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10 months on

I haven't updated this for nearly 10 months - very lax of me! I still have my zebs - rather a lot in fact (to think that 4 years ago I had none). I bred some late last year as well as this year so have about 100 youngsters - 60 of which have this years rings. I know I need to shift some but I never know who needs to go, maybe I'll wait until they are a bit older?! I have tried some new mutations this year with some creams and one grey cheek cock and one fawn cheek hen. So far the fawn cheek hen

Penny W

Penny W

 

Confused dot com!

So, trying to sort out some birds to show, some to keep for next years breeding and some to go. Now getting confused! What is the difference between a lightback and a silver?, a fawn and a cream?. I have pied penguins - are they showable? as pied or penguins?? Why do my normal hens have darker bellies than the cocks? I will have to take them out so I can compare them with other peoples birds.  My timors have not done well this year, I rang one chick before we went on holiday but it died bef

Penny W

Penny W

 

zebra finch breeding almost done for 2018

I'm winding down my this years breeding - I've rung about 100 - plenty (too many??)  Now for the hard part - I'm determined to show this year so need to sort out a show team - and keep back a breeding team for next year, then try and sell the surplus. I'm pleased with what I have bred so far - apart from the odd pied who has appeared this year - my biggest surprise was a lightback pied from 2 normals!! I have at last bred - and rung one Timor, my Australians have bred, and not raised, sever

Penny W

Penny W

 

This true story really begins in April 2018.

The owners of the shop/post office in the village keep ducks and one day when I was in the shop they were telling me their ducks had eggs but as they didn't want the eggs to hatch --they pierce the eggs with a pin and this stops them hatching but they hadn't done that yet.   Then they remembered that a few years ago I had been given a duck egg from their dad and I had hatched out that duck egg in my incubator.     Next question was "Do you want any eggs to put in your incuba

Emmy

Emmy

 

Bobby the Parrot-- May 2018

Hallo again everyone.  It's been a while since I managed to get to  the computer without my 'Mum' seeing me.  (I do have a 'Blog' on here but this is just a quick note) This morning I got a good opportunity to get what I spied I would like after my 'Mum'  had let me out of my cage and she had gone to get something.  Fortunately for me she left the plate with  the toast sitting near my cage and she had cut off the crust (think it was meant for Rabelou (the Chihuahua) but he gets plenty

Emmy

Emmy

 

Yes, I'm still here

it's  been a while, probably 6 months since I updated my blog so I thought I ought to write something! I'm currently concentrating on breeding my zebras, the aim is to finish breeding them by the end of April rather than carrying on until October like last year. I paired up early December and went away over Christmas and new year with about 15 pairs down. When I got back from holiday I found I had several pairs sitting on clear eggs. 4 pairs had chicks, 3 lots of 3 and a singleton. One of t

Penny W

Penny W

 

SHADOW -UPDATE - 2 years on.

Reading over the Blog 'Hand Rearing Birds' which featured Shadow & Co. it was hard to believe that was in May 2016 and its now February 2018.   Shadow is still with me and he is still in the house ()   Shadow January 2018   He now has a mate (a white zebra finch) and they have just finished rearing these 6 lovely little chicks.    A 'Family' photo  left to right: Shadow, two of the chicks , Snowy (the mum) and the other 4 chicks.  Guess there's no chance o

Emmy

Emmy

 

0-170 in less than 2 years!

If anyone had mentioned bird keeping to me 2 years ago I would have been surprised, it was not something I had ever considered. However, my partner had previously kept budgies and had a hankering to get back into the hobby. He took a sly approach by taking me to Stafford in October 2015 and buying me half a dozen zebra finches for my birthday the following week! - a cunning ploy! Anyway I embraced the hobby but never really thought that I would get too involved. I remember Emmy commenting o

Penny W

Penny W

 

Surprises - nice and not so nice

Well, I have now actually bred a reasonable number of hen zebras. Unfortunately so far I have no normal hens, so my about 20 normal cocks will have no part in my show team for current year bred birds (if I decide to show at all). I have lots of lightback hens, and one lightback cock, several fawn hens and only one fawn cock. The only variety I have pairs of are penguins - I have lots of them!. My best, most prolific pair from last year have not repeated their success this year. The first round -

Penny W

Penny W

 

It's been a while...

I have been very slow to update this blog - not found time to visit the site for a while. My breeding seems to be improving - I have actually bred some hens now!! (Still have an excess of cocks though). I have rung my first round of Timors too - there were 4 originally but I am left with 2, I have another nest of Timor chicks a few days old and a nest of Timor eggs too. With my zebras I am doing well with Penguins, I have a few fawn penguin hens so I'm tryong to work out how to get a fawn p

Penny W

Penny W

 

too many cocks spoil the show team!

I have bred some lovely zebras this year, the problem is only 2 of them are hens! The 2 hens are fawns, the cocks are normal and penguin so it looks like I won't have any current year pairs to show. I've just put some more pairs down so fingers crossed ....... I have had a frustrating time with some of my other finches too. I have one pair of Hecks who have had 2 rounds, each round they have fed the babies until they have feathers, then they stop feeding them and the babies die. They curren

Penny W

Penny W

 

Stafford

Steve and I booked a table for todays Stafford sale, Steve had some budgies to shift, I sorted out some Zebs to go. I put pics of them on one of the Facebook finch sites and sold all but one pair before today! I found another pair of Zebs and decided to shift 3 of my Timor pairs - as my other 2 pairs now have eggs. I also had some spare Bengalese to go. I had also pre-sold 2 hecks grassfinches but the buyer didn't show - isn't that annoying? We travelled up yesterday afternoon and stayed in

Penny W

Penny W

 

3 weeks later

I spoke too soon saying I was having a good run on chicks, I had rung 9 zebra chicks when my ZFS rings arrived, 3 have since died and other nests which have hatched have not been fed, or have been thrown out of the nest, I do have one nest with 2 chicks, one I rung last week as he was plenty big enough, the other obviously is not getting enough food - enough to keep alive but not enough to grow - it is tiny, I'm not sure if it will survive. My other finches are doing slightly better - the 4 goul

Penny W

Penny W

 

Exciting times

I seem to be having a good run on chicks at the moment, I have a nest of zebras starting to hatch today, I now have 4 Hecks chicks and best of all, my nest of gouldian eggs started hatching today, I know that gouldians are not renowned for being good parents so I hope they will raise their young. I have some Bengalese, but none ready to use as foster parents yet, I spent a long time yesterday trying to sex my Bengalese - but gave up! The star finches have started laying again, I hope they see it

Penny W

Penny W

 

New Year, new chicks

Having paired up in early December we went on our Christmas sunshine holiday leaving the birds in the charge of my stepson. When we left I had 21 fertile zebra eggs, I also had a nest of Hecks eggs and my star finches had just started to lay. I awaited my return from holiday - and my ZFS rings - with anticipation. We got back on Thursday afternoon and, after a much needed cuppa headed out to the bird house to see what was going on. There had been quite a lot of clear eggs and chicks not being fe

Penny W

Penny W

 

Thinking about next year

Well, I paid my subs for the ZFS again and have ordered my rings ready for January, so now it's time to think about who will produce my youngsters! I spent last week sorting out all my stock, I have a few youngsters that were born in July, August and September so I returned them to their respective flights. I then sorted the cocks and hens into 'mine' and those bought in. This weekend I sorted out all my breeding cages while observing my birds to decide who should pair with who (referencing

Penny W

Penny W

 

Show time

I decided I ought to take my birds to a show, to see how they compare so entered a few pairs into the ZFS show in Barry last month. I didn't win anything but my normal were placed in a large class which was nice for me. My lightbacks were my best pair in my eyes - but there were only 2 in that class so coming second didn't really tell me whether they are good or not (the pair that came first went on to win one of the top prizes). This weekend it was our local bird club show so Steve and I e

Penny W

Penny W

 

All change!

I keep my hen and cock zebras in separate flights. So far it is has been the hens, and the foreigns having access to the outside flight. Today it was time for a swap. the flight cages are designed so this swap can be done without having to catch all the birds so it was just a case of encouraging the hens into one long flight cage and the cocks into another then opening different doors and voila - their accommodation is swapped over. It didn't take the cocks long to realise they could go out into

Penny W

Penny W

 

12 new finches, but some losses too

Today I got 12 new finches (none of which were zebras I'm afraid). We have had 2 bicheno (owl) finches since December and although they built a lovely nest and spent a lot of time in it, they never laid an egg which got me wondering if they were both male. Last weekend when talking to a breeder of bichenos he said to sex them put them in separate cages so they cannot see each other but can hear each other. Males will start to sing very quickly. We caught them up and took them down to the house t

Penny W

Penny W

 

I'm a Granny (sort of)

12 months ago I had no idea that I would own any birds, in fact if anyone had told me I wouldn't have believed them! BUT, in October I got my first birds. I was impatient to pair up and put one pair down too early to use 2016 ZFS rings. The net result was 2 chicks, only one of those survived. I put a split ring on him so I knew which one he was. Anyway, I paired him up a few weeks ago, result 6 fertile eggs, 2 hatched yesterday and one today (but that baby was dead and the parents through it out

Penny W

Penny W

 

bird room finished!

We moved into our house 6 months ago and have worked hard since then. We have hardly touched the house but the garden and bird house have had a lot of tie and effort spent on them. Before we moved we were planning on a bird house approx. 8x6'. When we first moved we had to set the birds up in the garage - far from ideal but they were OK. Before we got around to building out smallish bird house we saw a shed being sold off which was perfect, just a bit bigger - well, a lot bigger to be precise -

Penny W

Penny W

 

Final part of Shadow's story.

Well it is now the 25th May 2016 and Shadow and Co. are all doing well. I still have them in the house - nothing wrong with them - It's ME I'm finding it difficult to put them outside in the aviary. Saying that I have been trying not to handle them so often and I have taken the nest box away that they always slept in at night. (I'm being cruel-am I not?) 25th April 2016 Shadow and one of the Bengalese chicks   25th April 2016 The four hand reared chicks.  

Emmy

Emmy

 

Well I'd Never have believed this!!"

As the title says "Well I'd Never have believed this!!" I really mean that 100%. Just take a look at this:    https://youtu.be/vTWs3BN0_NA I think this says it all! I'm really trying my hardest to improve my speech and 'Mum' seemed to be very pleased with me. Now she has she remembered she had a 'parrot' that talked - didn't need a cage, didn't need to be fed and didn't need to be cleaned ! Now please tell me how can I compete with that!!! Mum doesn't say very much abo

Emmy

Emmy