Series 6 - Episode 62: The final two breeding pairs

[00:00:31]Hello again and welcome to Shed Talk, my magazine video series looking at the keeping, breeding, and showing of caged birds. But, with a particular focus on the exhibition style budgerigar. And indeed, in this episode, we will be focusing on those.

[00:00:47]First of all, I suppose I whether it's an apology or not, I don't know. Um, but the last episode was a little bit, um, downbeat. And thanks for all the feedback, by the way, on that.

[00:00:56]Actually, the feedback was, um, um, was very interesting for me to read, um, the views of all those people who commented on it. Um, I know I was, um, like I say, a little bit a little bit of a downbeat episode, just my thoughts on where we might be in terms of, particularly in terms of caged bird societies. It seems like most people in the comment, um, indicated they felt fairly similar about where we were going. Um, but anyway, so, like I say, a little bit downbeat. This episode, though, much more upbeat, cuz we're back to the fun part of not that showing isn't fun, but, um, I suppose a a slightly more productive part of the hobby, um, breeding. We're going to have a look at the final two cages. I only have two cages left, um, with, uh, active breeding pairs of budgerigars in those.

[00:01:55]Um, and and in I think a couple of episodes ago when we looked at them, we did have eggs in both of those and I think we did have full eggs in both of those cages. Um, so let's see how those two pairs have got on.

[00:02:09]Um, we're going to start in cage number two. Right. Let's go and take a look at that cage then.

[00:02:17]So, if I say cage number two, um, this is a cobalt bird, quite a nice, um, little bird from my shed point of view. Um, and we haven't so far managed to breed or get anything off of him. Um, so we were wondering there was a little bit of concern about whether or not, um, he was able to fill eggs. And um, we paired him to a, um, light green cinnamon hen, not the greatest of hens.

[00:02:46]Um, this was one of those, I suppose, the last minute pairing. Uh, so, um, yeah. So, not the greatest of hens. Uh, but we did try them. And in the last episode we did say we finally proved that this bird could fill eggs because we had, um, I think it was one egg if not two full eggs in the cage.

[00:03:06]Um, so how are they getting on? You can see them here and just by looking at the these eggs you can tell that they are not particularly healthy looking eggs.

[00:03:16]Unfortunately, the two full eggs, um, are either dead in shell or addled. Um, hopefully you'll be able to see when I'm candling them you can, um, see that. Uh, I don't know whether this is an issue with this particular hen. Um, she does struggle a little bit and I'm not sure why, but she looks perfectly healthy. But she really does struggle to get out of the nest box when I catch her out. Um, so I'm not sure whether, um, she does have a particular problem with her legs or hips or something. Um, and whether that's causing her to, you know, preserve the eggs or not, perhaps turn them as successfully as we might like.

[00:03:59]Um, and and hence the hence the reason why these eggs have um, not been successful.

[00:04:07]Um, the good news is that for this pair I suppose is that we have proven the bird and we have is still a young bird so we got plenty of time to um, up breed with him next year.

[00:04:20]Or later on in the year we'll pop him back in with a a more suitable hen shall we say and and perhaps a proven hen, one that we know is also um, capable of producing chicks. Um, I'm not going to let this pair go and go for a second round. Like I said, they were a little bit of a a trial pair so I'm going to probably remove the bird shortly, pop him back into the main flight, let this hen sit these eggs until you know, they would have hatched and I will gradually remove them. Um, give her a little bit of a rest, she won't need masses and then we will um, you know, close that cage down.

[00:05:04]Right, so that's cage uh, number two.

[00:05:08]Um, how are we getting on in cage number six where we did have a good number, I think a good number of fertile eggs the last time we looked.

[00:05:19]Well, before we look at the second of the two cages, um, thanks for all the feedback on the last episode. I know I said it in the um, introduction. Um, the feedback generally for the video was actually quite um, positive. Um, I think as I say, most people felt the same around where the hobby was.

[00:05:37]Um, still fairly similar thoughts to myself.

[00:05:42]Um, I was a bit worried when I um, I suppose put the video out because it was just me really just talking um and I suppose offloading a bit of my thoughts following that rather um unfortunate cancellation of the show.

[00:06:02]Um and I also I was a bit worried that as it wasn't there were that many there were no real birds in the um episode that um it wouldn't go down very well, but actually it went down um okay if not if not as well as all the other videos. So, thank you very much for that and thank you very much to all those people who commented on it. Um if you didn't see that video, um do go back and take a look and let me know let me know your thoughts on um cage bird societies and the exhibition side of side of bird keeping um in uh general. Um as I say, thanks for those who commented. Please remember you can comment on anything you see in any of the episodes um and any of the future episodes. All those people who do comment, I try to mention their names at the end of each of the videos.

[00:06:55]Um if you're not yet a subscriber, please subscribe to the channel. It costs you nothing to subscribe. And of course, if you enjoy this video or any of the other videos, please do give each of the videos a nice big thumbs up. And of course, share them if you want to. Um uh in a I think it was two episodes ago yep I think it was anyway. We did a little competition.

[00:07:19]Our own little show as the show was cancelled in the shed um with the four birds that I was going to take. I am still totting up the scores for those birds, um but hopefully by the time this video comes out I will have done that.

[00:07:34]And if it's that if that's the case, um straight after this you'll have a quick look at who won based on your votes. Right.

[00:07:44]Let's have a look at that, hopefully.

[00:07:47]Um and that's right after that, we'll have a look at the final cage and see if it's been a little bit more successful in terms of getting the eggs from um being full to hatching.

[00:08:20]So, cage number six, which is actually down here. Um uh You might remember we had a good number of eggs in the last time we looked at this cage. Um the first two eggs um were um not viable. Um but she was uh I think we had it probably two or three definitely full eggs in the last episode or the last time we looked at this cage.

[00:08:42]Um the hen went on to lay. She laid a total of seven eggs. So, the first two were clear um or sorry, were not viable.

[00:08:51]The last five were all full um all developing nicely.

[00:08:57]Um and do we have chicks?

[00:08:59]Well, let's have a look in the box now.

[00:09:02]You can see from here, yes, we do. And how many? We have five chicks. So, um that's quite a lot of chicks for this pair to bring up. Um so far, um and you can probably see as I'm going through them, but so far, the hen is doing really, really well in feeding all of these chicks. I checked the crop in the morning on each of the chicks, and each of them is being fed. The last one um literally, I think, hatched this morning um and it's already had its first um uh crop full of of um, crop milk I think from the hen. It looks like crop milk rather than feed. How the hen knows which one to give the seeds to and which one to give the crop milk to, I will never know. If you do, let me know in the comments, but it always amazes me that she can adjust her feeding um, in order to make sure she's giving the right bird um, the right um, amount of stuff.

[00:10:01]Anyway, so she is feeding them all. Now, there is a wall there is a possibility that we could move um, two of these chicks, perhaps the youngest two or middle two in case um, uh, number two uh, and let the pair in there bring them up. My concern um, is that uh, when I spoke about cage number two, I mentioned that the hen was struggling a little bit to get out of the nest box.

[00:10:31]And my concern is that as she is you know, struggling, um, she might well um, damage the youngsters. Uh, the other thing of course is I can't guarantee that she's going to feed. She's an unproven hen. So, I can't guarantee that she will feed them. And currently with this hen being or this pair, um, and I will say it does appear to be the hen cuz the bird goes in there to feed the youngsters as well, or it seems like it.

[00:11:01]Um, so with them being um, currently at the moment um, such good parents, I'm inclined to leave the all of that all of the chicks in this nest box and see how they get on.

[00:11:18]I have rung the first chick. You probably saw me doing that in the um, the the clip.

[00:11:24]I think it is old enough, but it does still feel a little bit small to me. Um, it is um, uh, between 8 and 10 days old um because it um there wasn't quite the full 2 days between hatching on these birds, so normally you can work it out from that.

[00:11:44]But anyway, um it it is 9 days old, so uh it should be old enough for me to ring. If the ring comes off, I think I will be able to find it in this nest box. It's quite a nice clean nest box at the moment. We've only got five chicks in there, that was the first time. Um so, uh yeah, I have rung it, and there's four more to ring. Um we're not going to hit 30, but we will we're well over the 20 birds that I was hoping to ring, so that is good news. Good news in this cage. Let's hope they all develop um nicely.

[00:12:22]What do I do? Do I let these go for a second round or not? I'm still unsure cuz it would be the only breeding cage I would still have going. Um and I was looking to close them down, um but I'm not necessarily in a hurry to do so.

[00:12:36]So, thoughts in the comments. Would you let this pair if they if they raise these successfully and we have some nice birds um some reasonable-looking youngsters in there, would you let them go a second round or would you close them down as we've only got the one cage going?

[00:12:54]Yeah, thoughts about that in the comments section. So, at the end of the episode, we have some real, real good news, some nice happy news to um end this episode on. Um yeah, overall, my breeding season has been good. Has been good. But, the proof in the pudding will be in the eating, and that will come in a couple of months' time when we get them out and do our assessment of all of the birds. We will We'll to have a look at some of the youngsters that the nest as well um as we go along in between now and then.

[00:13:32]But the big the big sort out of course will be in September.

[00:13:39]Well, that does bring us to the end of another episode of Shed Talk. Don't forget if you enjoyed it, please do give it a big like and share it if you wish to. But most importantly, until the next one please stay safe.

[00:13:53]Enjoy your birds.

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