

Edited July 19, 201311 yr by paulie

quick update. titch now has 4 eggs and tink has 3. Hoping it not to cold here for them to hatch and survive.

Sounds like your off and runnning Paulie, great to see your birds finally co-operating.

I have tiny chicks in aviary and we had temp of 4% over night, which is low for us, but mine were all fine when I checked at 7 a.m.

Yay everything is coming together. I agree with Robyn about the cold, I have a 3 day old chick and one hatching at the moment and they seem to be coping and its gotten down to -1. I do pull a cover down on them over night though.

Hi thanks for the info. I now have 4 eggs in both tithc and tinks boxes and tweety laid her first today or last night. candled titches first 2 eggs today and both seem to have an air bubble in them and are mostly clear so am thinking they are infertile. tinks first 2 seem to have what looks like a vain membrane showing through the shell so am hopeful for those.

Thitch was a give away bird with claims of being a proven layer, but am wondering if she was a give away because of infertile eggs. Just guessing/surmising here.

Hi all

I have found that Titch who has 6 eggs now will only sit on 3 at any given time and not the same 3, so all of her clutch has gone cold at some point. Don't hold much hope the any will hatch from these. Tink has 5 and Tweety has 2 both are doing a great job and both are due for another egg today. Am expecting some results from these two. hopefully they will know what to do once they hatch.

Edited July 27, 201311 yr by paulie

Tich and Donalds eggs are all stone cold, time to bin the eggs and return birds to flight. Have another pair that that have bonded in flight, mating and are defending a shelf corner. These two have now taken up residence in breeding cage 1.

 

Hen/maiden

Cock/untested

The time has come for fertile eggs to begin hatching. No1 of 5 from tink is now 19 days. Tweety has a clutch of 7 with the first due on the 10th.

No hatching's yet, all eggs are full in 2 clutches, any day now fingers crossed.

mmmmmm still waiting, Does any one have experience with the hatchings being over due. Thinking may have lost at least one in the egg.

 

egg 1 in box 3 was due in the 18th and egg 2 is due today. im calculating an 18 day incubation. hen was on eggs from day 1.

Edited August 7, 201311 yr by paulie

Still no hatching's, will wait until egg 3 box 3 is due then then may will examine un hatched eggs to see if i can what is going on here.

Box 1 is now laying and 1st egg arrived today.

Some eggs can be infertile. Usually the Hen will through these out once time has passed.

 

A budgie of mine through all hers out the other day and is trying again.

Checked eggs with stethoscope, (borrowed) All eggs box 3, 5 eggs, are alive all have heart beat and all are tapping and chirping in the egg, almost ready to hatch. YEY I think that this hen must have started to sit properly at abt egg no 4, Day 8 of laying.

 

Box 2, 7 eggs all have heart beat not yet ready to hatch, expecting hatching from these any where from the 10/8/13 to the 22/8/13. depending on when hen stated to sit properly.

 

Box 1 now has 2 eggs still clear as to be expected at this stage

 

Must say that stethoscope will be well worth the cost, removed any guesswork as to the health of the unhatched eggs. Abt $150.00 for good one.

First egg hatched picture to come

 

This is egg 1 from box 3. had a bit of gunk on its face, Looked like spilled food, cleaned up with cotton wool bud and is secure with mum again.

Egg 2 is hatching as I write this

Edited August 10, 201311 yr by paulie

Time has now come for a new pairing. Thinking I might get some violet from these 2.

Keeping in mind that this is a test pairing with the main incentive being to find out if Brutus is shooting blanks or not before his intended becomes of age, to a test run to establish what else is or possibly is in his make up and to test my ability to predict what offspring will come from this pairing.

 

Brutus

 

Bell

 

From what is visual id like if some people would like to offer a perspective of possible out come

First chick from box 3 died over night, look like wasn't fed and yoke sack not absorbed. may have been caused by my inability to not handle. Second chick is doing well, nice full crop and far less yoke sack visible and seems to be stronger and more active.