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This page shows what's
going on in my birdroom throughout the year. Click on the months below
to see what's been happening or
click here
to take |
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Back to my birds... As predicted on June 28th, my best Normal hen passed away. She managed to get back into the nest box to, what I hope, was a painless death. I don't know what caused the demise of this bird, the only real way would be to send it away for an autopsy. I can't really justify the cost so I'll live with the assumption it was down to "one of those things". The saving grace is that it was not a viral illness as the rest of my birds are fit and healthy. Pictured right is how I found the bird on Friday last week. |
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This evening I have also paired up some fawns that will hopefully produce youngsters to pair up with youngsters from my other fawn pair that are breeding at the moment (May 21st and June 28th). For those of you who remember, this was the pair that my pal Steve Nesbitt took into his birdroom last year as I had "no room at the Inn".
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July 3rd The adult pairing comprises of an 06 Tony Gladwin cock bird to one of my own bred 06 hens. In fact, the grandmother of these chicks is the hen that I sadly lost on Friday last week (detailed in my update yesterday). |
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Due to the passing of my best hen, her mate (at the back of the photo) has now been paired up with another hen seen here with the green split ring.
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July 10th As you can see one of the chicks is silver. This bird is not from the Agate pairing but was the only chick hatched in a silver nest (see June 27th).
As you can see,
this young fostered silver shares the nest with two split Agates
and one visual Agate (pictured just above the silver). |
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The fawn pairing (ref May 21st and June 28th) hatched a total of 6 from 7 eggs...not bad going!! The mother of these young was paired to a different cock bird last year and only bred a handful of youngsters. All being well, and not counting my chickens...as they say, I hope to get another round from these birds once the young have fledged and separated from their parents. |
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Another fawn pairing, put down to nest on July 2nd, produced their 1st egg yesterday. This pair comprise of a Steve Nesbitt 05 cock bird and a Tony Gladwin 05 hen. For those of you who regularly follow my java diary will remember this pair from last year. This is the pair that Steve Nesbitt paired up fro me in his birdroom as I had no room for them to breed. These proved to be good first time parents so I have every confidence in this pair being successful this year too. |
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July 18th One of my Agate pairings ( ref March 12th, 23rd, 27th, April 5th, 8th, 9th, 11th, 14th, 15th, 18th, 22nd, 30th, May 6th, May 14th and May 27th) have produced 12 eggs. At least 6 of these are showing signs of fertility.
This pairing produced a total of 10
fertile eggs in their last round, sadly none of them hatched.
There were several "dead in shell" and the remaining were
addled. I put this down to the parent birds not sitting tight
enough...probably due to the fact the hen laid here clutch well
before her young had fledged the nest. Take a look at the eggs
from the last round (May 14th)
to see how the eggs were soiled. I believe that having the young
in the nest kept the parent birds active...hence, inconsistent
incubation. |
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July 20th Sadly the other seven eggs are clear...I will hopefully be fostering this youngster into another nest as they are due to hatch soon.
If I can foster this chick I will
be taking these eggs away to encourage them to go down again. |
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As I went into the birdroom this
morning I saw some of these youngsters out in the cage for the
first time. The silver in the nest pictured left, and two from
the seven fawn's on the right were flapping around and getting
to grips with their new environment. |
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One of my normal pairings (ref April 1st, May 6th and July 3rd) have started laying again well before their current clutch of two are due to fledge. There were five eggs in the nest this evening with two showing early signs of fertility. I have taken the two fertile and put them under a pair of fawn's who are on a close cycle to the Normal pairing. |
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July 30th I've been a little irresponsible with this pairing. This pair laid six eggs in total and I slipped in a couple of Agate eggs and a couple of eggs from a Normal pairing as I was unsure of their fertility status. It just so happens that ALL these eggs are fertile and that the remaining six eggs in the nest may hatch over the next few days which will give a total of ten in the nest. One saving grace is that I have other birds on a very close cycle so if ten youngsters become too much for this pairing I may be able to foster a few out......that's if they all hatch....not counting my chickens as they say. |
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The Agate pairing (ref: July 20th) that hatched one single are feeding this youngster but they don't seem so active in taking care of it. I don't have any real concerns as I'm quite confident they will continue to feed it but, being a single chick, it will probably not develop as quickly as if it were in a clutch of four or five. Parent birds appear more enthusiastic and dedicated when rearing larger clutches. I'm hoping that this chick can, at some point, be fostered. |
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August 2nd Could it be that the hen is pictured left and the cock is on the right. I have made a note of the ring numbers and tail colours to see if they prove themselves to be male or female. |
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August 6th Tony has informed me that the Java's with the lighter tails (I think that's what he said) will turn out to be either Creams or Euro "Brown" fawns. The father of these birds is a Tony Gladwin bred "Brown" fawn paired to a Phil Thompson fawn hen. Later this week I'll check the ring number with Tony to see if this bird is from Cream bloodlines.
For those of you who are not quite
sure about the difference between Fawns and Brown Fawns, then
take a look at the pair pictured in the
July 10th update. |
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I separated the six young young Fawn's from their parents on Saturday and as you can see the cock bird has spent that last 2 days tidying up the nest in preparation for the next round. Three eggs so far! |
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My other fawn pairing (ref: July 2nd, July 10th and July 30th) hatched a total of seven chicks from 10 eggs. Four fawn's and three Normal's. As mentioned on July 30th, I was a little concerned that I fostered too many eggs into this nest as there could have been ten young Java's in the nest had they all hatched. Seven Java's in a clutch is very common so I have no doubt that the parents will be anything other than excellent. |
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One of my best Normal pairings (ref April 1st, 22nd, May 2nd, and 4th) had a clear second round, which was taken away, but their third round has proved to be fertile. As you can see here, three chicks hatched so far with four fertile eggs still to chip. |
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I thought I'd share this photo with you. This is one of only two young Normal Java fledglings that are from a Gladwin 06 cock to a Drury 06 hen (2nd round). The parent birds have already laid four eggs in round three. I will let them sit this third round as they have only reared a total of six young in the rounds one and two. |
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August 9th This is the third one of these that have come from this pairing over the last two seasons. I have not mentioned this before as I didn't fully understand what it was. This young Java hatched with red eyes (just as Agates do) and as you can see, the feathers are coming through Silver. This young "silver" does not follow the same development pattern as a "normal" Silver. A normal silver hatches with black eyes and a black beak. As mentioned above, this Silver not only has red eyes but also has a pink beak (again, just as Agates do). |
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This photo show how these Silvers look at around three months old. This appears almost white whereas a "normal" Silver would be a very pale grey. The red eye has now turned a very dark and is almost black. |
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And here is how it looks as an adult bird. It's not a great photo but does show it to be paler than the Silvers I currently own. |
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Here is the same java, picture with an Opal Isabel that has also come from the same parents. The parents have also thrown a fawn (see below).
The Agate pairing that have produced these young are obviously split for Fawn and Silver ( as they have produced Fawn & Silver young). This is confirmed as they Opal Isabel that they have produced is a combination of the two colours.
All of these birds (Fawn, Silver
and Opal Isabel) are all split for Agate so it makes me wonder
if anything new could come from these birds. |
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I have thought about pairing the
"unknown" Java cock (ref: May
6th) to the above Silver hen to see what they produce. I
will be pairing these up later in the year and will post
everything that happens with this pair. |
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August 15th This is a cracking bird, fit and healthy but it gets stressed very easily. This evening I had to catch him up to trim his nails as they were too long. this is not usually a problem for most of the Java's I have but this particular bird gets stressed to the point where it cannot move. See the photo on the right, you can see how it sits with it's eyes closed and with it's beak open as it breathes heavily. The heart is racing ten to the dozen....I always expect birds to keel over and die when they get into this state.
Luckily after about five minutes
this Java recovered and perched comfortably. |
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Also this evening, and way behind on my breeding plan, I fitted ring number 40 to this young Normal chick. I was planning on breeding 100 Java's this season but that now looks highly unlikely. I've had a very high number of addled eggs this season and the only thing I can put it down to is the weather. I have fed, watered and managed the birds exactly as I did last season but my results differ greatly.
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August 19th Firstly, pictured right, is the Fawn's nest (ref: July 2nd, July 10th, July 30th and August 6th). As you can see there are three Fawn's, one Opal Isabel and two fostered Normals (if you go back to August 6th you will see there were three fostered Normals in the nest, I had to take the smallest one out and foster it under another pair who were on a very close cycle. I did this as it was not getting fed as well as the rest of the clutch). |
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Secondly, pictured left, is the nest of Normal Java's (ref April 1st, 22nd, May 2nd, 4th and August 6th). A total of six hatched out in this clutch but there are seven young in the nest. This is due to the fostered Normal (mentioned above) in the bottom left of the photo. You can see that it is the smallest in the nest but it is progressing well and is being fed by it's foster parents. |
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August 20th This evening as I went in to check on the birds I discovered a hen dead on the cage floor. This hen was the best visual hen I bred last year, luckily I have had around seven young off her this year so I do have some means in maintaining the bloodline.
In almost seven years of my bird
keeping hobby this is the first time I have ever experienced egg
binding. See the photo below. |
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I've had some bad luck with this bloodline, this hen's mother was the hen I lost back on July 2nd.
As I said above, in almost seven
years of bird keeping this is my first ever case off egg
binding. Maybe I'm doing something wrong, or then again, with
such a low frequency could I be doing something right? |
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August 26th On Thursday 23rd August I put this pair of Normal's down to nest. These are the first Java's that I got from my pal Steve Nesbitt back in 2005. These were prolific breeder's last year rearing fifteen young from two rounds.
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Five hatchlings are in one of my Silver's nest with two more fertile eggs hopefully due to hatch over the next day or so. In this clutch there will be two Normal chicks as I fostered eggs into the nest. The two normal eggs came from the hen that died a few days ago (ref: August 20th). Until they start to develop their feathers I will not know if they have already hatched or they are in the two eggs pictured left. |
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Five fawn's have also hatched over the last couple of days also. Like the Silver's nest mentioned above, there are two eggs from the hen that died a few days ago. The reason I fostered out the eggs was that the Normal hen laid the clutch whilst having very young Java's in the nest. Many Java's lay days after their current clutch have hatched...I always take them away and, if possible replace known clear eggs in other nests. |
Take a look at this egg above. This is the middle egg from the picture above left. As one of the young Java's has hatched, the broken egg somehow has managed to envelope another egg in the nest. I don't know if many of you out there have experienced this but the half shell can be very difficult to get off. The embryonic fluid in the half shell helps to create a vacuum when covering the other egg giving it the appearence that it is glued. I believe that if this half shell is not removed, the young Java inside may not be able to break out of the egg due to it being twice as thick.
This happened back on May 25th
2006, Click Here to take a look. |
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August 29th I replaced her with an 06 hen from my good Java pal, Dave Pover, from Cheshire. And the good news for today is that three eggs have hatched. There are four fertile eggs remaining although there is slight damage to one of the eggs so I'm pretty sure it will not hatch. Finger's crossed for the other three.
I will pay particular attention to
the offspring from this pairing as the father id from one of my
best lines....I'm pretty sure I'll be keeping a couple of this
clutch for myself.
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August 31st I seem to have a runt in this clutch. For whatever reason, over the last couple of days when I have checked the nest this young Java has been dragged from the nest. I know this happens quite often when the parents exit the nest quickly but this has happened five times over the last two days and on each occasion it's the same chick that I pick up and warm in my hands (I know it's the same chick as I have drawn a small mark on the youngsters underside). Also on each occasion the crop has very little or no food in it. I do keep moving it back into the clutch hoping that the parents will feed it correctly......I'll keep you posted on the progress of this hatchling. |
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On August 23rd (ref August 26th) I put down to nest the very first pair of Java's I obtained. Good news is that I have already have four eggs in the nest. I'll be very surprised if there are no fertile eggs in this nest as this pair are in first class condition and have been "raring to go!". |
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Due to the high number of photographs on this page, the month of September will be on a new page to help speed up downloading. |
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