Heathrow

It looked to me like money was no problem lealotta!CheersPT Oooops. Did someone give away may bidder number ? It was an exciting & fun day...I took 5 birds home....got a little carried away. The bird I really wanted went for over $300...a little bit too much for me :-(....maybe next time. Me . Lealotta were sitting up the front on the right, bidder number 64 0r 69 i think????

Top price $1600, only 2 other birds made more than $1000. Quite a lot of birds in the $300 - $600 range. Quality was mixed, although there was some bargains to be had.

It looked to me like money was no problem lealotta! Cheers PT By The Way. You home yet Heathrow??? Certainly am PT loooong day!!!!!! How many other forum members went? Apart from me and PT

I'm not sure what Biosecurity reasons there are for not allowing Budgerigar importataion from UK/Europe, but i think its good for the hobby that we dont have birds being imported like happened 10 - 15 years ago. For me it would ruin our hobby by allowing people with even deeper pockets from making a killing out of genunine breeders (like most on this forum). Whilst the top birds in UK/Europe are truly awesome, there have been some top budgies shown at the Nationals recently that by all accounts would be competitive with there top birds. If you follow the show results for around the counrty you will see that the spread of top quality birds is quite wide, and not been dominated by a select few. If importation was to happen this spread of quality birds would be reduced greatly to the ones with the deepest pockets. Anyway whose to say that we dont have recent UK/Europe blood brought in. There are numerous stories about well known breeders dramatically changing there birds overnight, with the assumption that they have smuggled eggs in, these stories are wide spread and well known. Just my thoughts. I'm interested to hear other viewpoints.

I think this is the main thing, but also to do with the rspca people etc who see our birds in cages with no seed and water all day at shows. I think a budgerigar breeder mix with no oats or sunflower ..........I could be wrong If its an OHS issue thats easy fixed, sweep the floor more regularly. Anyway while there is seed in a show cage with birds, there will be seed on the floor.

I think adding D cup to show cages is only another thing for nuisance value, like show cage drinkers. Least the d cup shown in these pictures are used for the purpose they were made, to hold seed. I have never put water in my show cage drinkers or seen anyone else use them. I am Judging in Tassie this weekend so will see if they have D cups or not.

The Dcups and the thicker perches will soon be Australia wide. We have begun implementing them. Some people have and some havent so far. Since half my cages were set up that way and half werent and similar for most people then it would be real difficult for anyone to figure out whose cages had it setup that way and whose werent. Since we had some entrants from the Rare Budgie club and some of them are usuing the OLD style show cages with the rounded over fronts at the top, they too could have been seen as marked, couldnt they ? As could any cage with a chop of paint off it, a piece of tape over the catch a spot in the cage...anything really. The cages were set up before anyone left home with their birds. I have never heard of the D cups being an Australian wide thing, 16 mm perchs are being phased in over a number of years. Not sure of the rationale for it being introduced.

I dont know how you get the time to do all this! LOL

That was the first thing i noticed also Splat. And paper in the show cage. Good case for being wrong classed.

Tailless wonder can be really good birds. I think its some sort of mild Polyoma virus (FM), they generally dont through birds with polyoma. Some months back there was a froum topic about the exact same thing, with some good discussion

I know breeders who make very good money from Budgies. Some are turning over $100000 plus a year. These are the same breeders that think nothing of spending $4000 -$5000 on one bird, too them its a business decision.

I'm with you PT

Man of few words!!

I have plenty of floor dwellers - all can fly though. I think it has more to do with the type of flights our birds have. Anyone who knows me knows that I HATE birds with anything resembling rough or long wings. In fact i have a couple of excellent cock birds that have very short flights. At first glance they look like moulters, but there are 8 very fine and short flights. Im sure the feather around face also has something to do with the floor dwelling

I agree - looks like a mop(feather duster) to me

I would like someone to show me how they put closed irngs on a bird after 10 days of age??? Because i think there dreamin, or the birds are tiny.

More likely to be Fraser coast budgie club.

I prefer to use the Hulled oats.

Renee - tell us about the Grey Green Opaline cock in the middle of second picture, he looks a really smart cock.

If you have asked for the pedigree of these birds and if you know how to work with sex linked varieties, you would not have this problem. I have mentioned elsewhere that I had a couple of Normal Greens that when paired in 2008 produced 100% Normal Green chicks, imagine my surprise in 2009 when I discovered that the cocks in fact were Split cinnie ... Also I do recall reading elsewhere that Dave's Gearing boy was split Ino and this came as a surprise to its breeder as the Ino gene hadn't popped out in many generations. okay as promised pics. It is a warming up to be a hot day and so they are not at their glorious best, also first time in a show cage - no matter In 2009 breeding season I focused on Mask as the main feature I wanted to breed into my birds. My Recessive Pied line that I worked so hard on last year is 100% Manno and Armstrong bloodlines or descendants, whichever way you want to look at it. Here are a couple of examples-100% Manno Red runger bred in July 09. Armstrong x Manno Blue runger bred September 09 I can see the Armstrong features, can you? Unless I come up with a better plan these 2 will go together in August 2010. Now for a few of the Blue boys. All related, 2 brothers and a cousin sharing an amazing Violet Jeff Lloyd boy as their Grandfather. Blue rungers just finally finished coming through their first moult. Cobalt (yes he is panting ... ) Violet Dommie Pied These boys are a couple of generations away from where I would like them to be. I find that with the second moult they will pop a blow but none of these are really possessing directional feather so while they will go back to the sisters they also need to go out to probably my Spangle line or even a cracker of a Normal Blue of Wayne Retzcalf's that I picked up at SWBC's written auction in December ... dunno, I will have to wait and watch them mature before making up my mind. Renee you have done a good job improving the mask BUT now you need to work on the the overal bird, fro example those pieds look narrow in the head I think the expression the key hole look, You need now to focus on width of head plus feather (like directional etc) . I could be wrong because they are only photos but it looks like they are lacking in shoulder. It looks like they are straight up and down with narrow heads but that could be the heat too. I have been honest and said what I thought so you need to get get a bird with power in the body plus width of head to improve your birds, I was going to make comment earlier, but thought you may get offended Renee. I understand its a hot day and would love to see these birds on a cooler day. You are right they do lack directional feather but also lack head width, mask is okay in length, but narrow - therefore the bird lacks shoulder. Spots are okay. Height above the eye is lacking and they also look alittle beaky- maybe because its hot also. I dont know the stock they are from and whether they develop late or not, but particularlly in cock birds i would like to see more features. I'm wondering how these birds fit into your breeding plan Renee???

Nope. I have rarely followed up on that. Perhaps if I was planning on on-selling and I just wanted to confirm my hunch. I am a visual breeder of families. I trust my gut before anything anyone says, I have learnt that from the best. :question: Renee - If you arnt interested in the background of birds, how do you pair up??

I agree splat. I have lost count the number times people have rung me after buying a pet shop cull of mine, to tell me that they bred a really good budgie from it and want to buy others from the family. And generally that is there first experience with show budgies, and as you can testify Renee, first experineces count alot. The more people we can entice to this great hobby the better for all. It is after all a hobby.

A fellow forum member told me he feeds his Rose prunings, Yes rose prunings, when deadheading your roses throw a couple in the flights, they love it.

Thats little rough Renee. So if you were given a super budgie from another breeder (say Cec Gearing) that he had bought in as an outcross from someone else, you wouldn't want to know its background. For the record, I'm happy to provide details to people in all instances

Never had a Hawk, but had an Owl one night equally damaging. Matt's idea is the one i think would work best.