chookbreeder9

Yep, we need to update the BCV web page. Melton's meeting night is now the first friday of the month (5th Nov). JB - more than welcome. Western's Diploma Show is at Laverton not Preston by the way! Cheers PT

I don't think auctions are a deterent to entering the hobby. When I started, I started with the usual beginner quality stock costing me $20 - 40. My best birds trace back to these birds. Until 2 weeks ago, I had never spent a lot on birds. At the Western Suburbs auction I purchased 3 birds that were very expensive. To do this, I have had to sell a lot of birds to cover the cost. The old adage, sell 10 to buy 1. I was chasing a feature that my birds can produce, but I want them to do it more consistently, so I selected these birds from a stud that has a reputation for producing the feature time and time again. Beginners need patience, luck and skill. If they are well off, they can purchase expensive birds, but without the skill or patience (a $1000 bird is no guarantee of success) they will not get anywhere. They need to start at the bottom and work their way up. Bank the money from your culls and re-invest it wisely. I love the birds PJI has pictured in this thread. I could use some of that $50 action. Nice active feather and plenty of backskull! From where I sit there are two things that are contributing to the decline of the hobby. The first is the size of house blocks in the new suburbs. These would average between 400 and 600 sq meters. Not a hope of having a house and birdroom and flights. Secondly, this urban population does not have the interest in animals and breeding as previous generations have. TV, internet, xbox, wii, etc all compete for young peoples time. Breeding budgies is nerdy and wanky, Super Mario (not Capasso), warhammer, call of duty and halo are cool - budgies are for geeks and losers. Cheers fellow budgie geeks! PT

They don't live long at my place due to human intervention. I take note of where they come from and try to avoid inbreeding those families too heavily. Cheers PT

Hi All, Sunnie, I like your oldest fallow baby. Nice brow and neat wing. Nubbly, the hen is a good one. I have a sister who is not doing the right thing in the box and a brother that I like a lot that I haven't used yet. After I spotted the hen I thought I should keep her, but she was catalogued so... I hope she does the right thing for you. I hope you have a better year with fallows than me. Numbers and quality down - won't be bothering anybody on the bench next year! Cheers PT

Does anyone know where you can purchase a hospital cage? I would like to upgrade from my dodgy lamp+old show cage setup. Thanks PT

Clearbody for mine... Cheers PT

Hi Kaz, A few of them look familiar? Hope you had a good time. Cheers PT

Hi All, One pair this year - 6 chicks 4 of which were feather dusters. They do not live long here. You can often pick potential dusters by the short primary tail feathers at 2 weeks old (shorter than the coverts). Other tell tail signs are squarking rather than chirping, larger size and spastic tendencies (especialy legs). Ken Yorke believes it is a single recessive gene and I tend to agree with him. The problem is that the carriers tend to be bigger and therefore more likely to be kept and bred from. Cheers PT

Hi Rachelm, All of my fallows trace back to John's stock and I have had a 1st, 3rd, 4th and 5th at the nationals with them. With John's birds you are "fishing in the right pond". Cheers PT

Grey and grey green fallow are extermely rare. I understand from talking to Ian Hannington that he has not bred one yet. I know I haven't and neither has fellow vic fallow breeder John Flanagan. We all use greys and grey greens and breed splits that are grey or grey green, but not fallows. My hypothesis is that the fallow and the "normal" gene {non-grey allele} are in linked. That is, whenever the fallow gene is passed from one generation to the next it comes with the normal allele. The probable cause of this is that the fallow gene and the normal gene are found very close together on the same chromosome and always get inherited as a "pair". Being close together means that during meiosis when the chromotids crossover, the likelyhood of the chromotids crossing over at a point between the normal gene and the fallow gene is very low. It is not impossible for these two genes to seperate, but as a general rule, the closer the genes are located on the chromosome, the more generations it will take to seperate these two genes. Hope this helps. Cheers PT

Splatty, Be careful with visual violets as they are dark factor + violet factor. What you need in the green series is violet factor + light green. So if you have violet skyblues then they could work with your clearbodies. Don't get too carried away with the violet thing. I would concentrate on making them grey factor and opaline in either green or blue series. Cheers PT

Hi All, Good luck with your quest to breed dark factor clearbodies that conform to the exhibition standard. "The Standard" says - General Body Colour: Yellow (Buttercup) or White, masking a standard colour that may show as a faint minimal suffusion in the body with more intensity over the rump and flank. Yellow or white - not yellowy green or pale blue. I have seen cobalt and violet clearbodies that are paler or washed out in the body colour, but they are not white as the standard calls for. Grey factor reduces the colour brining them closer to the standard. Violet factor, on the other hand when incorperated into the green series does a good job of intensifying body colour without adding green suffusion. The bird that run 3rd at the Adult Shield this year was a violet light green clearbody. You can breed then however you want, that is the beauty of the hobby, but if you don't want to get smacked about on the show bench, I would suggest keeping the dark factor out of them. Cheers PT

Thankyou very much Pete that is what I thought, so I have done the wron thing already. But that's okay at least now know and can learn from it. Can I use what I have bred now if they are anygood from the dark green hen or not. Of course. If she is only carries one copy of the dark factor gene (which I would suspect otherwise she would be an olive) then half of her chick won't carry the dark factor (assuming the cock is not dark factor). I would suggest that any chick is better than no chicks and sort them out down the track. Cheers, PT

Good oil is an omega 3 oil mix made by the Passwell company. Birds in the flights get dry hulled oats (young ones get leftovers from the breeding pars and babies that are coated in good oil). I don't know if Good Oil works - I just don't like sprouting seeds. Cheers, PT

All of my birds have access to hulled oats all of the time. The babies and breeding pairs get oats soaked in "the good oil" daily. Cheers, PT

Good luck Nubbly - a labour of love! Jean has got some lovely fallows - unlucky not to win the Nats in Burnie. I really like her light green split hen! It is a good pond to be fishing in. What is the cock pictured in the first photo? He looks a useful rooster! That old bugger over there John Payne has had a few decent ones in the past. You could sneak in and nick a few before he could even get to the door!!! (just joking - he is a mate!). Cheers PT

Hi Splatty, My advice is to keep the dark factor out of your clearbodies. This advice is based on the current standard which calls for a "clear" body. The best way to think of it is that the body colour is meant to be the same as the mask colour. The best way to subdue the body colour is with grey factor. As a general rule, albinos are better to work into your clearbodies than lutinos. Most lute breeders are trying to intensify the body colour. The addition of the dark factor helps to achieve this and when you use these dark factor carrying lutinos to breed clearbodies, you get clearbodies with too much body colour. Albino breeders on the other hand are trying to keep body suffusion to a minimum and therefore "properly bred" albinos would seldom be carrying dark factor and are most likely to be carrying grey factor. The one problem with introducung inos is knowing what they are masking - especially spangle as this seems to be popular among some inof breeders. I have both green and blue (grey) series clearbodies. Many of the cocks are split ino. Unfortunately the lutinos that are produced from my clearbodies are a bit pale due to the absence of dark factor and the presence of grey factor. I have a ripper lute in the baby cage at present, but it won't mix it with the best ones because it is down on body colour. If only it was an albino!! Rules of thumb for clearbodies: only use grey and grey green without dark factor (hard to tell - I know), Albinos are better than lutes in general, opaline is your friend as you get a bit more wash out of body colour and darker wing markings. Cheers and good luck, PT ps: I think it is a shame in some ways that we are restricted to trying to flush all of the colour from this variety just because somebody decided that is what the standard should be. I think it would be great if we could breed dark factor cleabodies or even violet clearbodies - for what it's worth!

I want to breed budgies as big as chooks! Cheers PT

I have seen cows with "blue Eyes" that look a bit like sheeps eyes (you can see a rectangular "pupil" in them). A holstein cow called A Tora Triple Threat Lulu was the most famous cow with "weird eyes" and was the dam of a very notable Holstein sire called Hanoverhill Inspiration who had thousands of daughters around the world. Must be recessive as you don't see many. Cheers PT

Hi All, Very well put Daz. I have had 12 birds go to the Nationals since 2006. 1/3 of those just went for the ride - 4 out of 12. Friends of mine had 2 birds selected that travelled to Rockhampton. They are Beginner breeders and also made the trip. Neither of them were benched. I think 3 birds benched is a fantastic decision. Cheers PT

Hi All, Here is my National rant for what it's worth. I hope it doesn't sound like I have tourettes syndrome, so here goes... Best bird - Jimmy Fletcher's Light Green cock - better than Bob Smith's Blue from QLD and Hanno's Cinnamon from Tassy. It is an outstanding bird - the best I have seen!!! Others - Hunter's Cinnamon, 4th place Dom Pied (and the 2nd and 3rd birds as well), Bob Smith's Grey Green, S & F Blackeye (the best I have seen), 2nd place Albino (hen), 1st 4 Lutes, Kakoschke's clearwing (nearly touched the roof of the cage and had a clear wing), Jean Horrobin's Opaline hen - the steadiest showbird I have seen for a long time, 1st 3 spangles. There were plenty of others that I would love in my breeding room. I had 3 in the team - a grey green and a green that just went for the ride (the sooner we get three birds on the bench - the better). My fallow run fourth and come up against some strong birds. The first 4 in the class were real quality. The two Vic birds did not behave well and it cost them as they looked a whole lot better after the event. Eva DeRango's bird looked fantastic - a whole lot better than the week before and was very unlucky. In saying that - Hanno's bird did everything right and deserved to win. The two disqualified birds - as a judge myself, I will be careful what I say, but - there were 4 judges on the stage and they took a lot of time when making both decisions. I have no doubt that both birds have problems - one of them (I am lead to believe had a severe problem). At the end of the day, the four men with judges sticks in their hands were given the job of making a decision and they made it. Big perches would not have made a difference - three toes forard is a deformity and is penalised correctly in the standard. We should not be making perches in showcages bigger so birds with deformities can be exhibited. All in all - a super weekend! I here there is a semi on the way to restock Rocky with Red Wine! I am knackered because of lack of sleep and can't wait to pair a few up on the weekend. Congrats to Mark, Liv, Jeff (good grey!) and Karen on having birds that were benched and performed well (I hope I haven't missed anybody?). Mark was stiff as Ian Hunter's bird is a pearler! Bring on Canberra (watch out for my grey - if he grows a tail!). Cheers PT

Very Stiff Heathrow - given that your hen is now deemed no good, you can send her down to me anytime! Chin up mate! Cheers PT

aaaaagh!?!?!?! 1 x 2nd 3 x 3rd 1 x 4th 2 x 5th + others. 3 birds in the state team (Fallow, Green, Grey Green) + 2 reserves (fallow & Clearbody). Let's see what next week brings. Apologies to Splat, GB and others - I was a bit tired and distracted today. Cheers PT

Poorly marked Dominant Pied. Nice Hen. Cheers PT

That is correct. It is the biggest show of the year. The birds that will be shown have already been pre-selected through/by the owners club and represent the best of the best. It is the highlight of the Vic show calendar. Cheers PT