More babies - perhaps first blue gouldian??

Coral and Blush now has 2 hatched babies with 2 still in the egg.  The baby who just hatched today is still wet - it is on the left.  The shell it just hatched from can be see at the right top corner of the picture.

 Here is the little guy I had to handfeed last breeding season.  He is looking to be a black headed white breasted yellow back - not sure if single or double factor yellow, but he is molting really slowly.  I know he is still molting because he has pin feathers, but this is definitely not a compressed molt.  Not sure how much of this is due to the timing of his birth versus the hard start he had in life - he is the one with stress bars on his feathers.  He is quite healthy nowadays though and is not nearly as enamored with my finger anymore.  He is, however, still the boldest of them all - always the first one down to eat when I replenish their dishes.  I rarely name my finches since I have so many, and I am an extremely untalented namer, but I decided to name him Ken (strong in Japanese).

 Here are Ken's new siblings from this season.  Ken's parents are in general fabulous parents - tight sitters and good feeders.  I believe the failure of their 2nd and 3rd clutches last season was partially due to illness.  This is probably the first full clutch of 5 I've had in a long time.  I'm not terribly good at guessing at colors of the babies until they get some feathers, but the top right baby is looking very much like a blue.  If this is the case, it will be the first blue gouldian born in my aviary - hooray!  It's possible for it to be a pastel as well I suppose.  I've had a couple of silver babies (curiously both have been black headed white breasted silvers - 1 male, 1 female) - the silver hen is another sister of Ken's, but never a pastel or a blue.  The bottom right baby is looking to be a silver, I think.  The other babies are probably dilute versus normals - I better wait until feathers come through before making any conclusions.

As for the linnies, Captain Turq and Cream Puff's eggs were all DIS or infertile.  Not sure if there really is a genetic issue or they stop sitting well toward the latter part of incubation, but they have restarted laying eggs already.  Frustration!  All these fertile eggs but always DIS.  Indy and Blondie are still completely ignoring their nest box and are shredding newspaper and playing under their newspaper "tent".  Silly linnies.

The 2 society fostered gouldian babies are growing well - I have already been able to close band them - both looking like they will be yellow.  Their parents laid again with 4 fertile eggs, but tossed and killed the 1st hatched baby, so I had to also foster out their 2nd clutch.  Two of the remaining 3 eggs hatched - 1 yellow and 1 normal vs dilute.  The last egg was DIS.  I don't think the hen was the tosser as she did fairly well last season.  Her new mate is 2 years old but this is his first time breeding, so perhaps he is just inexperienced.  I will allow them to try for a 3rd clutch before separating them since they've yet to do any hard work.  

Shaft tails are finally investigating nests.  The nests put into the large flight have also been met with great interest by the shaft tails and red headed parrot finch pairs.  We shall see if any babies result from all this enthusiasm.

Trying to make sure all the parents have enough high protein soft food can be expensive.  I have tried to give fresh egg food, but the constant concern for spoilage have led to using dried soft food/egg food only.  I've been using Miracle Meal so far, but have decided to try out Higgins Proteen 25 and Petamine to see if I can save on cost.  I am still providing chitted seeds everyday.  Mealworms and dried bloodworms are added as well.  Veggie salad is provided daily.  Different supplements are provided in the water as well.  I've started to try Nekton E and Nekton S in additional to my previous regimen.  Hopefully everyone will take to the new products without problems.