Pair 3 have a chick

Bengalese chicks on camera

The chicks are doing well.



Male Bengalese song

I've swapped one of my hen bengalese for two males.  I've now got two true pairs and this time they are each in separate aviaries.

Fawn hen and pearl cock on right

Albino pair

Some argue that red eyed birds should not be paired together, however they are both strong birds so their chicks should be healthy, either way they picked each other.

Both males have been singing to prove that they are indeed males.

More turk chicks

My other pair of turks now have chicks and are on the nest box cam.  Not the best quality picture.

Dad is my old reliable red fronted normal / yellow cinnamon opaline and mum is my young cinnamon opaline.

A complicated gentic combination due to cross-over, but here goes.....

Cocks
8.25% cinnamon /yellow opaline
8.25% cinnamon /opaline
8.25% normal opaline /yellow cinnamon
8.25% normal opaline /cinnamon
16.75% normal /yellow opaline-cinnamon
16.75% normal /opaline-cinnamon
16.75% opaline cinnamon /yellow
16.75% opaline cinnamon

Hens
8.25% cinnamon /yellow
8.25% cinnamon
16.75% normal /yellow
16.75% normal
8.25% normal opaline /yellow
8.25% normal opaline
16.75% opaline cinnamon /yellow
16.75% opaline cinnamon

Most should be red fronted.
The young hen may be split for yellow.....let's see if we get any yellow chicks.

1st chick out

Dad encouraging the others

Dad

Dad feeding the other chicks

Also, some pictures of the bengies



Scar

Some pictures and video of Scar, my red fronted yellow opaline male turquoisine.

it was a very windy day!

It's so frustrating that I don't have a hen that's old enough or fit enough to breed with him.

Bourkes - update

It hasn't been the best eggs to hatch ratio.  I thought Pinky and Perky's 8 eggs to 3 chicks was poor, but Rocky and Rosie had 9 eggs to 1 chick...some how I don't think all the eggs have been incubated properly despite me removing the clear ones.  Still, overall that's 4 chicks more than the turks!

Rocky and Rosie.

I can tell one of Pinky's chicks is a Rubino because it has pale eye-lids or red eyes (the one being fed below).  This is the ino which will combine with rosa to give a rubino and because of the sex-linked inheritance I know it will be a hen.  The other two, with dark eyes, will be visually rosa cocks split rubino.

Snow

It's very unusual to get a lot of snow here on the Furness peninsular due to it's location getting protection from the sea and the Lakeland fells.  If it snows here the rest of the country must be having it bad. Night time temperatures are down to -10C and it's staying well below freezing during the day.  At this time of year my aviaries don't get any sun and keeping the birds with fresh un-frozen water is becoming a problem.  Tubular heaters give the birds some protection and they all appear to be doing OK....however, it's only December.

Buster likes it...

Bourkes nest videos

I thought I'd post some videos of the bourkes chicks before they leave the nest.

Dad feeding the chicks...

Older chick feeding younger chick..

Chicks exercising their wings ready for the big day!

No sound unfortunately...frustrating as it was working the other day!

Bourkes courtship display

Rosa and rubino bourkes are notoriously difficult to sex, unlike normals which can be sexed easily by the hens having an under the wing stripe.  In rosa's both cocks and hens have the stripe.
To be sure the only way is to see the cock bird displaying.  I managed to catch my rubino doing this, it wasn't easy as he would stop every time when he saw me filming.

This rubino was bought as a hen and it took me a long time to find out that he was in fact a cock. The problem was that a cock bird will rarely display if he's with another more dominant male, he will even act hen like, allowing the dominant cock bird to feed them.

My turqs have started another clutch....so far two eggs.

The previous two turq chicks are now independent and have been moved to the brown aviary, the cock bird is starting to get his red chest now.

I also have Mr Burns and Marge (seagreen and lutino splendids) now together in this aviary in one last attempt to breed my remaining splendids this year.  Lisa the white breasted blue splendid was just not interested at all.

The bourkes chicks are growing fast and are just starting to open their eyes.

Bourkes nest - unclean

Picture and video of the 3 bourkes chicks.  The bourkes are not the best house-keepers, as can be seen from the state of the nest box.

It looks like out of the failed eggs, one was fertile.

I still haven't managed to get sound working with this wireless camera.

Feeding

Marge feeding her chick.

I think I need a new camera. To get this video I had to switch the camera off for five minutes to let it cool down and get rid of the haze. I used to get much better footage when the camera was new!

Better late than never

Two of Marge's eggs have finally hatched.  I was starting to think that they were all dead in the shell as they were so overdue. When I looked at the eggs a few days before they hatched, 2 eggs out of the five remaining eggs looked as if they may also have chicks inside.  However, they are now 4 or 5 days overdue.

I hope Barney now starts to help feed the chicks. He's still got a swollen foot which has not responded to the antibiotics in the drinking water, which I've now stopped because of the chicks.

Not the best video quality...poor light. It's usually better at 8 to 10am BST when some sunlight filters into the box and flicks of the camera's infra-red.

Goldie the turk is sitting on her eggs and probably has been for the past two days, so they should be due about the 26th May.

The Hecks yet again threw out a newly hatched chick and the other eggs failed to hatch.  I've replaced their small nest basket with a larger nest box and they have already started to build another nest in it.  Hopefully this bigger space will make a difference.

Sitting..at last

Finger crossed, Marge appears to be now sitting on the eggs full time. She sat last night and has stayed in tonight.  The eggs take 18 days to hatch from the start of incubation, so they should start to hatch on the 4th May. I'll check them next week to see if they are fertile.
I am still a bit concerned about Barney not feeding her, she appears to spend to long off the eggs feeding herself.

Since taking the photo, she's laid another egg. That's seven in total...too many! This probably explains the late sitting. This happened last year with Barneys old mate and all the eggs were infertile.

Goldie is now going in out of the nestbox. The turquosines share the aviary with one pair of the bourkes and I have 3 nest boxes in the aviary for them to choose from. The turqs have been trying them all at the moment.

No parakeet eggs yet

The parakeet nest boxes have been in for 2.5 weeks and so far no eggs, despite Marge spending a lot of time in the box.

All the other parakeets, only the males have shown interest in the boxes.

I'm having doubts about the sex of Rosy, 'she' keeps displaying and I thought it was only the male bourkes parakeets that do this. Rubino's are very difficult to sex. The person I got her off said she'd bred before and was adamant she was a hen. I've sent off a blood sample for DNA testing to prove once and for all. This is the second time, as Rosey was a replacement for another hen bird that turned out to be male. Also decided to check Goldie out (as opaline yellow Turks can also be difficult to sex). These colour mutations are a real problem, it's so easy with the normals.

The Hecks meanwhile are on eggs. I think they have been sitting for well over a week now and probably due to hatch next week. I can't be sure because it's impossible to see in the nest. All three birds are getting on fine...I'm not even sure who has laid the eggs!