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Yes, I'm still here

Penny W

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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 the sets of 3 had been brought up singlehandedly by Mum as Dad had died when the chicks were just 2 days old. I spent my first weekend after my holiday sorting my pairs again and trying again. I have now rung 34 chicks with another 10 or so chicks just hatches and a dozen or more good eggs in nests. 

My timors are a proving to be a bit of a challenge, I only have 3 hens so all are paired up. Pair 1 hatched 2 chicks and didn't feed them, they then laid good eggs again but have given up sitting on them. The other 2 hens did nothing for the first month, I then swapped the cocks over and one pair now have 4 eggs - I think they might be clear - but I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt for the time being and letting them sit a little longer.

I tried using Bengalese as fosters but that seemed a waste of time. I have never managed to get my bengies to bring up anyone else's young. Before we went away I had a pair of zebs with 7 good eggs, they were a good pair of zebs so I moved 3 eggs to a pair of bengies replacing their own eggs. They never hatched them, the eggs were still there, cold when I returned from holiday. 

I put down a pair of birds which (I thought) were a fawn penguin hen and a fawn cock bird who is split penguin. Result - 3 fawn pied cocks! Where did the pieds come from??? I was hoping to get a fawn penguin cock! I have another penguin pair who seem to have produced a pied. There must be some link between penguin and pied. 

I've had a few pairs of my foreign laying in boxes in the flight. I managed to get 3 diamond firetails hatched, one died before it fledged, the other 2 died, one at 6 weeks, one at 10 weeks. I was disappointed, the parents have gone on to lay a clear round since so still waiting....... I have 5 nests of gouldians and 1 nest of hecks in the flight, so far 3 rung hecks and 3 day-old gouldians. Fingers crossed........



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