Question by Mackenzie R: Parakeet Breeding Question!?
I have researched it and understand egg-binding, hand-feeding, and the rest of that stuff. I just got a mating buddy for Angel that’s a year old, and he mounts her from behind on her tail, then puts his leg on her as if he’s kicking her. She lets Angel get close, then kicks him off. Will she give in and let Angel mate her? I really need to know. I’m not treating her as a breeding machine, my friends’ parents’ say that they can have one if they do have babies, and they understand how to take care of them, so I have homes for them. Also, I’m only going to breed them once, maybe (which is most likely a no) twice. The female I named Sunbeam, is tamed, loves her head being scratched and everything. Will Sunbeam let Angel mate her? I understand the breeding and raising the chicks. So will she?

Best answer:

Answer by furious_strength
Sorry to tell you hon, but you really shouldn’t be breeding her. Breeding any animal requires a very specific process including genetic testing. Did you know there are hereditary diseases that Parakeets pass to each other? And unless you test both animals for these diseases the chances of the disease passing on to the babies sky rockets? The only reason any animal should be breed is to ‘improve’ the breed of animal.

It’s good you have homes for them, but that’s not the issue. There are many birds in rescue shelters that are put to death because there aren’t any homes available. So improperly breeding your animal is taking away those lives. If your friends family wants a bird, they should go and adopt one.

It’s also very possible that your bird wont mate. A lot birds wont breed in captivity and she can be stressed by the presence of another male. Stress in birds can be very dangerous and cause harmful behavioral problems such as feather plucking. Your female could even die.

Not to mention are you really prepared for this responsibility? If something goes wrong, could you handfeed the chicks? This may include handfeeding them every hour around the clock…. Do you know the pros and cons to not only breeding, but handraising, too? Anything from the parents neglecting the chicks, mutilating them, overfeeding them, to burned crop, sour crop, bacterial/fungal infections, slow crop, etc? Do you have the necessary supplies to handfeed in case of such an emergency? Do you have any avian vets or breeders who could help you out in case something goes wrong? Would you have the money for an emergency vet visit? Sorry, I don’t think you are as educated as you you are. From the sound of it, you don’t even have a breeding box.

There is a whole lot more that goes into breeding that just sticking two animals together and having homes selected for the babies. Unless you have a passion for bred husbandry and wanting to improve it, you really should not be breeding them and can in fact do quite a lot of harm. Unless you are prepared to keep both your male and female as pets if they don’t make babies, you should re-home the male. Why not to your friend who wants one? If your female shows to much stress from him repeatedly trying to breed, you should move him to another cage.

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Question by Mackenzie R: Parakeet Breeding Question?
I have researched it and understand egg-binding, hand-feeding, and the rest of that stuff. I just got a mating buddy for Angel that’s a year old, and he mounts her from behind on her tail, then puts his leg on her as if he’s kicking her. She lets Angel get close, then kicks him off. Will she give in and let Angel mate her? I really need to know. I’m not treating her as a breeding machine, my friends’ parents’ say that they can have one if they do have babies, and they understand how to take care of them, so I have homes for them. Also, I’m only going to breed them once, maybe (which is most likely a no) twice. The female I named Sunbeam, is tamed, loves her head being scratched and everything. Will Sunbeam let Angel mate her? I understand the breeding and raising the chicks. So will she?

Best answer:

Answer by Link H
only Sunbeam knows the answer to your question. lol.

However, be sure that you are providing 12 or more hours of good light daily. Use a full-spectrum (UVA) lamp if you can get one. Provide a nesting site with box and some nesting materials, then maybe she will get in the mood.

Our courting budgies chewed a hole in the wall above the window valence, to make a nest. grrr

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Question by Monkey: A question for Black Americans. Could you explain Ebonics to me- No racist content inside?
Hi I was hoping that you could clarify a question for me regarding Ebonics. I have heard many black people who are very passionate about the subject believe that it is something that is unique to them and is a marker of their race/culture

From the mixed sources that I have heard it is one of two things.

1.A dialect or variation of a dialect that is only found in certain sections of the black community and is based on Jamaican patois.

2.It is the belief that all Black people have a certain timbre to their voices that regardless of their place in society will identify them as black. And that it is natural and not cultural.

If it is the second answer then I do not believe that Ebonics exists as a natural phenomenon and here is why. When a baby is born it is just a little adaptation machine that has no idea where it will be born or what culture it will live in. If you took a white baby and placed it with a rural Chinese family. It would grow up with a Chinese culture and if it was brought to America to learn English it would have a Chinese accent. This is true of the potential of any baby.

But if Ebonics were true then for some reason black babies are inhibited in their ability to adapt to any environment as they will always retain the Ebonic timbre in their voice. This is impossible as the only difference between new born babies of different races is solely down to their skin colour which is a reflection of their ancestor’s exposure to the sun.

Could this be the answer instead? As many black people believe that they are living in a country where they are repressed and everything about them including many of their positive cultural artefacts have been appropriated by white culture. Ebonics is one of the few things that they can say is their own and is a binding tool that cannot be taken away from them.

You thoughts please
Edit

Not a single person actually read my question. or maybe understood it.

The jist is that i am saying that we are all the same and that there is no difference. Why is it that when someone does not understand a question that will either ascribe their own meaning or fall back to some defense mechanism.

Spuddy thanks you are the closest i have seen to an answer.

My base question was not that ebonics does not exist but do you believe it is cultural or natural
Edit lex thank for the update mate.

Best answer:

Answer by Spuddy
I’m not black, but I can answer your question.

Contrary to popular belief, Ebonics, or African American Vernacular English, came about AFTER the Civil War. Blacks prior spoke differently than blacks today. Most spoke similar dialects to Southern whites at the time. By the mid 1800s, most black Americans did not speak any patois form of English. After the Emancipation Proclamation, blacks began to build their own communities separate from whites. This isolation, mostly in the inner city of major US cities, is what lead to ebonics being born.

And blacks generally have larger vocal chords than all other races, which causes them to have deeper voices. Often times, not all the times, but often you can identify a black person speaking, even if that black person is not speaking ebonics.

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Question by J.P.: Question for Jews: What requirements exist for the making of tallit and tzitzit?
I understand that the tallit is essentially unimportant except as the carrier of the tzitzit, but I also know that it is considered a garment and thus there are requirements about things like fibre content, maybe colours, etc. I also know that there is significance to the blue die used for certain threads in tzitzit. But other than the primary requirements, I am a little lacking in halakhic knowledge of the actual manufacture of these items.

I spent three hours the other night shopping online for one and didn’t see anything I really liked, and I’m pretty handy with a sewing machine and good with cord work, so I was considering making my own, and buying a tzitzit kit (with the techelet strands) to tie my own.

I asked my rabbi but he seemed a little sparse on the details and seemed of the opinion any effort I made, kosher or not, would be acceptable (both because I’m non-Jewish and thus bound only by that which I take upon myself and because as Reform the halakha is not considered binding anyways), but if I went through this effort, I’d like to know it was kosher ‘enough’ such that a member of the Orthodox sect would consider it kosher to wear himself were it his.

In short, to summarize — what do I need to know and observe if I am to make my own tallit and tie my own tzitzit?
allonyaov:

When I say “kosher enough”, I meant more that, “I would like to do this in such a way that an Orthodox Jew would do it the same way and consider it kosher if he did.”

Much of what I’ve seen of tekhelet suggested that the murex trunculus snail had started to see wide recognition as the source. Of course, many of the sites selling m. trunculus ‘tekhelet’ have a vested interest in its sale. I suppose I’ll reconsider the use of the blue thread and stick to white for now.

I could use some clarification though. Were I to have a Jewish male tie the tzitzit for me, would it become improper for me, a non-Jew, to wear the tallit and tzitzit to synagogue services? I know that my Reform Rabbi encourages me to do so since it seems relevant to me, but I am curious if different sects would have differences of opinion on this.

Best answer:

Answer by GivPerf
I don’t know why you would want to make your own tzitzit/tallit when you can buy them in any Judaica store, but that’s your business.

A tallit is a large garment worn by men during the morning prayers, with tzitzit at the corners. It looks like a large tablecloth with fringes and stripes, and is draped over the head and shoulders. A tallit katan is a smaller garment, worn under or over the shirt, with tzitzit at the corners, which every Orthodox Jewish male wears starting at the age of 3. A kosher tallit and tallit katan must be a four-cornered garment, with 8 strings hanging from each of the 4 corners. The 8 strings are usually twisted into 5 equidistant knots along the upper portion of the strings, with the lower portions hanging freely. As to fiber content, most of the adult tallitot are made of wool, and many are made of cotton. Any material is generally okay, I believe, except for a mixture of wool and linen. This mixture is called sha’atnez and is forbidden by the Torah.

Something else you should know – the techelet dye does not apply in this day and age. Since we have lost the knowledge of exactly which sea creature creates this dye, we currently wear tzitzit with all white strings. When Mashiach comes, this knowledge will be restored and we will again wear tzitzit with techelet strings.

Honestly, I don’t know if any Orthodox Jew today would wear home-made tzitzit. There is no way to know if the person who made them was truly God-fearing, and actually followed all the rules and made them according to halacha. So you might wear your own, but I can’t imagine any Orthodox Jew wearing tzitzit that you made yourself.

If you’re interested, my nephews wear something called Neatzit – it looks like a regular boys’ cotton undershirt with snaps up the sides, and tzitzit at the corners. They wear them instead of undershirts, and it gives a much neater impression, as well as being cooler – only one layer instead of two.

Since I’m a woman, I’m not familiar with the process of actually making tzitzit, but since all my family wears them (all the males, that is, except my baby son), I do know what they look like!

As an aside, the gematria of tzitzit is 600, and the 5 knots and 8 strings on each corner add up to 613, the number of all the mitzvot in the Torah. Just thought that was interesting.

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Question by Juan C: probability question… need help…?
A printing company’s bookbinding machine has a probability of 0.005 of producing a defective book. If this machine is used to bind three books…

how do you find the probability that…

a.) none of the books are defective
b.) at least one of the book is defective
c.) all of the books are defective

Best answer:

Answer by fcas80
a. .995*.995*.995

b. 1 – .995*.995*.995

c. .005*.005*.005

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