It's been a while since I updated. It has been a very busy week for the family. Good busy. Anyway, I'm here now.
One of the split fallow hens is on eggs. Dad is her dad. I would have preferred her mating with one of her fallow half brother, but such is the way of colony breeding. One of the two fallow half brothers is chasing the better sky blue hen.
I would have thought this sky blue hen would mate up with the fallow dad since they have been in a breeding cage together for 6 months. Wel
Flight one: I've thrown in a second grey hen in breeding. Both hens still have a few pin feathers but hopefully one of them will come into condition soon.
Flight two (fallow): Some of the birds are checking out the breeding boxes.
I've also prepared the third breeding flight. I will put seed & water in tomorrow and then the birds (the two sisters and a few cocks). While doing that I also decided to only make 4 breeding flights: greys, fallow, the two sisters and recessive pied.
Bert
On Sunday I paired up the first two pairs of the Miller birds. The birds are really settling down and all look better than they did on the pictures and when I get them home and I wasn't disappointed at either of those points either so really pleased at the moment.
A bird that really takes my eye is a Grey Normal Hen. She looked good in the photo below which Richard posted, but in the feather looks much bigger and longer than she did on the picture! :-)
The first pair down were Pair
It has been snowing and cold for far too long in Belgium. And I so much wanted to start breeding in the outside flights. Even more so after a visit to @stef who had all his breeding cages filled.
Found this budgie comic that seemed appropriate:
http://cagedcomic.com/2013/03/08/uncaged-3-the-snowining/
So I better get the 'sunny' thread going now that the weather only shortly drops below freezing each day. It spurred me to clear out two of the small outside flights. All outside flights w
On Monday I made a quick dash, just under four hours, to the Miller stud in Cumbria. Photos below.
Richard showed me an Opaline Dark green cock
Which whilst nice, I wouldn't have thought that would have produced the likes of these!
Another example of how having a well bred related stud will produce higher quality when using visually inferior specimens to higher quality partners. That said the cock would be most welcome in 99% of bird rooms in the UK, it's just that the
Had a great day in the bird room. It's been a while since I had the best part of a day to play with the birds :-)
I paired the opaline violet cock and the grey hen. Took another photo of the big lad and really chuffed with him.
Paired these two together
x
The DF is bred through Andy Hind lines on the cock side and John Wilson blood on the hen's side. The DF is a grey judging by the suffusion on the feather. Interesting to see what is produced. Both of these birds are rea
It's been a weird week.
The clutch I moved didn't hatch! Then to make it worse a clutch of round two eggs that were fertile and the pair had hatched and reared successfully previously didn't hatch. It's not easy this hobby is it! I bought a devise to monitor humidity and temp, which seems to be consistently around 60% and 8-10 degrees. Sound about right?
But good news - the pair mentioned previously including my best cock have their first chick and it looks like they are going to feed it
The good news is that the first egg from the transferred clutch has hatched today and so far looks like the hen is going to feed it!
More news to follow!
Cheers
Simon
Got home to find that my best pair had hatched a baby but it ended up outside dead!
The hen messed about in the first round and I didn't act quickly enough, so moved the remaining five eggs to the hen below that had a clear round but I know is a good mother. Fingers crossed it works!
This is the pair.
Cock is a Keith Moorhouse rung sky, very smart :-)
This is the hen
Thats budgies! :-)
Cheers
Simon
Really excited as i have two eggs from the best cock I breed last year, this chap
He is out of a Sam Wildes Dark Green hen to a Geoff Tuplin Sky Spangle. Not great spots but a really big bird that I really like.
The hen he is paired to is a Grey Cinn Dom Pied
Fingers crossed for fertile eggs!
Cheers
Simon
After a great day at Stafford I returned to the bird room to fill the two free cages.
I've noticed that after the snow and generally awful weather the birds have really perked up with the arrival of the lighter, warmer weather. Although we heat and provide lights in the aviary I do think that the birds still know what the conditions are really like outside. Anyone else had the same experience/feeling?
After much deliberation I decided on two cocks that I have recently acquired.
A Gol
I think Richard Miller put an entry on the old forum about these guys.
http://www.showbudgies.co.za/
If you go to the site you can click on South African Bulletin and read all the back issues, well worth it as there is some good stuff.
Thought I'd mention it in case it was missed as the transition happened.
Cheers
Simon
I was looking tonight at my birds and was really chuffed with those that I have bought in and those I bred last year.
I have two 'main' lines, an FA1 side with birds from breeders that are predominantly FA1 lines and what I call my continental side. The continaentsl sde is mainly based on birds thst have been bred from Mannes/Bock lines. No actual continental rung birds but again birds bred by UK breeders from those lines.
This seemed to be going quite well as a theory until I visited a
Really looking forward to going to Stafford on Sunday.
Sure the EBF stand will be well manned and looking forward to picking up red millett sprays :-)
Never been before so looking forward to the trade stands, not after any birds!
I've been thinking about doing this for sometime and have now taken the plunge! My thoughts are that if the guys can go to the trouble of creating and running the new forum, then I can post an entry every day or so.
For those who don't know me I have been back in budgies for two years, having previously kept them with my Dad.
I have a passion for spangles and particularly violet spangles, it means that sometimes I don't do the 'right' thing by everyones standards, but it is right fo
Hi
As I have been running a blog on the forum since the forum started & people seem to like it I will continue
As everyone will know I have been a bit absent of late
All the funeral arrangements are sorted so I can get back to my birds
I will blitz the sheds over the weekend I will feel happier doing it
I now have some youngsters almost ready to go into the flight
Ive about 6 pinkies almost ready for ringing
Once One Cock has finished rearing the youngsters Im going to tr