I had a bad time with the budgies last year; dead-in-shell, babies dying before and after leaving the nest, most of the survivors had french moult. I rang over 100, but have only about 30 - and I've not sold any. Continuing to breed to try and get numbers up was probably a poor idea, I should have paused for a month and considered what might have been causing such problems.

I did stop in November and restarted in mid-February. It's the 22nd of March now and I put a ring on the first youngster ...
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I was a bit too quick in my last blog to say the problems with chicks dying, instead of dying at about 10-14 days they were now dying at about 4 weeks. However, this has all stopped, the majority of chicks are surviving but french moult is causing a problem. Some pairs' chicks seem to be much more susceptible than others. It's rather late, I should have packed up breeding much earlier.

Things to learn from this: Perseverance with breeding is not a good idea, the disease just has fresh blood to...
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Things are picking up, but the birds have not been doing well in the nestbox. Lots of eggs, quite a lot of fertility, but many are dying a few days later and within a few days these eggs look like they were never fertile. Of the rest, most are hatching but there are some dead in shell, of the few that hatch more than normal are dying in the next couple of weeks.

Twelve youngsters bred and most are pet quality, there's only one that looks any good, a Spangle Grey Green cock. I took him to the ...
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Forty-six rung so far.

Lots of the youngster from the first round are looking good, only a couple look like pet quality. Almost all of these youngsters are cousins or half aunt/uncles, and belong to the Cinnamon family, so they largely resemble each other making it harder to remember which one is which. However since they have good faces, good shoulder and feather I don't mind too much.

The original Cinnamon Light Green cock from Dave Swann that started the Cinnamon family is responsible for 13...
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I paired a cock that bred most of my good youngsters over the last 18 months to a cousin that had produced some well-feathered babies of her own. Out of six youngsters in the first round, one stood out as being something special, he was large with good directional feather showing in his quills and a really large, wide head. Every time I looked at him in the nest box, he made me feel good.

Well he's just left the nest and now everything that made him stand out has apparently disappeared! He's f...
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Of the first six pairs: five have produced youngsters, 15 babies in total. The pair that haven't produced are laying again and the first egg is fertile.

The stats: 26 eggs laid, 19 fertile, 2 addled, 1 dead in shell, 16 hatched, 1 died (10 days old), 15 rung and growing.

The youngsters have been moved around, none of the hens have more than four youngsters to bring up. Besides not over-tiring the parents, moving the chicks around means that if one pair runs into serious problems some of their y...
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Thirty-three days after pairing up the first six pairs, all have had fertile eggs but one pair have addled their only one. Four of the pairs have chicks, ten in all. The most promising pair hatched their first today, and an egg punctured a few days ago also hatched today against all expectations. Nine fertile eggs still to hatch - hopefully.

The next four pairs (paired up Sunday 7th Feb) have started laying in the last few days, three have eggs.



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The first six pairs all involve at least one bird from the Cinnamon family, in these next four pairs only one bird is from that family.
 
Of the four pairs, two are likely to produce good youngsters. One of the pairs is a reasonable hen from the Cinnamon family paired to Light Green from Dave Swann and is related to the hen, the other are two '09 birds from Richard Bowker (YF DF Spangle hen x Grey Green cock). The Grey Green cock is very useful looking and hopefully the hen is a relation and so...
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The old girl that I said hadn't produced any fertile eggs has proven me wrong, after a week's grace she started laying again and so far the first two are fertile.

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I keep too many birds, but as soon as I begin pairing up I can see those birds I'll never use and will end just eating seed. They'll have to go.

I put down 6 pairs just after the snow disappeared, within 12 days all had eggs. Only one pair has had not been fertile, the hen is an older girl that is past her best but she bred some good youngsters last year (two of her daughters are in two of the other nest boxes - I've paired up many of my best birds in these 6 nestboxes).

Today I've put together...
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