Back in the Swing

Baby season has begun.

      I know it's been a long while since I've posted. I've been playing games on facebook, but now I am done with most of them. I think after three years, I've had enough. With spring here, I will be posting a lot more about baby birds and all sorts of things. This year's baby season has come in with a bang, I have two baby cockatiels that I am hand feeding at the moment with 4 babies still in the nest and many eggs still to hatch.

      These little guys are the offspring of a lutino split pied hen and a cinnamon white faced pied, see below for a picture of daddy. You can see the cinnamon hen in the center. How do I know she is a hen? I know because daddy was cinnamon and cinnamon is what you call a sex linked mutation. If daddy is the color or carries the gene, split, and mama is not the color then all offspring of the same color as daddy will be female. The males will carry the genetics of mama and will be split to both cinnamon and lutino. 

Three babies. Both of the eggs have holes,
but surprisingly  one of them hatched. 

     I interrupted daddy and surrogate daddy while feeding.

It takes a village to raise a child.

Casanova:
a Cinnamon pastel face/pied

      In February, I went to the local bird mart and bought a pastel faced male, two weeks later he's wooed and bred with my grey female. These are the offspring. Since their hatching, I've caught him breeding with three other hens. One of them being a pied white faced. I was thinking I'd have to wait until next year to have pastel faced babies, but it looks like I may this year after all. Pastel faced works differently than other recessive genes, it is only dominant over white faced, so if a bird is pastel faced bird is bred with a white faced cockatiel, the offspring will  be pastel faced. It only take one pf gene to show a visual if bred to a wf, otherwise it will take two. Next week is another bird fair and I've already saved some money to get an emerald cockatiel. Emerald, like cinnamon is a suffused color. It is a yellow wash over a grey bird making it look olive green. They are very stunning birds.
   

Cinnamon hen split to 

pastel face split to pied.

 This little beauty is about one of the cutest babies I've had in a long time. She is nothing but manners. I can already see where it will be hard to let her go. Unfortunately, I can't keep all my babies otherwise I'd keep her in a heartbeat. With my grandfather's death, I'm not sure if I will be able to keep them much longer as my grandmother owns the property we live on. I'm not sure how much longer she will be holding onto hte property.

Pied split to cinnamon split pastel face.

This little pied is the sweetest little thing. Already he is asking me for head scratches and has started to try to fly. I think tomorrow I'll have a fly baby. This picture was taken last week. They have more feathers than this and weigh a lot more too.

      And a few pictures of a few orchids I bought recently. As I type my Hoya shepardii is throwing out the most overpowering perfume. As a night attractant the scent is only during the night, thankfully. It is really strong.

A cymb orchid I bought the day of
my grandfather's funeral. 

Love all the kikis.
Not the prettiest color but babies always prevail. 

A beautiful inter-genetic mini. 

     That's pretty much it. Ketula the dog, Australian shepherd/Golden Retriever,  and Purim (Pretty Kitty) are both still with us. Ketula will be a year old in August and Purim just turned 8 years old. Ketula caught her first baby rabbit today. Hubby is proud, I'm a little concerned. Other than that my life has been boring.