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

By Read Books Ltd.

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.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Read Books Ltd.
• Release date: May 31, 2013
• ISBN: 9781473390942

Book preview

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