I have just come back up from the bird room, all the drinkers have been cleaned and refilled (that's a task by it's self) anyway I also checked their nest boxes to see if any more eggs have have been laid I have got fifteen eggs now and still waiting for my agate pair to lay, I can see one of the six eggs off the white and cream pairing has been spiked with a nail, in the next day or two I will candle their eggs to see if any are fertile.
Tom has now separated he breeding team into one cage of cocks and another cage with hens, keeping them separate for two weeks, so when the time comes to pairing them, they should be ready to go down straight away (fingers crossed) the timing for pairing has got to be done right so the 2009 rings will be here on christmas eve and the off spring can be rung, ready for next years shows, it's a bit more critical then the Javas.
The Photo: In the photo the far two cages has the hens in and the first two has the cocks Tom has removed the dividers between the cages to make them double cages, he has left in the perspex divider in the middle to keep the two sexes apart, but they can still see each other.
At last the first egg has arrived off the Agate pairing, this hen is a visual agate what I bred last year from a two normal split agates, the cock java is a silver split cream, so all the off spring will be split for Agate, these will be used in next year’s breeding program if all the eggs are fertile and hatch. The second bit of good news is the baby from again a pairing using a visual agate and a normal split agate, has turned out to be a cock normal split agate, I am so sort of agate cock’s I now have two for sure, I have a silver cock what was sold to me last year as a split agate but has yet to show any agate chicks when paired to a visual agate I have my doubts it is split.
My breeding is going well at the moment, the agate pairing now have four eggs, most of the others have two or three eggs each, from what I can see all are fertile, the only Javas that have no eggs at the moment are the pair I have put in cage nine the reason for this is the time they have spent together it will be fourteen days next week hopefully the will start to lay then.
Photo 1: Here are six full eggs from the cream and white pairing the cream is the hen although one egg has a small pieced from the nail off one parent I don't know if this egg will survive? it is still a good pink colour not black which indicates a dead egg, I will keep an eye on it to see how it goes.
Photo 2: Here are the parents the cream and white. This white cock Java is the bird I got from the Stafford bird show in October this year, it's in lovely condition and a very calm bird plus it has filled every egg so far.
The Nest Box: I now stopped using meadow grass in my nest boxes, I only use shredded paper and coconut fiber, the reason I stopped using grass, is I am sure it brings in unwelcome guests like mite and other creepy insects. plus its one less thing I have to buy in for the Javas.
Tom and his mum spent the morning cleaning the bird room today. Tom put all his hen budgies he will be using for breeding in one cage and all his cocks he is using in a separate cage the other week, today he put one cock bird in with the hens to see what hens where chasing the cock and showing interest, straight away he got four hens out of twelve that where interested, each hen has now been removed and placed into individual breeding cages with out a cock budgie, Tom will not be pairing the up until the 16th November, hopefully by then the other hens will have come into breeding condition and he can fill the remaining breeding cages.
Tom has removed all the nest boxes until he pairs the birds up!
Here is Tom hanging some fresh millet sprays in the indoor flight, every month Tom attacks my apple trees out side and cuts off a few twigs to use in the flight, his budgies spends hours chewing and stripping the bark off until the white apple wood is on show, this is good for the birds beaks plus it stops them from getting bored. The only problem with this apple wood is my trees are getting smaller LOL!
Well it's total disaster in the birdroom with the breeding pairs, the cream and white pairing three eggs have dyed out and one hatched today, this baby has pink eyes, I don't know what colour it will turn out to be yet! The agate pair has four eggs all infertile, so I have now removed them so she can start a second round hopefully a better round, also another pair which had two full eggs they hatched one today and with in the hour it was out of the nest in the seed pot outside with peck marks to it's body, I have removed the second full egg and put it with the cream and white pair, so this pair can now also start a second round, the one bit of good news is the pair I have in cage 9 the hen is now swollen at the back end indicating she is about to lay an egg.
Photo: I am now considering going back to using budgie boxes instead of these stepped nest boxes, I have not had much luck with this style of box.
Here we are building more bird things, this time it's a whole new adventure for us, we are planning to make and sell punch bar cage fronts, I have had so many enquires about them in the past and always past the information to other cage front makers, we thought it was time we had a go ourselves, the first thing we need is the jig for holding the punch bar together while we solder them together, in the photo I am just building the jig we can make budgie or finch cage fronts as I have had two sets of plates made by an engineering firm, I am making a large jig so we can make punch bar aviary panels, the jig is 26" high and 37" long this will enable us to make any common size cage fronts, we hope to have this new adventure up and running very soon, adverts with be put on Tom's & My website's when the time comes.
It has been quite a while since I last updated my site, I have been busy with school work as it is my last year at school however I have found 10 minutes to write this little piece to tell you all about my first breeding season in the new bird room.
Recently I have had Jeff Attwood round to teach me some information about genetics and I will do a little page on what I have learnt from Jeff about genetics so you can have a look in case there is something you didn't’t know. I will try to get this information collated and put onto the dairy page so keep watching.
On Thursday I opened the nest box for the birds to go into, I filled the nest box with some sawdust but I compacted it too tightly not that this has mattered because the birds have dug out what they wanted and arranged the box to their liking. At the moment things are looking promising and I am looking forward to seeing what comes off this year’s breeding, fingers crossed it will be a good one.
Here are the chicks from my white and cream pairing, the two pink eye are from this pairing and the one dark eyed chick is fostered from another nest, as you can see they are all coming along nicely. The pair I took the dark eye chick off have got one egg on their second round, along with the Agate pairing, both had their first eggs today.
Here is a photo I took today, it is a photo of a young normal split agate, they are both in a wire cage in the bird room, here they will stay until they settle down after been separated from their parents | Photo |
I am working on a new webpage for javafinch.com it's going to help with bird keeping, and is the biggest download I have ever undertaken, I don't want to give the game away just yet!! BUT it should be here around midweek, both on this page and the index page of my website, come back soon.
