Some new bird pictures and new babies.

opaline bourke babies

isabel shaft tail

gouldian male, scarlet chested grasskeet, gouldian hen, and canary

strawberry finch chicks

bourke chicks

grey cheek English zebra chick

scarlet chested chicks with cinnamon mom

yellow gouldian chicks

2 chest frilled society chicks with their creamino sister

marked white pied society chicks with 2 crested

Euro black grey society male with 3 chicks

New Scarlet Chested youngsters

lutino split to aqua hen

3 lutino split to aqua sisters

creamino

normal split to lutino and blue male

Shaft tails and turquoisine youngsters...

creamino, albino, and isabel shaft tails

fawn, creamino, and albino shaft tails

2 isabels and 1 fawn shaft tail

isabel shaft tails

group of young red fronted opaline turquosines

green opaline

grey green opaline

grey yellow, yellow, and grey green opalines

yellow opaline

A few more babies...

A few more babies growing up...

creamino shafttail babies - being handfed since sometimes the parents will reject the more unusual looking mutation babies especially white mutations

normal split to lutino bourke baby - should be a male based on parent genetics

oops, got some gunk on his face

rosey (opaline) sister to the normal

second rosey (opaline) sister

Fledging day...

Apparently today is a good day for fledging.  Young gouldians fostered under societies and Ken's new siblings decided to fledge.  New society babies also came out of their nest - three more pied fawns.  All of Scarlet and Red's 4 babies have fledged; unfortunately Red seems more keen in plucking his babies than feeding them, so I've pulled them for hand feeding.  This time, Coral and Blush are being perfect parents.  Of Red and Scarlet's babies, 1 male, 2 hens, and 1 I'm thinking will be a hen as well but not sure due to the white line under the wing not being very prominent.  Of Coral and Blush's babies, 1 male, 1 hen, and 2 more too young for me to tell just yet.  

Sadly, Ken's sister from last year, my black headed white breasted silver hen had died.  Looks like my problem with blue and silver gouldians continues.  

All of the the shaft tails are restarting.  There were a lot of clear eggs, so we're "rebooting".

On the up side, my creamino hen with her 2 young split to creamino consorts have laid more eggs, so far 2 looks to be fertile.  Hopefully some will be creamino babies.  

I am planning on trading my linnies for some more bourkes.  Cream Puff is starting to lay thin shelled eggs.  She just keeps laying eggs without properly sitting on them, so I have removed their nest box and forcing a rest period.  Time for an extended rest period.  I have decided, at this point, linnies are not the right species for me.  If they do successfully hatch out babies, having to hand feed in order to have tame pets may be too time consuming for me.  They are very cute and sweet, but I think I need to stick with finches and grasskeets for now.  Fortunately I was able to find a breeder very interested in working with them to take them in.  I will miss them, but I think it's the best decision for both the linnies and me.

Random pictures - birds and babies...

Here are the 2 gouldian babies from the second clutch of the pair who didn't sit well for the 1st clutch then tossed the 1st baby from their 2nd clutch.  These guys are so stuffed by their society fosters, they can't even roll over anymore.  Looks to be 1 yellow and 1 normal/?dilute.

 Here is one of the foster mothers - a pied fawn society.

 Here are their older siblings from the 1st clutch.  Doing well and growing feathers already.  Very well fed by their foster parents from the looks of their full crops.  They are definitely both yellow.

 Here's another society foster - a pied fawn male.

 This is 1 of my handicapped societies - a crested pied fawn male.  It's hard to tell, but he lost his right foot shortly after weaning by catching it between cage bars.  The foot broke off essentially.  I feared for his life.  All I was able to do was to put some triple antibiotic cream and try to stablize the fracture with a bandaid.  The foot eventually dried up and fell off.  He has done amazingly well.  Most of the time I can't even tell he lacks a foot.  He too helps with feeding babies - societies or fostered gouldians.

 One of my creasted pied fawn society males brooding some babies - actually society babies instead of fostered gouldians in this nest.  Not sure if the last eggs will hatch or not.  There looks to be at least 3 hatched babies so far.

 Here he is trying to reposition one of the unhatched eggs.

 These are my 2 young male chocolate self split to creamino societies. 

 Here's the creamino society hen - I love how the creaminos look.  I have her with the 2 chocolate self split to creamino males - so far no fertile eggs yet.  Hopefully the young boys will start to be more productive soon.

 I finally took some pictures of my red factor canaries.  They were not color-fed by their previous owner, so are gaining color as they molt.  I'm using a more dilute solution of Cathaxantine and Bogena Intensief trying to avoid any liver toxicity, so they are turning out a little more orange than intense red.  Of course, they may not be the intensive lipochrome types to begin with.  This is the younger bird, who, the previous owner thought may be a hen - I'm thinking it's a male, but he hasn't sang yet; not sure if it's because he is still molting or he's more subordinate to the other male or he is a she.

 Here is the older male.  I have heard him sing beautifully; hopefully more once he finishes molting.

 This is Mao, my sweet boy - being good after I told him not to go into my aviary even though the door is open.

Yellow headed purple breasted green split to blue backed male gouldian

YH PB GB/BB on left, RH PB BB male gouldian on right

RH WB GB/BB hen gouldian

BH PB GB hen gouldian

BH PB YB hen, BH WB YB hen, RH PB BB male gouldians

 Gouldians can have very strong pair bonds.  It can be almost impossible to break the pair bond during the same breeding season as long as the 2 individuals can see/hear each other.  I have found that even if I separate my males from the females during non-breeding periods, the well bonded pairs will still pair with their previous partners once I pair up my breeders again.  The black headed white breasted yellow split to blue backed male in the top picture and the black headed white breasted green backed hen in the bottom picture fell in love last year.  I paired them up because the male is a redline (see the redline between the breast and the belly) and the hen is born from a redline male as well; hoping to produce more redlines.  Unfortunally, all 3 clutches from last year were infertile.  This year, I tried to put them with other partners, but they still insisted in pairing up.  Hoping they will have better luck this year, I let them have 1 clutch; unfortunately, all 6 eggs were infertile.  Determined to separate them, I placed them in separate breeding cages stacked one on top of the other so they at least won't be able to see each other.  It took several partner changes and several weeks, but I finally found new partners they will accept.  The male has shown a lot of interest in a frisky black headed white breasted blue hen, who has so far shown equal interest back; this is a good pairing given he is split to blue.  Hopefully, he is not impotent.  The green backed hen certainly looks ready to breed with her black beak, but had spurned all the new males I've shown her until today.  When the red headed purple breasted green backed male sang to her from across another cage, she responded and started chasing the other male I placed in her cage away.  Fortunately, I was there to observe this, so changed the males out; they quickly performed their mating ritual and are checking out their nest box.  This is also an excellent pairing if successful, since the red head boy is a redline as well.  I am very glad I managed to separate them successfully so as to not waste another breeding year for them.

 Yellow headed white breasted yellow backed gouldian hen with a red head behind her.  My young yellow turquoisine hen is also in the background.

From left lower to right top, RH PB YB hen, RH LB YB/BB male, RH PB BB hen gouldians.

 This is Sunshine, another young yellow turquoisine hen that I acquired to be the mate for Turkey, the male normal split to yellow turquoisine.  She appears to be red bellied.

Sunshine from the back.