The original Java sparrow birdroom diary is back!

This page will detail all the highs and lows direct from the birdroom, all the information on now my Javas are doing generally and at the more interesting times like when I am letting the pairs go down to breed. Please select a month below to allow you to read about the diary of events in that period.

click chosen month above to read diary entries

July 9
Below are a couple of photographs taken recently. The birdroom is now slowing down as said before, I have got 2 nests with a total of 11 Javas that will next week be fully independent and removed from their parents, the parents will also be split up then for a rest.

I have got 3 young from a late bred pairing that are feathering up nicely but will be a few weeks away from independence but they can fly well enough already as one escaped from my hands when taking the image below. Also seen regularly by me when entering the birdroom when the birds are due to be fed, a few Javas waiting at the cage doors as if they are saying ............... HURRY UP!! Check out the image below.

Around 17 days old and very soon to be out in the cage.

The young from earlier rounds are now moulting out well and slowly all cocks that display are being housed in their own one sex flight. You can see how the birds are fairing below, first image if of young, so far unsexed Javas and the one below that of definite cocks all in one flight.

5 x 2008 bred birds moulting out well.

2007 and 2008 known cock birds all together. Currently around 34 Javas are in this flight.

At the end of June I was at Stafford with my Java Sparrow Society UK colleagues on our sales and display tables and I met up with Simon who is featured on my your javas page where he can be seen with hand tame Javas on his fingers, well Simon gave me a Java he hand tamed for me and you can see me getting the wonderful gift from Simon below, thanks a lot for that mate, the Java hen has been named Jazz by my wife.

Simon presenting me with Jazz the Java sparrow.

I also did my latest Java talk for the members at Runcorn & District Cage Bird Society last night and I hope a good night was had by all, I think it was received well I know I certainly had a great time trying to convert all to the wonders of the Java, thanks for your hospitality lads.

July 12
Sad news begins my report today I have lost my first fully fledged bird of 2008. The #36 hen sadly looked very ill in the outer flight as so I placed her into my newly acquired hospital cage but a day later the bird was dead, not sure why but this sometimes happens, the bird in the hospital cages can be seen below.

The dead Java can be seen in the bottom left corner of the hospital cage and a close up is above right.

On a brighter note all the young Javas in 3 different nests are all in their respective cages and flying around and learning where all the food and water etc. are placed and are beginning to learn how to care from themselves from their parents.

Also I have been trying to get some Timor sparrows to breed, sadly I have only got clear eggs so far, a total of 17 from 3 rounds and 2 pairs. The last pair to lay eggs had a clutch of 7 eggs, I transferred the 7 under Javas and 5 of the Java eggs were placed under the Timors to test of they would rear young, all the Timors I have got are as yet unproven by me.

The 7 Timor eggs sadly turned out to be infertile again but the Timors have now hatched off 4 of the 5 fertile Java eggs and are rearing them all well so far. This is going to be a good test in the parenting skills of the Timor pair and may well stimulate the pair to mate for future rounds of eggs.

These Java eggs were going to be thrown away anyway due to winding down my breeding for the summer months as stated before so if they survive it will be a bonus.

July 21
Yesterday, Sunday the 20th I went to my first of a few shows planned for the back end of the year, this was at the Lincoln Budgerigar & Foreign Bird Society show and I entered 2 adult Javas, 2 current year bred Javas and a Timor cock bird. As usual a great day was had and I also assisted in stewarding the Foreign bird section, which was great to do, it was really interesting watching the judge Mr Lambert and his methods of judging and also speaking with him to learn from his 50 years or more as a bird keeper and judge.

I was pleased with the results at the end of the show as my 2003 bred Normal cock did his usual trick and displayed well in his show cage and ended up winning and becoming the best common seed eater in show and eventually finishing 4th overall in a section with nearly 60 different birds of various foreign species in it in the different classes.

The Timor sparrow cock also did well although he did not show so well overall in the day by perching nicely and consistently in his show cage but he did enough to get 2nd best rare seedeater and eventually finished in the last 6 for best foreign in show, again a pleasing thing to me and co-owners Stuart Drury and Dave Pover because we got a rosette and £3 prize money here to!! Wow a £1 coin each lads!

I did get a nasty surprise on my return in the evening from the Lincoln Budgerigar & Foreign Bird Society show, a dead Java in a flight cage, #57 was hanging upside down with its leg caught in a gap left when the wooden divider separating the 2 large flight cages had apparently moved enough to leave a gap. Sadly this happened when I was not there. The divider is now out and will be fixed at the weekend.

The 3 chicks in the last of my Java breeding cages are doing well and are now to be seen in greater regularity out in the cage exploring it, a few more days and they will be removed from the nesting again parents. The test pairing of Timors with Java eggs under them are now successfully rearing 5 Javas and if this continues to independence I hope the birds will go down on their own clutch of eggs and this time will have mated! We will see but if this does happen at least I am happier in the knowledge that the pair will rear young birds with no issues.

The first of the 5 Java babies has now had a 2008 close ring fitted and I hope to ring the other 4 tomorrow and the next day depending on the birds growth rates.

July 24
The last close ring #71 has now been fitted to the smallest Java being reared by the Timors and I must say they are feeding the babies very well, I do hope this does get them into the right frame of mind for mating and then rearing their own young later on in the year.

I will be removing the 3 older Javas featured in my July 9 diary entry at the weekend as they will be totally independent by then and all of the young will have been out of the nest for around 16 days on saturday.

August 2
Not a real lot to tell you today apart from a little update on the only 5 Javas I have in the nest and some images of earlier bred young now looking like they are getting through the moult ok.

The 5 young Javas are being cared under the Timor sparrows are now around 4 weeks of age and from what I can see, please see a nice image taken from the front of the breeding cage front.

1 of 5 young, soon to fledge Javas being cared for by the Timors.

The other Javas I have are now housed in 3 flight cages, a total of just under 100 birds mostly 2008 bred young (66), late 2007 bred birds (16) and the remaining ones being adult breeding birds. The few images below that were taken today show how the birds are now coming into condition admittedly at different rates but all seem healthy even those adults who have bred this year going through heavy moult.

Above 5 of the 30 odd cocks in my internal 'Cock bird' only flight.		Above are 2 unsexed Javas, right, 1 from 2007 (possible cock?) on the left a 2008 bred bird
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Above you can see evidence of the different levels of the moult Javas of a similar age can have.

I am going to my second show event of the year tomorrow at Mid Lincs B&FBS in Lincoln so will report how the 4 birds I am planning to take get on. I know the foreign bird classes in total ar well over double the last Lincoln show I attended 2 weeks ago so the challenge to do well will be greater, but in reality it is all about having a good day out, to help the club by Stewarding etc. and also meet up with friends old and new, if your birds do well too then it is a bonus!

Well my short diary entry turned out to longer than I first thought!

August 5
Quick entry today reporting on how my Javas did at the Mid Lincs B&FBS Open show on Sunday the 3rd. I put in 3 Javas, 1 the adult class, the same bird that won the Best Common Seedeater class 2 weeks previous. He came 3rd in this class this time and the winner was a massive continental bred, hand reared Normal Java that was not far off the size of a Border Canary!

This Java (which wins pretty consistently at all shows it is entered in) was a lovely looking bird with a great body colour, clean lines and was undoubtedly in excellent condition etc. but it was too big for my own personal liking really, other exhibitors also commented on the size and shape of the bird not being like a wild type Java but I fully understand that in the judging world the bigger birds invariably win and boy this was a big Java, so a big well done to Java owner Joe!

You can just about see in the image below right the difference in size and body shape if the winning adult Java compared to mine below, looks like I will have to start feeding mine more!!

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The Current Year Owner Bred (CYOB) class was won by fellow JSSUK committee member Norman Chapman with his great looking White Java and my 2 CYOB Normals finished 2nd (pictured above left) and 4th in a class of 10 birds in all, so not too bad. These 2 Javas were in a show for the first time ever and apart from one bird ragging its tail they did ok for a first time out.

August 10
The 5 Java chicks under the care of the Timors are now fledging with 4 out of the 5 now out of the nest. The Java chicks look a little smaller than normal but this is only to be expected as the Timor as a species is slightly smaller in size compared to the Java.

This test pairing has, so far, worked out well and I know now that these 2 birds will happily rear chicks, without livefood and also allow me to close ring the young too. These are definite bonuses I just need the cock and hen to mate and then I could see young Timors also in my birdroom but to be honest I am not raising my hopes to high although this pairing has answered a few questions for me.

Below a quick photo I took today of the Timor pair with one of their newly fledged charges, the hen Timor is far left, the scruffy looking one and the cock is in the middle with the young Java on the right. From what I have seen of young Javas and Timors the chicks are virtually identical so this has obviously assisted in the Timors being willing to rear the young Javas thus far.

So assuming the 5 Javas survive to full independence this will be a total of 69 young Normals bred in 2008. I am now looking into getting some other colour Javas and will keep you posted on this as and when I can.

August 30
Having returned from my holiday to Egypt I have now taken the 5 young Javas being reared by the pair of Timor sparrows away and placed them into a large stock flight along with other late 2007 and 2008 bred Javas. They are looking great and the Timors did a great job in rearing but sadly they will not mate to fertilise their own eggs so they can rear more Timors.

I am now looking at getting some early orders for Javas ready for sale from the beginning of September, this is a time where you end up scratching your head a lot especially when you have to sort out pairs from 6 different breeding pairs and a total of 69 young!

I am also now building a stud of Fawn and Cream Javas as a second breeding team and plan to breed Normals as per usual from January to around July and then after my annual holidays have a couple of rounds from my Fawn and Cream Javas from September to December. I am thinking of 6 pairs of Normals and 6 mixed pairs of Fawns and Creams.

September 6
A little internal birdroom maintenance is now taking place with my 9 breeding cages now being cleaned and repainted in white, they really do need it. My cage setup enables me to remove the wire fronts, keep the dividers in place and then paint 3 cages at once top, middle and bottom in each section2 photographs are shown below of the middle section now being painted.

Clear difference in the brightness of the cages can be seen above, the section on the left in each image is being painted this weekend.

I have now got 6 Fawns, some carrying Cream, 2 visual creams that I can pair up in the next few weeks. I am looking forward to again seeing young Javas in the nest, I hope this can be achieved with the new birds I have, we will see!

September 20
Sorry about the 14 day delay in updating my diary page. I have been really busy at work doing a lot of hours and also in the spare moments I have had I have been working on changing birds around and painting out cages. In between all this I went on the 14th of September to the Foreign Bird League annual show where the JSSUK had patronage and a table on the day. I entered 6 birds in total 4 Normals and 2 Fawns, these Fawns were not my own bred birds but birds I bought into to create a breeding stud of Fawns, Fawn / Cream and Cream Javas. I want ed to assist i the JSSUK getting a good turn out on the day and although the show was not as well supported overall we (the JSSUK lads) still had a good day, Dave, Andy Tommy and I manned the stand through the day and had a good crack as I say. A full report of the show will soon appear on the JSSUK website but here's how the Javas I took fared.

In the adult Normal class my single entry came 6th, the CYOB Normal class was more successful with a 1st, 2nd and 5th for my 3 Javas in this class. The 2 Fawns were in the adult class for Fawns and came 1st and 4th. I was very happy with this as the most important thing for me is the social side of these events where you meet up with bird pals old and new, like I have said previously a good day was had.

Please see below the 6 Javas I took upon my return home, 2 with rosettes so not bad, also a bonus on the Fawn it came in as 2nd overall best Fawn and won £5 too! So as this was a bird bred by my mate Norman Chapman I suppose at least half the money should go to him, thanks Norman!!

The 6 Javas above is my normal size of show team, maybe I'll get more JSSUK show cages in the future.

The cages are all painted out now and looking good, this was long overdue really but now I can very soon put down 6 pairs of Fawn, Fawn Cream and Cream for a late round. I have worked our the pairings already and hope this is the start of rebuilding a good quality stud of these colours.

I aim from now on to breed my Normals in the first half of the breeding year, let all birds rest over the warmer summer months and then put down the new colour stud at the back end of the year, this will keep me nice and busy all year round and would still mean I am able to breed my 100 or so Javas annually.

The 2 images below show the state of play with the inner breeding / stock cages and the outer stock flight cages, they look a lot better. All I need to do now is paint out the now empty out flight and then I can relax for a while!

Newly painted flight cages with around 12 Javas in each cage.

The breeding cages are not holding many birds at the moment but will be soon full of breeding birds.

Tomorrow I am going to my next show event, this time it is my local club show, please go to our website by clicking here to see what we are about. I will let you know how things went for me and the 8 Javas i am taking in the next diary report .

September 23
A good day was had at the Grantham Bird Society show on sunday 21st, there was in the region of 250 birds on show with nearly 50% being Fife Canaries. I have been trying to build up the foreign bird section of the show over the last few years and this year saw a total of 38 foreign birds with 13 of them being Javas sparrows. The best foreign bird out the whole section of 38 on show was a great looking CYOB White Java owned by my friend and fellow JSSUK committee member Norman Chapman, I told Norman when I saw the bird early on in the day that I felt it had a great chance of winning, and it did! Well done mate a great bird.

My Javas, especially the CYOB ones were as usual very wild in their cages and soon had damaged their tails and so they did not do so good when the Judge looked at them. No real problem though for me as for me I really enjoy the social side of the show events is the real reason to go and if your birds win anything it is a bonus. I will probably have to look at a good way to train them that I can fit into my work / hobby daily routine, any tips pleas do let me know.

It is very important to support your local clubs at these types of shows and so I entered a total of 8 birds in the adult and Current Year Bred classes, 3 of the Javas were not bred by me and were entered in the adult classes, these were all Fawn birds and one of these won the best in its class, see photograph below. It is also a good thing for others at the show to see some of the other colours of Javas available I guess as this can stimulate them into wanting to get some Javas themselves!

With me now having a good stud of Fawns / Creams now I hope to be very soon in a positron where I will be showing my own bred Fawns and possibly Creams. The Fawn below is obviously of good quality and along with the others I have bought in should give me a good start in regard to showing my own bred bird in the future.

This cock Fawn was bred by JSSUK member Dave Brown, I am sure it will produce good young for me.

You will notice that the show cage the Java above is in is different to the ones on my September 20 entry, I have only 6 of the JSSUK show cages and as I wanted to enter as many Javas as I could I placed 2 in Budgie show cages that have the cage bars sprayed black. This is ok to do as it was a local club show with no affiliation or patronage (this year anyway) to the JSSUK and so any foreign bird show cage would have been ok on the day.

September 30
Last sunday I took a drive over to Oxfordshire along with 2 pairs of 2008 bred Javas for my first visit to fellow JSSUK committee member Brent Jackson's birdroom. I had a great 2 hours nattering about all things Java and was pleased to see that my earlier prediction to Brent upon his purchase of 2 pairs from me last year is coming true. The prediction? Well I said 2 pairs would very soon grow to more and more Javas once the spirit and character of the Java takes hold! Brent has also has plans for more cages and flights so does this mean more Javas, OH YES IT DOES!! Sorry Brent but I hate to tell you I told you so!

As you can see from the image on the left Brent has a great smile on his face, is this due to the infectious nature of the wonderful Java sparrow, I like to think so! Brent has bred I think 10 Javas this but his plans are to breed more than this figure next year and after talking to him in detail during my visit I can see he has definite plans to achieve quality Javas in the future.

Thanks for the time at your place Brent I enjoyed it a lot and it was great to meet Sarah and your lovely daughter Scarlett too!

My large flight at home is now painted out and has a handful of Javas in it. I plan to put down 6 pairs of Fawns / Creams and also 3 pairs of Timor sparrows in the next 2 weeks so I will have something of interest to report here from then, well I do hope so, keep coming back to see what I plan to do in regard to my pairings.

October 5
Been busy sorting out pairs for Stafford next weekend, and after a good few hours yesterday and today I now have got 16 pairs for orders and a few pairs spare, it is always hard to split up the family groups you have bred into unrelated pairs without leaving yourself a lot of brothers and sisters at the end.

The image on the left was the result of around 4 hours of catching, photographing and cataloging 8 unrelated breeding pairs of Normals for sale at Stafford on the 12th of October! I also moved several young Javas that are not yet ready for sale due to not being fully through the moult and also my breeding hens into the flight I have in my exterior flight arrangement. The green cards on each cage indicate the birds parentage and also their ring number so I can ensure I pair them up correctly for sale in the future.

On Saturday October 4th my good mate Stuart Drury came to visit for a good old chat about Javas just for a change! Stuart went away with a Normal hen that was bred by me this year. The hen will assist in giving Stuart a bit of new blood into his Java gene pool. These out crosses as they are called are vital to ensure that after a period of time breeding birds are not too closely related. You can see a smiling Stuart with his new Java below.

October 7
All the preparation for the Bird Show of the Year at Stafford show ground is now really in need of completion with show cage team to be picked, cages to be cleaned and prepared. Sales Javas need to be checked out also to ensue all is ok before they go to the new owners. I will have to take a bit of paperwork and information from the JSSUK also and it is a really early start for a lot of people too on the day, personally I am getting up at around 5am to get ready and travel to the event.

A lot to do but I am really looking forward to meeting up again with the great folk in the JSSUK committee, helping to run a great show for the whole show as an event but our section in particular. Hopefully we will see the biggest ever collection of exhibition standard Javas ever seen in the UK under one roof and also I am sure it will be a good day manning the JSSUK stand talking about the Java sparrow all day to fans of the species both old and new!

October 9
Sad news yesterday, I came across a dead young Java in the outer flight. It was lying dead on the feeding station, I did notice an unmoulted bird a little fluffed up around 5 days ago but this was only for a short period so I thought all was ok. But sadly was wrong I guess, if it was the same bird! You can see the way I found the bird in the image below.

click the image above for a larger image

Last night I attended my local bird clubs monthly meeting and as usual had a good time, this month's meeting was a young bird show, Canaries, Budgies and Foreign birds a total of 65 birds were on show, the members were very pleased the evening was so well supported and to do my bit I took 3 exhibits, a pair of Normals (to be sold on after the show - with an increase in price planned if they won!! - not really) and 2 single birds. My 3 entries came 5th, 6th and 8th out of a total of 12 entries. Fellow JSSUK committee member Norman Chapman stole the show in the foreign section with a 1st, 2nd and 3rd, he brought 4 birds in total so well done mate. Norman's rock steady Opal Isabel Java came in 2nd. As I said it was a great night and I stewarded for the judge, good friend Derek Robinson. You can see my best placed Java on the night below along with a shot of the whole foreign bird section on show at the Grantham Bird Society event.

Above the 2008 bred Normal Java cock which was best placed for me at 5th place.

The section of 12 Foreign birds, including Javas, Bengalese, Zebra Finches, Hecks and Silverbills

Next show will be the big one, The Parrot Society's Bird Show of The Year which is being held at the Stafford Show ground, maybe I will see you there on the JSSUK stand!

October 12
Wow, what a great day I had at Stafford, really busy but great fun spreading the word of the Java sparrow to pals old and new! From 5.45am traveling to the event in one car with Norman and Phil to the non-stop talking to the visitors to the JSSUK stand and the journey home to arrive back at 5.45pm!

The JSSUK stand nearly set up in the early morning of show / sales day but already attracting visitors.

Along with all this there was an exhibition on too! I entered 3 Normals in the Adult class and 3 in the Current Year Owner Bred (CYOB) class, my Javas did not get anywhere in the very large class of 27 Normals, all in this class were showing excellent markings and high standard. The story with my CYOB was a little better with again a large class of 12 birds being won by my JSSUK committee member and friend Brent Jackson's superb bird winning well. My own 3 birds came in 2nd, 4th and 6th so I was very happy with this in largish class and again the exhibitors all put in very good looking Javas throughout.

Another high point was the meeting of the 'Internet Java Men!' Stuart Drury was already doing his bit on the JSSUK stand as usual when Rob Salem from Devon and owner of www.javafinch.com called in for a chat too, please see the photograph below of the webmasters of the 3 most prominent Java sparrow related websites on the internet.

Left to right, Stuart, Rob and yours truly! We managed to stop talking Javas for the few seconds it took to take this photo!

It was great to see Rob, Sue and family too, the kids are growing fast mate! I tried to get Rob's son Tom to move over from Budgies to Javas but he was having none of it! and with his Mum Sue being keen on Budgies too he has support there! Rob's daughter Louise is more into horses apparently, so Rob you have to fly the Java flag in your family eh?

All in all a very busy day, 10 pairs of Normals Javas have now found new homes across the UK a good day with the show team and a real pleasure in meeting Java folks like, Billy from NI, Neil L, Paul R, Simon A, Peter H, Fred J, Dale and Jackie C, Wayne B and Steve and Tracy D! Apologies if I have forgotten anyone, I bet I have!

October 18
Today I have taken the opportunity to sort out the Timors I have into 3 pairs to see if we can progress from the 24 clear eggs so far this season, I am told by a few folks that these birds prefer to breed at this time of the year, so I hope this increases my chances of getting fertile eggs. I am 100% sure I have got 3 true pairs now in breeding cages and now only time will tell if they are compatible and manage to rear some of their own young, fingers crossed there!

I have also put 6 pairs of Fawn, Fawn carrying Cream and Cream Javas into their respective breeding cages for what I think will be a single round. You can see the parings on the my javas page on the website just click the red text of go to the page via the main home navigation page of justjavas.co.uk. I will be updating this page with more information on the birds in the pairings shown in the 6 new images as soon as I get the chance.

One of the real pleasures in breeding Fawns is that they are a lot easier to place into true pairs because you can tell the sexes apart from the head colouration as well as beak size and shape, please see the image below to see what I mean and also my sexing javas page too.

Hen Fawn Java on the left and Cock on the right, this is a very clear example of how easy it is to sex Fawn Javas sometimes.

I am really looking forward to breeding these colours especially the Fawn as I have not had these mutations in my birdroom for a good couple of years now. The nestboxes will be put up tomorrow and I will be looking to update you tomorrow on my activity there.

October 19
Today the 6 pairs of Fawn / Cream have had their nestboxes put up, see the photograph below of the birds getting used to the new breeding environment, new for all 12 Javas, I hope they settle and that I see eggs in all nestboxes by November 2nd.

The usual shredded paper and coconut fibre has been placed in the nestboxes, the nest already started off for the pairs and also I have placed some of the same materials in the cage for the birds to finish off their nests as they see fit. Please go to my nestbox page to see how I make up my nestboxes for my Javas.

The Timor sparrows I have are also now in breeding cages, well 3 true pairs and already one pair are in the nestbox, we will see what happens with these birds but I am not too hopeful to be honest, hope I am incorrect! They are housed on the top row of my breeding cages, cages 1 through to 3.

As winter is fast approaching I have now refitted the secondary glazing units I have which fit onto my outer flight complex, You can see from the images below the glazing panels in place and this really does protect the outer flight area very well from the elements and it gives all the Javas housed in there a nice snug place for them and with the added bonus of plenty of natural light during the day because of the clear plastic roof.

You can see from the photograph the small window on the birdroom is still open, I leave this open as much as possible to ensure good air flow into the birdroom and the white framed secondary glazing unit that is in the door into my flights / birdroom ( in centre of flight arrangement on the left of the birdroom ) is taken out on most days to help with the air flow too and the main door into the birdroom is left open too. This all assists in making sure the birds are getting plenty of fresh air at all times. With these units all in place and on a sunny winters day it can still get well into the high 80's in the outer flight complex.

October 24
The 6 pairs of Fawns and Creams are now beginning to show interest in the nestboxes, well 4 of the 6 pairs are; and interestingly it is the 4 all Fawn pairings. The 2 pairings of Fawn (Cream carrier) cock to a visual Cream hen do not appear to have even been in the nestboxes yet, it is still early days so I will be leaving the birds for a solid week to see what happens then. You can see a photograph of one of the Fawn to Fawn pairings nest where they are placing the shredded paper over the coconut fibre to their own particular liking.

The entrance to the nestbox is top centre of this image.

November 3
Upon my return from a week's holiday in Kos, Greece I checked the 9 pairs of breeding birds I have down at the moment, 3 pairs of Timors and 6 pairs of Javas, to find not a single egg!

Not a surprise with the Timors, I think they like around a 3 to 4 week period for nesting and eggs to follow if they do so at all but the Javas are usually on eggs in my experience within 2 weeks and so it is a little disappointing to see nothing as of yet. But I think 3 hens are showing the tell tale rounded, swollen vent areas and so I am hopefully eggs will follow soon, I will let you know as and when they appear, or not as the case may be!

November 25
I am experiencing a few problems with the Fawn / Cream pairing recently put down to breed. I have had to split up 2 pairs that did not even enter the nestbox and another pair had a good sized clutch of 7 but all but 1 egg was clear, this egg was marked and placed under another pair with only a couple of fertile eggs of eggs of their own. The other 2 pairs of Javas are on fertile eggs but after checking today 2 eggs were ejected from the nest bowl and were stone cold!

I am expecting, if my calculations are correct and the Javas incubation have been going ok, chicks to appear by the weekend, probably sunday but after the way they have all been messing around I am not so sure.

November 28
Good and bad news today, I have had 3 chicks hatch from a Fawn (Cream) cock x Cream hen pairing but sadly 1 of the 3 chicks was dragged to the front of the nest, near the nestbox entrance hole and has died due to cold. You can see the young dead Java chick in the top left portion of the image and the 2 remaining chicks doing well in the opposite corner. Looking at the eggs left to hatch in the clutch I do not expect anymore chicks to hatch and if this proves to be the case this will make the loss of the chick today even worse!

click the image to see larger version of dead chick

I hope to have some positive information on the remaining nest over the next few days.

November 30
Once again good ands bad news with the Fawns I have breeding at the moment. Another dead chick from the same nest as reported on the 28th this leaves only 1 in the nest, image of the chick that for some reason was not fed can be seen below along with another photo of 2 newly hatched chicks in another nest where there could be another 5 eggs hatch out.

I like to leave infertile eggs in the nest to stop young being crushed.
Sadly some other reason caused the death of the baby Fawn above.

Hopefully 2 of possible total of 7 Fawns to come in this nest.

I have also split up the Timor sparrows I have in my birdroom due to getting either no nesting activity or more infertile eggs from the true pairs I had down. I am now beginning to decide what pairings I will be putting down during the forthcoming christmas break, it will be a mix of Normals and Fawns I think but exactly what I am not sure yet. I also need to order my 2009 closed rings for the next breeding season, this year will be the first using Java Sparrow Society UK rings, my number will be JSS-N001, I am looking forward to using these for the first time.

December