New to the boards from Australia :) with a few q's

[meld89]

G'day everybody,
How are you all? My name is Mel and i live in Queensland, Australia. It is currently almost 3pm here in OZ so its starting to cool off a little.
I am a budgie fanatic to say the least, but i have a love for all animals including my 7 budgies, Great Dane called Chevy and our two dozen or so chickens
Anyway, I have been breeding budgies for years now but finally have a chance to spend some of my time at home with my two sons and appreciate the birds and really advance my knowledge on them. I have 7 adult budgies at present in my brand new aviary my husband built for me which is approximately 4meters long, 3m wide, and 3.5m high. Im not very good with the technical names but i will descibe the colours best i can (not sure how to upload the pics as im new to this )
Pair 1- female white with red eyes (albino im guessing), male Yellow head with blue and green body.
Pair2- White again albino i think female, Violet coloured male with white face
Pair 3- Yellow face with blue and green body female, sky blue (almost fluro blue) male
Single male, yellow with greeny blue patches

Pair 1 has two babies in their nest box, one is blue and the other im not sure of yet (but i can post pics of all of them when i work out how haha)

Pair two has got one baby in the nest and three eggs still yet to hatch

Pair three has 4 eggs in the box none which have yet hatched.

It is all of their first breeding ever so its been quite an experience so far as pair one had five babies originally but three of them died at about the 1 week mark. Im not sure why, thinking maybe there were too many babies for her to keep warm and they died from the cold coz its been quite cold here for the last few weeks as we are going into winter here.

Im contemplating hand raising a baby or two, i have done it before in the past because i have had to due to death of parents but i have been doing alot of research this time around and feel alot more confident. Im going to attach the photos that i have as attachments but i dont know if it will work but i will give it a go

Talk soon
mel

[meld89]

This is pair one that has the two babies at present



This is their two babies, I was away when they hatched so im unsure as to how old they are but im thinking they were born around May 21st??? what do you guys think? I can tell u however that out of the five babies that hatched these two were the oldest and youngest the three that died were in the middle.



This is pair two, these guys have one baby at the moment and three eggs yet to hatch. She is very protective of her babies



this is their baby and eggs



I havent been able to get a pic of pair three yet as they are very egg focused at present haha.

This is my single bachelor bird hes yet to get a girlfriend haha



so thats the clan at the moment. I know they arent close ups but the aviary is quite high so its hard to reach haha. Does anybody know what their technical names would be?? according to their colours?

thanks

[Rachael Kellett]

Hi Mel ;D Firstly a big welcome to the forum, I hope you enjoy your time here. I'm not an expert on mutations but I can get the majority of them

Pair one looks to be albino hen and Yellow face skyblue male, a closer up photo would help too as I think the cock could be an opaline.

Pair two are albino i think (if it has red eyes) and normal cobalt.

As for your bachelor budgie he is gorgeous, some type of pied but its hard to tell with him being so little in the photo. I want to run away with him anyway ;D

[BudgiesBuddy]

Hi and welcome to forum

A hen can easily take care of 5 chicks so I don't think this was the case with chicks dying.

Your pair one does like an Albino hen and a Yellow Face Blue cock.

I can't say much about other 3 as the pictures are very small.

[meld89]

Thankyou for your replies! As most of these birds are aviary birds, they are not overly tame so getting really close for a photo shoot is proving a little hard haha! I will keep trying though! Any thoughts on hand raising and what age is ideal to do it? The fluffy white baby in the above pic, is that roughly the size/age?? I'm going to be alot more vigilant this time and record every egg laid and hatched so I can keep track of exact dates.
I love the single male too, his markings are very unique and he has a very entertaining personality (he is also the youngest adult bird) I'm just waiting to see a female that I think would be a good pair for him, any ideas??
Also thought it was interesting after looking at most of the photos on here I'm guessing most of your members have English budgies (being a uk site I suppose that would be expected haha) where as I have Australian budgies which are alot smaller and slimmer, particularly their heads. Its quite interesting to see the different varieties

Thanks again
Mel

[BudgiesBuddy]

Check this thread for hand rearing

Hand Feeding Budgie Chicks.

[BudgiesBuddy]

Jun 15, 2012 20:22:30 GMT meld89 said:

I love the single male too, his markings are very unique and he has a very entertaining personality (he is also the youngest adult bird) I'm just waiting to see a female that I think would be a good pair for him, any ideas??

Another pied may give you some surprises in terms of colors

[Hezz]

HI and welcome, Mel. Actually I think you will find that most people on here with multiple budgies have a mix of pet and exhibition types, or just pet type. Of course the serious breeders/exhibitors have show birds, but the majority of us just have what we like the look of.

[meld89]

hi everybody,
heres a new pic of my younger baby out of pair one (mum white albino, dad bluey green male with yellow head) still not sure of what colours it will be. So far it looks to be white with a blue strip down its back and blue cheeks with white and black stripes.
What do you guys think?



thanks

[meld89]

Also I think its a male?? it is very quiet considering this is only the second time i have had it out of the nest and it hasnt tried to bite or squwark at me once. what do you think about the sex? hope this picture is big enough this time.
It is very snuggly and likes to crawl up the sleeve of my jumper on the inside and fall asleep. is it ok to have it snuggled close to me to keep it warm? it seems happy to be there haha

thanks again

[BudgiesBuddy]

It's a beautiful chick and looks pied to me

Can't say much about the sex yet as in this age they change cere color with light and temperature difference.