All Entries in the "Breeding" Category
Thoughts on Nesting Boxes – Ancient and Modern
It was not long before I realised that breeders were, like myself, having many problems, particularly when trying to retrieve the box for inspection, unhooking it, then seeing the hen, or the pair, dashing around and trying not to drop the box with one hand. Needless to say, at best, the eggs were scattered all over the place and many times damaged.
Warning – Security Lights
When on, the security light illuminates our bedroom – such that you wake up frequently! On one occasion in the dead of night, I ventured out and looked at the back of our home. When the security light came on, not only did it illuminate the back of the house, but I seriously thought about cutting the lawn while I was out there!
Hatching Assistance Guide
As we know, opening too early can reveal the chick which still has not absorbed the yolk into its body and it is pale and weak. The outcome is death! Opening too late and the chick for various reasons also dies, unless helped a fraction earlier. Close observation and timing are therefore vital assets to your husbandry.
Ignore the Ring Issue Date if your Stud is Ready to Breed
Is the Ring Issue date more important than grabbing that moment to begin your personal season? Personally, I grab the moment these days and get a round in from perhaps a third of the stud and get results on the perch early with whatever rings I have to hand.
The Influential Effects of Artificial Lighting
After a few weeks it became obvious that breeding was poor and the question was – Why?. The old birdroom was breeding at the same time and producing good numbers of chicks as usual. In the new room, infertility abounded and what chicks there were, were not being fed properly. Dead tiny chicks appeared regularly.
An Insight into Budgerigars via Evolution and Selective Breeding
Charles Darwin devoted much of his later life to studying the Racing Pigeon and set up a breeding loft at his home in the village of Downe, Kent. However, we as budgerigar breeders are doing much the same thing by attempting to defeat Natural Selection, which incidentally as I certainly know we can never win!
Breeding Pairs – Go or Stay – Artificial Lighting
Remove any eggs that you do not want to transfer, but leave the box open for a day. After a day close off the nest box entrance. Allow the pair to adjust to the new scene for another 2 days. Then remove them to a stock cage along with others similarly affected, but make sure the pair are close together.
Worming – Purchasing – Vitamin D – Showing Hens
Vitamin D that is lost in this way should be replaced artificially via multivitamin solutions and / or cod liver oil bought from your pharmacy.
Flecking in Chicks – Ionisers – White Ceres – Cod Liver Oil
Cod liver oil is seriously valuable for its vitamin contents as these give health and great energy to the stock, as well as the iodine content for the thyroid – without which budgerigars do not reproduce easily.
Getting The Best from Your Stud
The desire to breed super exhibition budgerigars is the ambition of every fancier in every country. I am well aware of the fact that the Australian show scene and its structure and administration is different to the UK. That aside, we all have the same aim as it is the finest birds on display that we wish to breed and own for the simple reason of pride in having achieved something that money cannot buy.
