Based on my records of when these hens began laying, I think that I will find several more chicks later today when I check them.
Tiffany was the last to begin laying eggs, so her first chick will come a little later. It's common for the mother to wait until she has two or three eggs before she starts incubating. So what will often happen in that case is that two or three chicks will hatch in the same nest within a day of each other, and then the rest follow the every other day pattern that the eggs were laid in.
Based on my records of when these hens began laying, I think that I will find several more chicks later today when I check them.
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All three budgie hens have continued laying eggs. Maude stopped laying at seven, but Astrid and Tiffany each have eight. I expected Astrid's ninth egg today, but it wasn't there, so she might be done laying. In any case, the chicks are due to start hatching soon, and I have not yet had a hen lay an additional egg once she has a chick. (I didn't bother Maude to get a photo of her box.)
By the time a budgie hen has laid five eggs, the first few are usually showing signs of development. I have a small clip on book light with a bendable neck that I use to see whether eggs are fertile or not. Knowing whether a hen is sitting on clear eggs can be important in the management of the breeding pair. These photos are of Collin and Astrid's nest. The pink color of the egg near the light is due to the blood vessels of the chick that has started growing inside. Since the eggs are laid two days apart, the chicks are at different stages of development, and will also usually hatch at two day intervals. In the photo below, you can see the pinker egg that is more developed, and just below it an egg that is partly yellow with a pink area. To the right of the light is an egg that shows clear. All you can see inside that one is the yolk. It is probably one of the most recently laid eggs, and therefore hasn't had enough time to develop blood vessels yet. Maude also has fertile eggs in her nest, and Tiffany has not gotten up to five yet, so I'll check her eggs later.
So far none of the Bourke's eggs are showing fertile, but I have noticed that it takes longer to see anything with them. It is important, though, to know about the Bourke's eggs, because it is not good to let the hen waste her time sitting on clear eggs. A Bourke's hen in the box is more dependent on the male to feed her, because she will not come out to eat on her own, like a budgie hen will. So if one of my Bourke's hens lays infertile eggs, I want to get her out of the box and throw the eggs away so she won't be depleted of nutrition and run herself down. Then she can have a second chance to mate with the male and hopefully produce good eggs the next time around. (Eggs don't get fertilized when hens are hiding in boxes!) The finches are much more independent, and I rarely candle their eggs. Spring is officially here, but it's normal for us to get one last snow around the end of March. Right now there are flurries outside, but nothing like the huge snowstorm we had last year on March 25! In that one, my daughter's car got stuck in our driveway, and my daffodils were just about buried. And here is a photo from today, to show the difference. I think today's snow is going to be a lot less. In bird room news, all three budgie hens have eggs in their nest boxes. One of the society finches has started laying, and three out of the four pairs of Bourke's also have eggs. The one who laid an egg on the floor of her cage before I gave her a box has not laid any more yet. I saved the one from the floor and put it in the box with her, but she just buries it in the bedding and doesn't sit on it. She is one who I have had trouble with in the past, laying bad eggs and not incubating them properly. I think I probably bought an old hen who can't breed any more. But if she sits in her box until the other hens' chicks hatch, I will give her a chance to foster a chick, and see if she is a good feeder. If she has ever raised chicks for her previous owners, then she might make a good foster mother. There hasn't been a whole lot to report over the last few weeks. The winter has basically been a resting period for the birds and for myself. But I've gotten busy lately and set up several of my birds for breeding. We should start to see some progress now. There is one pair of Yellow Face Star Finches that have been laying a lot of eggs already. Unfortunately, they have been laying them on the floor of their cage! I've fostered some of those to some society finches, and I'm waiting to see if they will hatch. Other pairs that we have set up are some of our self colored society finches, our Bourke's parakeets, and the three pairs of budgies featured on our Planned Breeding page. The Bourke's and budgie hens have been showing signs that they are serious about doing some nesting, so I finally gave them their nest boxes yesterday. One Bourke's hen had already started to lay eggs on the floor of her cage, and as soon as I gave her the box yesterday, she went right into it. I expect her next egg to be in there today. The budgies can always be counted on to get down to business right away. The three pairs were introduced to each other a week ago. Now that they have their boxes, I expect them to start laying very soon. It takes roughly three months from start to finish, so my estimate is that we will have parent raised baby budgies available by early June. I don't expect to hand feed any babies this time around unless I run into problems and a mother needs me to step in. But with three pairs going, it's often possible to foster chicks from one mother to another. Here are some photos of my new English budgies. The one on the left is a female Texas Clearbody. She's molting right now, so she looks a little scruffy, but you can see how the body color on her front is yellow instead of green. That's because the TCB gene reduces her pigment. You can also see that the gene reduces her wing markings as well, and gives them a sort of grizzled appearance. Below, the tips of her new flight feathers are just showing, and they are mostly grey instead of black. The other English budgie is a cinnamon greygreen cock. I'll be using him to get cinnamon hen chicks for my lacewing plans. I'll pair them with my males who are double split to cinnamon and ino. The photo below shows the new bird's brown markings a little better than the photo above. Since he is greygreen, it will be the first time that I am able to get grey factored chicks. Those are very attractive, especially if they are yellow faced, so I am looking forward to working with that.
Today I have some photos of the four chicks that Flower and Daniel raised on the floor of their cage. I had read before of hens laying and incubating eggs on the floor of their cage, but this is the first time any of my hens have done it. I tried to get Flower to use the box. At first I kept putting each egg in the box as she laid it. Eventually it became obvious that she wasn't even going to go near them. I finally just let her keep the new ones she laid on the floor, and soon she had too many to keep under herself. I could see that she could manage five eggs at a time but that the extra ones would end up just out of her reach. So I candled the eggs and removed all the clear ones, leaving her with five. Watching the new parents when the eggs began to hatch was interesting. All of that is usually hidden from view inside the box. I check inside nest boxes twice a day, but when I do, the parents just leave the box until I am done, so I don't see them interacting with the chicks much. With the eggs right on the cage floor, I was able to watch from a distance. I know that some new parents don't know what they are doing, and will sometimes neglect to feed the new babies. So I was a little nervous as I watched both Daniel and Flower sitting up on the perches just looking at the tiny little pink thing. They didn't go near it for quite a while. I was even concerned that Flower would not go back to sitting on the remaining eggs. Eventually curiosity got the better of them. Daniel went down and started examining the chick by gently nibbling it all over. Flower settled back on top of her eggs, but didn't bring the chick in under her at first. Neither one fed the baby that first day. If a chick isn't fed by its parents after 24 hours, I will usually step in and give it a feeding of thin hand rearing formula. But on the second morning, I was pleased to see that there was a tiny bit of food in the chick's crop. Supplement feeding it wouldn't be necessary. Daniel and Flower did get the hang of caring for their chick, and on the third day, two more chicks arrived. Now I was able to watch both parents feeding the tiny babies. Most budgie fathers stay out of the nest box and leave the raising of the chicks to the mother during the first couple of weeks. In this case, Daniel had been involved with the incubating process, cuddling near Flower and even sitting on some of the eggs. It was only natural that he would help out with feeding the chicks as well. I was very relieved to see that both parents were good feeders. The fourth egg never did hatch. The day it was due came and went, and the last chick to hatch was born on the due date of the fifth egg. Being raised outside of the box didn't seem to affect their growth and development. The only thing that was really different was their ability to wander off away from the group, once they learned to walk. For the most part, they were good about sticking together. But sometimes one would get separated and not seem to be able to find his way back. I would put it back myself when I saw this, but I'm sure it must have happened many more times than I observed. The cage is only three feet wide- I'm sure the parents never lost track of where their babies were! Flower was removed from the cage when she started to lay new eggs, as I didn't want her to raise a second clutch on the floor. Daniel finished weaning the chicks just fine on his own, and then he was also removed. The chicks have been independent for one week now and seem to be holding their own, so they should be ready to go to new homes very soon. Indianapolis has been somewhat paralyzed by the recent heavy snow fall and freezing temperatures we've had this week. I would say we got at least a foot of snow! Plows were able to clear all of the roads, but the sub zero temperatures are preventing the salt from melting the ice, so the roads continue to be quite treacherous. I won't be taking my two Purdue students back until the freeways are showing pavement again. Fortunately they still have a week of break left anyway. My high school student is enjoying an extra two days of winter break, since his school has been cancelled due to the extreme cold. Even my husband and oldest daughter had two days off of work. With such a full house, this Christmas vacation is turning out to be a lot longer than I expected! The birds are all doing fine down in their snug basement bird room where the temperature never fluctuates. But our two outdoor cats have been spending their nights inside our mudroom. I just didn't trust that their insulated cat house or our garage would keep them warm enough. Happy New Year, everyone!
We hope you have all had a merry Christmas, and that your holidays were fun and enjoyable, and that you are all well rested and ready to get back to the daily grind. We have had a pet sitter managing the birds here while we were gone on vacation in Colorado, and now we are ready to take up the reins again and work on our breeding plans for 2014. Our creamino budgie, Lemontine has kick started things for us by laying two eggs while we were gone. But all of the other birds will be on a winter rest plan of shortened daylight hours and an austerity diet designed to prevent them from going into breeding condition too soon. Eventually we will lengthen the amount of time the lights are on each day and gradually increase the amount and variety of foods they are given. Our hope is to get them into robust condition so that they will be healthy and successful in raising their babies in the coming year. (Lemontine will just have to do her resting after these last chicks are fledged.) |
Budgiedin BudgerigarsThis year we are going to try something new. Our Hatching and Growing page is going to be in the format of a blog. Archives
August 2014
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