As expected the chick with the mauve fallow hen (band 436) stayed alone, so I moved it to the other fallow box that had one normal and two fallows (band 437-439). A few days later the normal chick died (air in the crop), but the three fallows are growing nicely and starting to feather! I can't wait for them to fly around in the flight.

In the flight with the two split fallow hens and an older hen that were accompanied by two main line cocks: I threw away the eggs of the older hen again (unfertile). In the mean time the dark green hen split fallow is spending time in another box, so I'm hopeful! I threw in two extra cocks in this flight: a normal cobalt cock I obtained as a baby last year (and grew out better than expected) and an olive cinnamon cock. I did this because the two main line cocks might not be doing the job. The cobalt is jumping around, so I expect him to take over or at least stimulate the other cocks. I also did a checkup of the vents.

This Saturday was the annual budgerigar sale of my local club. For the first time I sold a few budgerigars: the last of my pet cocks and a few older cocks that were in my flight for no reason (9 in total). I sold them for hardly any money, yet the profits sufficed to buy me a new outcross cock and have a drink.

The new cock is a tall bird with a very deep mask and good spots. I love a bird with a deep mask and big spots. And even more important: this cock was clean. This one will surely help me fix good masks and spots in my stud while getting rid of the flecking. Colour wise it is a normal cobalt. I love a dark factor bird. I was looking for something else than a cinnamon as almost all my birds are cinnamon. I like cinnamon, but I do need some normals as well, certainly now that I'm trying to improve the fallows. I would have loved it to have a slightly wider head and it is an older bird but it was in perfect condition and a bargain in my opinion.

I also picked up a young normal grey hen with lovely directional feather. More tending towards 'yellow' but everything else about it I liked. Again a normal bird. I will probably pair it up against a young grey green cinnamon cock I got from the same partnership that is now breaking its bars. Unlike the hen this cock will have a lot of feather after it is moulted through.

Bert