Opal And Tikis Breeding Journal

The Momma- Opal

The Daddy- Tiki

April 2011

Tiki is a grey, double factor domanant pied. This is his first time breeding so I am not sure what he is split for.

Opal is a albino. She is masking double factor grey, 1 dark factor, opaline, and single factor domanant pied.

They have just been set up in a breeding cage together, so eggs should be here soon!

May 3, 2011

Opal has been eating her cuttlebone like crazy and is getting a egg bum Little eggs could be here any day!

May 11, 2011

Egg number 1 is here for Opal and Tiki!

May 13, 2011

Opal has laid another egg tonight!

May 14, 2011

Oh my goodness I almost had a heart attack!!

Since everyone except Sapphire was not due to lay another egg this evening I decided I would clean all the cages except hers and give everyone their mist bath.

Opal and Tikis cage is usually the first one I clean and I work my way right from there... so I tap on Opals nest box just to let her know that I am going to be pulling out the tray, and she leaps out panting and holding her wings out as if she cant breathe and looks just awfull! I was about to panic when I looked in the nest box and whats in there... another egg!
She had seriously JUST layed it, as it was still even wet from her passing it which I have never seen before.

I have seen some of my other hens right after they laid an egg and they acted the same as Opal did, but I was not expecting her to lay one today so it didnt even enter my mind as a possibliltiy as she just layed one yesterday, so I was not expecting another from her until tomorrow.

Within a couple minutes she was fine and was back in her box and all was well again. I swear they are going to give me a heart attack one day!

May 17, 2011

Opal has 4 eggs as of today! After laying eggs 2 days in a row she skipped 2 days. Hopefully she will be back on the usual every other day schedule now!

Here is a picture of her 4 little eggs as of today.

May 19, 2011

We are up to 5 eggs today!

This is Tiki's first clutch so I didnt know what to expect, but all of the eggs are fertile so far! The only ones I am not sure yet are the ones that were laid in the last couple days since it is too early to tell just yet

May 21, 2011

Opal laid another egg today while I was at work! I really hope she will stop now, she is getting a little too ambitious! Opals last 2 clutches have been of 7 and 8 so I hope shes going to go easier on herself this time and stop with 6!

All of the eggs are starting to darken with the growing chicks inside! I checked a day or 2 ago and saw lots of new little heartbeats! Here are miss Opals eggs today.

May 23, 2011

We have one more egg today. Can you see the eggs all changing color, turning to a darker more pearly white color with the growning chicks inside?

May 25, 2011

We have 8 eggs now, and I am really hoping she stops for her own good! She is going to have a lot of little beaks to feed if they all hatch I hope she knows what she is getting herself into lol!

I have one foster pair set up just incase all of these eggs hatch and she needs some help.

May 26, 2011

It is looking like 8 is going to be our final number! The first eggs are due to start hatching the 3rd... 1 week to go

EDIT: Ok... I have decided I am no longer going to say I think the total number of eggs is here, because it seems to cause them to lay more! Opal now has 9 eggs!

May 29, 2011

Yesterday Opal was due for another egg and so far there are no new eggs! I was seriously starting to think they would still be laying when the chicks started hatching haha. Here are all 9 little eggs.

June 1, 2011

No more eggs yesterday so our final number of eggs for Opal and Tiki in this clutch is 9! Only 2 more days until they will start to hatch! When I went to give them their morning egg food I checked the last eggs to be laid and they look fertil too!

June 2, 2011

Baby 1 is here for Opal! He/she hatched a day early at 17 days. Pics coming soon!

June 4, 2011

Opal and Tiki have 3 chicks so far! One of them has plum colored eyes (in the back) instead of normal blacks so it could be a cinnamon maybe? This is Tikis first clutch so we will see!

June 5, 2011

Here are the 4 little chicks this evening!

June 7, 2011

I cleaned the nestboxes for the first time today since I was starting to see a little poop in the box. It was SO easy with these boxes! I ordered some extra tray inserts and I just slid the one they were on out(carefully of course ) and filled a new one with shavings put the babies and unhatched eggs back on it and slid it back in! Took all of 30 seconds and the other trays can be cleaned and disinfected for the next swap.

So here are Opal And Tikis 5 little pinkies! They all look fat and healthy!

June 8, 2011

The oldest babies are 6 days old today! They love to huddle as close as they can, and get so mad and squeek up a storm when I dare move them to clean the box haha.

June 9, 2011

One more chick has hatched, so we now have 6 little ones in the nest.

June 10, 2011

I banded the first babies today since they were 7-8 days old... man are these babies big!! I BARELY got them on a couple of the 7 day old ones! Momma is doing a great job keeping everyone full and growing great!

June 12, 2011

We have 7 chicks now! I fostered the 2 youngest chicks to my hen Sage, so Opal only has 5 of them here to make it a little easier on her.

So far the oldest 3 babies are looking just like daddy! In another week their colors will be coming out.

June 14, 2011

Here are the 5 oldest babies! They are 8-12 days old today. The youngest 2 are with their foster mom Sage.

The babies that have the darker foreheads are dominant pieds, more than likely double factors since they have such little dark markings The places where it looks like they don't have feathers are just white feathers and are harder to see. They will look a lot like daddy Tiki!

June 16, 2011

Here are some pics from today. Everyone was very squirmy and I was short on time in taking them, so I am sorry they arent the greatest. They are 10-14 days old.

June 20, 2011

Here are the 7 cute little chickies of Opal and Tiki today!

Baby 1- 18 days

Baby 3- 17 days

Baby 5- 14 days

Baby 2- 17 days

Baby 4- 15 days

Babies 6 and 7- 11 and 9 days

June 25, 2011

Ok here we are!

FYI- none of these babies are yellowfaces. The mommas love their veggies! (among which are red peppers, carrots, and tomatoes ) so what we have are a bunch of multi colored veggie babies lol. It fades after a couple days of being away from mom (which you can see on the babies I have been hand feeding a couple days that are back to white again) But she preens them every day with veggie face so theres not much I can do about it. Just a heads up so nobody gets confused.

Ok enough blabbing here they are!

Grey, df dominant pied

Grey, opaline, sf dominant pied.

Sky blue, Violet, opaline, dominant pied

Grey, dominant pied.

Grey, cinnamon, DF dominant pied

Sky blue. violet, opaline, dominant pied.

Sky blue, Violet, opaline, cinnamon, dominant pied

June 28, 2011

Here are Opals babies and their mutations and sexes that I can tell at this point.

Baby 1- Male. 26 Days old. Grey. Opaline. Df dominant pied.

Baby 4- 24 days old. Cobalt blue. Sf violet. Sf dominant pied

Baby 6- Female. 19 days old. Sky blue. Sf Violet. Opaline. Cinnamon. Df dominant pied.

Baby 3- Male. 25 days old. Grey. Opaline. Sf dominant pied.

Baby 5- Male. 22 days old. Cobalt blue. Sf violet. Opaline. Df dominant pied

Baby 7- Male. 17 days old. Grey. Df dominant pied.

July 2, 2011

Last night my mom, sisters and I were playing cards, so we had a few of the fluffies out to play, and Opals oldest boy we found out is quite the card player! We have nick named him "DJ" because he looks kind of like he has head phones on from his markings, which somehow turned into DJ since they always have head phones on. He would sit on my sisters lap, and then when it was her turn she would tap on the cards and he would run down and giver her his "guess" as to which card she should get rid of next, and he was right 99% of the time!

Here are some pics of him playing cards, sorry they aren't the best quality my camera was almost dead and wouldn't let me use flash, but I figured I would take a few anyway!

"This is the one you want to get rid of!"

"Keep this card its a good one!"

"Put it on the draw plie here"

July 3, 2011

Time for some new baby pics of the little ones I am hand feeding!

Baby 1- 31 days old

Baby 5- 27 days old

Baby 7- 22 days old

Baby 3- 30 days old

Baby 6- 24 days old

July 6, 2011

Unfortunately not all of the babies were wanting to work with me today in the picture department But this is what we have! lol

A boy- A grey, opaline, Df dominant pied.

A boy- Violet. Opaline. Df dominant pied.

A boy- Grey. Opaline. Df dominant pied. He was one of the ones not wanting to work with me today and wiggling all over the place!

A boy- Grey. Opaline. Sf dominant pied

A girl- Violet. Opaline. Df dominant pied. Cinnamon. She was having quite the time trying to stay on the basket!

July 11, 2011

Today was the first day I woke up to give them their first hand feeding and NOBODY was squawking at me! I didn't hardly know what to do with myself! They have all been trying lots of new foods and are busy being little monkeys in their cage with all the new toys.

I will try and get some updated pics soon! I am sorry the updates and pics have been slim this last week, we are building a new room for the birds and have been working on it all weekend so it has been taking up the little time I have when I am not caring for tha babies and working, but they are all doing great and weaning is coming along just perfect!

July 20, 2011

We have been working on step ups and eating lots of veggies this week, and they have been flying and exploring all over the place.

Only 8 days until the first baby goes to their new home at 8 weeks old, can you believe how old they are?! It seems like I was just writing on this journal when they were laying the eggs! They grow up so fast!

Here are some final pics of everyone before they go to their new homes!