Breeding Budgerigars - A Selection of Classic Articles on Line-Breeding, Records, Colour Improvement and Other Aspects of Budgerigar Breeding

Various

Description

This book contains classic material dating back to the 1900s and before. The content has been carefully selected for its interest and relevance to a modern audience. Carefully selecting the best articles from our collection we have compiled a series of historical and informative publications on the subject of budgerigars. Each publication has been professionally curated and includes all details on the original source material. This particular instalment, "Breeding Budgerigars" contains information on line-breeding, records, colour improvement and other aspects of budgerigar breeding. It is intended to illustrate aspects of breeding budgerigars and serves as a guide for anyone wishing to obtain a general knowledge of the subject and understand the field in its historical context. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.

Sujets

• Birds
• Pets

Informations

• Publié par: Read Books Ltd.
• Date de parution: 31 mai 2013
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781473390942
• Langue: English

Extrait

Breeding Budgerigars
A Selection of Classic Articles on Line-Breeding, Records, Colour Improvement and Other Aspects of Budgerigar Breeding
By
Various Authors
Copyright 2011 Read Books Ltd. This book is copyright and may not be reproduced or copied in any way without the express permission of the publisher in writing
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Contents
Sorting Out the Youngsters . J. Landsburgh
Improving Type and Keeping Colour in Yellows . W. Watmough
Probability and the Double-Factor Violet. C. Warner
How to Establish a Stud of Light Greens . R. T. C. Young
Line-Breeding is the Way to Quality Production . Alec B. Lockwood
Conditions of the Wild are not Necessary in Budgie Breeding . J. Y. Flett
Records of Birds and Breeding Eliminate Muddled Management . Birdman
Soviet Breeders Explore Exciting New Colours . Anon
Budgerigar Bulletin
SOVIET BREEDERS EXPLORE EXCITING NEW COLOURS
This is How We Might Improve the Yellow . W. Watmough
TALKING BUDGERIGARS AND HOW TO TRAIN THEM
The Marvel of the Mutant . Edward J. Boosey
When the Chicks are in the Nest . A. Gregg
The wonderful story we almost take for granted . . .
Development in the first hazardous weeks in the life of a Budgerigar
Sorting out the youngsters
by J. Landsburgh
My hand is my measuring stick. How a bird handles is the test
THERE must be hundreds of thousands of Budgerigars bred yearly in this country, some of them just for ornamentation in garden flights, some for household pets. But as we now have twenty-three thousand members in the Budgerigar Society, we can say that the vast majority of them are interested in the production of exhibition-type birds.
Competition runs in the blood of every Britisher. We are all out to win our local Derby. Then we spread out to shows further afield. Then we venture over the border (and maybe to other countries hundreds of miles away in the near future). Where there is competition, there is sport, and every exhibitor should treat it as such.
With between fifty thousand and sixty thousand Budgie fanciers now breeding in this country, it has been suggested that I write this article advising fanciers what to keep and what to discard. I take it for granted that readers are interested only in the production of exhibition stock, as I am.
Now, say the small breeder, with about ten pairs of birds up, produces fifty to sixty young birds (I speak for these fanciers as, no doubt, they are in the majority). The question arises: which of these youngsters have I to keep and which have I to sell? Birds have to be fed three hundred and sixty-five days in a year; seed has to be bought and paid for, whether you are selling birds to pay for this seed or not. The money for the seed has to come from somewhere, so try to make your hobby pay it s own way. You can t afford to keep passengers if you are in the exhibition world, so at least seventy-five per cent of these sixty youngsters will have to go, and possibly some of the old birds, which will be replaced by some of your new stock or by new purchases. If you are breeding properly many of these young birds will, or should, be better than your adults.
You have now to grade these sixty youngsters. You first of all cage them, colour by colour-Greens in one cage and Blues in another, and so on. You have a look carefully at your cage of Greens; examine them for head, size and spots. If you are not sure of them, take them in your hand and look at them closely, which is the only true way of assessing them. I never buy a bird or sell a bird without handling it. You have a close-up view of the head, the structure of the head, breadth and rise of the skull, thickness of the neck. If the bird is in your hand you will have his head on the palm of your hand, with the head and neck between your forefinger and your thumb. You feel the bird for size, for thickness of neck, for breadth of shoulders, and for length of body, which should come down to your little finger on the hand holding the bird. Of course, it all depends on the size of the individual s hand, I agree.
My hand is my measuring stick; it registers the various measurements of the bird I am examining, except for the head, which I see, and, of course, the length of the wings and the tail. It records, as something I see records, as something I smell, or something I hear; it records good, bad or indifferent. This is a thing you will get accustomed to with experience. When poultry, pigeons, cats, dogs and many other livestock are being judged they are handled by the judge; even mice are taken out and properly examined. I would not advise this in the judging of cage birds by any manner of means. In the judging of crest canaries and crestbreds you do have to handle the birds, but thank goodness not so with our Fancy . . . as yet. Nevertheless this is the proper way to assess the merits of your young birds before putting the best of them into the flights to moult out and to discard the ones you do not want.
If your Greens and Blues are sorted out, examine them for size. If they are too small, weak in head or small in spots, long flighted or short flighted, get them out of the way as soon as you can and make room for your best stock. You will have more room for them to develop and more time to devote to them, and the proceeds from these unwanted youngsters which you have sold as pets or otherwise will feed or help to feed the others until they reach maturity.
Now, there is one other point: these long-flighted and short-flighted birds. If it is wrong to have the flights too long, it is also wrong to have them too short. Such birds may be good in every other respect, though they are not show birds. They may have massive heads, which, usually, these birds have, and the long-flighted birds usually have grand big spots as well. The reverse is usually the case in the short-flighted bird; it has a good head but is small in spots.
The long-flighted birds are ninety-nine per cent yellows, and the short-flights are usually buffs. There are buffs and yellows in all birds. You have heard your canary friends talk buffs and yellows. We have them in our wild birds. The most simple one to identify is our common greenfinch. In Budgies we have it, too. However, your eye has to be trained to colours and general make-up.
Now, with a big, long-flighted Green cock, say, with tremendous head and spots, nothing will be gained by mating him to a big, long-flighted hen. But you take one of these short-flighted hens which, as I say, usually has a good head. She is a buff and shorter in feather, dumpier all over, and usually her spots are not too good. You may wish to hold these birds for stock purposes instead of selling them right away, and it may be advantageous to do so. Long flight is always dominant, or partly so, I have found, so your offspring will be mostly all long flights, but there will be that odd medium-winged bird which, it is hoped, will carry the head and spots of the long-flighted father and the body of the buff hen. The percentage is small, I agree, but when you get a good one it is usually a very good one.
You have to make your balance up in all pairings, of course. It is, as everybody knows, a matter of pairing up your birds properly to give you the best results. If you pair up a National-winning cock to a National-winning hen, it does not follow that you will breed ten National-winning birds from them. But I maintain that you have a much better chance of breeding a National winner from them than you would from two mediocre birds. The percentage of really outstanding exhibition birds is small, so throughout the year you will be weeding out and pruning your stock as you go along.
If you are breeding Lutinos or Buttercup Yellows, thirty points are allowed for colour. You will examine the youngsters for any trace of green. Turn them over in your hand and look at the rump; if there is any green it will be more pronounced there, and any suggestion of green on the rump of a youngster condemns it as it will be very much stronger in colour when it moults out. The same with, say, Opalines. If they are dirty on the back, too light on the wings or rosettes, you are safe in discarding them right away as they will never be show birds, unless you want them for stock purposes. If they have some good feature you wish to transfer to some of your normals, then you may shut your eyes to dirty backs in your Opalines and green rumps on your Yellows. You can use your dirty-backed birds for your normals and your green-rumped Yellows for Lutino breeding or for breeding Greywings or Cinnamon-wings. It all depends how much room you have and what colours you are specialising in.
I go in for all colours, and I can use up almost any colour. Budgies so adaptable and obliging that you can blend them to suit yourself to produce that perfect model.
The young birds you put out in the flights in May will be caught up, when fully moulted out, and put through their paces. You will select and re-select from the best of them until the big day comes. Then you pack them up for their show-and you aim to win. You see the chap over the garden wall trying to do the same; so is the fellow at the other end of the town; indeed, there may be a dozen fanciers in your home-town all trying, too. Thousands of fanciers in the country are exhibiting.
Don t expect to sweep the boards. Don t fall out with the chap over the wall if he beats you. And, above all, don t crow over your success if you happen to beat him. There are a lot of ups and downs in the Fancy; you may be glad of his assistance one day.
Improving type and keeping colour in Yellows
by W. Watmough
There is a risk in outcrossing the Light Yellow to the Cinnamon