Getting excited as I’m going this Sunday on an aviary tour with the Taree Budgerigar Club, which I joined last month. We are going to Garry Gazzards stud at Newcastle & two other I don’t know the name of, so hopefully I should see some good birds. Don’t know if we are allowed to take photos, but will try. Also going to a breeder on the way home to get some Saddlebacks, Yellow Darkwings, Cinnamon Yellow Darkwings, Black Eyed Self’s & maybe some Faded’s if I like the look of them, as never seen one yet. Let you know how it goes next week & probably will have some “new bird” picys…

how exciting!!

l hope that you are allowed to take pictures of the aviary's, and l'm looking forward to pics of your new budgies :sad:

sounds very exciting Norm, if they let you take pics take some for us :sad:

Hope you have a great time. Would you be able to tell me what suburb Garry Gazzard's is? I am in Newcastle also and would love to have a visit myself!!

Terrific news Norm. What a great opportunity. You will have heaps of news to tell and most likely come away newly inspired. Have a great time :oliveb:

Norm, Wil be interested, in your thoughts on the birds a Gary Gazzards.He is one of the top

breeders in NSW.You might be able to buy a pair or 2.Best of luck. :feedbirds:

Hope you have a great time. Would you be able to tell me what suburb Garry Gazzard's is? I am in Newcastle also and would love to have a visit myself!!

 

OOh yes me too, I live in Newcastle too! Have fun Norm looking forward to new pictures :oliveb:

Hope you have a great time. Would you be able to tell me what suburb Garry Gazzard's is? I am in Newcastle also and would love to have a visit myself!!

 

I think it might be Wallsend but not sure.

 

I don't know if any have birds for sale but taking some money with me just in case. Not sure I could afford Gazzards birds though.

Norm, Your not wanting to buy his best birds.But if if he offer a pair at a token

price.Don`t say no.You are only trying to get started in the budgie showing. :budgiedance:

We were told that any Gazzard bloodline birds were going for around the $2000 mark now :budgiedance:

Exactly Kaz, I don't think I'll be coming home with a Gazzard bird, but then one never knows.

Exactly Kaz, I don't think I'll be coming home with a Gazzard bird, but then one never knows.

 

Good things happen to good people Norm....and you just never know :angel1:

Exactly Kaz, I don't think I'll be coming home with a Gazzard bird, but then one never knows.

 

Good things happen to good people Norm....and you just never know :angel1:

 

Thanks Kaz, yeah you never know, I could have a lucky day...

He might have a pensioner deal...(Laughing out loud).

Edited September 21, 200717 yr by Norm

Anything is worth a try Norm,To get your hands on a Gazzard bird away from

the big spenders. :feedbirds:

Anything is worth a try Norm,To get your hands on a Gazzard bird away from

the big spenders. :feedbirds:

 

True Macka...time will tell. :budgiedance:

Well we had our aviary tour day, eventually we only went to the one place, as for some reason the other two lined up, cancelled a day or so before.

 

Gary has a very nice set-up, small but compact. He was very pleasant & showed us lots of his family lines; his breeding is based on these families. His main lines seemed to be Spangles & especially DF spangles [mostly Yellow]. His advice to get rid of Green suffusion in the DF was Cinnamon Opalines. You can see he has done lots of good work to get him where he is today & he is good at his trade.

 

 

 

But… you can say maybe I'm getting old & can't accept new ideas, as the birds that are considered tops today, are so different to what was in when I bred Budgie before more than forty years ago. I have a lot of trouble getting my head around liking them. In my opinion there is "too" much feather, I know that's what it's all about these days, but even some of the other guys that are showing & like that type of bird, thought the feathers were too long even for them. Most of his birds have massive masks & the feather length around the legs is really long. I have posted sometimes on here saying I wonder about the health & vigour of some of today's show birds & I have been told by others that I have it wrong, that the present day show bird is fantastically health. Well he is considered one of the top studs in Australia & he advised us if you can keep your mortality down to 25% [that's 1 in 4] you are doing well. I have bred something like 300 birds this year & all up lost less than 10 birds. A couple of chicks died on hatching & I lost one almost fully feathered chick in my first nest of French Moult. Then I lost about 5 young at weaning out of two families. And a couple of adult birds died. And that's using basically no medication; just of late I have been adding Apple Cider vinegar to my water. He showed us his water medication…he uses two mixtures, one I think three days a week & the other the other days. One had a least three chemicals in it. Plus there is the sprays that he & others I know use, that are supposed to kill every virus & bacteria…sadly that's not my idea of livestock breeding, my idea is to select birds that can live in the natural environment. You can't eliminate diseases, viruses or bacteria, especially bacteria…some are important for life itself & if you use a spray to kill them it kills the good as well as the bad. Even though I know we keep birds in a pretty unnatural environment, I still believe that we need to breed birds that can survive in this environment & in my opinion most of these chemicals etc are what I call expensive. Anyway that's my ideas everyone is entitled to their own opinion I guess.

 

 

 

Then there's my new additions, my rare breeds, I eventually got 15 birds, I was a bit disappointed in them also, the breeder admitted that I was getting his dregs [at least he was honest] most of them are not good on type [or leave a lot to be desired]. This is what I got…the worst are the Darkwing Cock & Cinnamon Darkwing Cock [the Darkwing was free, but both have a pretty bad wing faults, but it was them or nothing I'm afraid…a Cinnamon Darkwing hen very young just out of the nest, small, but at least no wing fault & may develop more. Two split Saddleback Cocks, one isn't too bad looking…a Saddleback hen, which since getting her home holds her head a bit strange & trembles. Two Cocks & two Hens Black Eyed Cinnamon Self's. He said most of the BES in Australia have Cinnamon in them, as they look better. All a bit small, but good colour & look healthy. Two young Green series Fallows, maybe Cocks but he wasn't sure yet. And probably the best two birds I got, two Olive Dusk birds. Karen sent me an article on them from the guy in Newcastle that first bred them, the pictures with the article didn't impress me, but on seeing the birds I liked them much better. The guy that first bred them said they could be Slates, but I just read that Slates are sex linked & he said these are Dominant. Originally they were bred out of a Lutino bird & mine have a lot of Lutino in their pedigree, he said they are good for getting a real dark colour in your Lutinos. Well that's what I got hopefully I can breed them up to some good-looking birds; it will take a couple of years. I got some pictures, I need a couple of days to get them sorted, I may post some of my new birds but as I said they are not flash…My BES's aren't as good looking as yours Aly.

PS. Oh & yeah I didn't get any Gazzard birds apparently he has a long waiting list & it's at least $500 more in lots of cases. But my Rares have "apparently" Gazzard birds in their pedigrees...but it's like chalk & cheese...(Laughing out loud)...got em on the cheap...

Edited September 23, 200717 yr by Norm

Not feeling up to par but I did want to stop in and see how your visit went Norm. Very interesting information for sure. Not being around the show ring with birds there is not much I can comment on but I find your posts always information, interesting and hold excellent points.

Sounds like you had an interesting day Norm. I must say I am in agreement with you about the overuse of artificial products going into the birds drinking water and diets. Mostly I like to keep it as simple and natural as possible too, with good food and vegies, eucalyptus, peppermint tree and seeding grasses. I think the natural stuff like the peppermint and eucalyptus are the birds best medicines.

The super long feather you speak of is where the breeder gets to a point where there would be a few feather dusters hatched into the aviary in the search for that "feather". Its what breeder calls taking it just a smidge too far. Todays budgie is very far removed from the original just like modern man is very far removed from early man. Apparently we are all a great deal taller than our prehistoric "cousins" too.

With regard to the budgies, each to their own, and if what you are doing and the direction you choose to follow makes you happy and makes you feel good about the birds you produce, then nothing is wrong with that.

Try not to put the birds you got down the bottom of the ladder as far as "dregs" go. Many a champion has hatched from some very ordinary and small looking birds.

All my best........Kaz

Yes Norm I agree with Kas, my partner thinks the same way as he has been breeding and showing since a boy and he has commented on how they have changed and he thinks for the worse, he says they are loosing sight of what is a good bird these days because it is all on size and feather. Ahh well something like that anyway.

Hi Norm,

wow, your post was a real eye-opener for me, very interesting, thanks for sharing your experience with us. I have to agree with you even though i don't know anything about breeding or showing but i agree that Australia's natural vegetation is very powerfull medicine! Will be looking out to see pictures of your new birds i think they sound lovely, dregs and all!

Yeah, thanks guys, I’m not giving up with my “dregs” a breeder that was with me said after we left [they probably thought I was mad buying them] don’t breed with that bird with the wing fault, it will get through all your birds. I think I will breed it, I thought it could also be mechanical damage [from an accident] at least I think when it’s bred with some strong good bird, at least some will loose the fault & I will select from the good ones. Also with the BES’s his stock birds weren’t show beaters but some were a lot better than the ones I got, so I always think even the birds that don’t look that good still have the genetics of better birds behind them, it’s just a matter of good selection. Maybe I can’t buy expensive birds, but the enjoyment to me is in breeding & seeing my birds improve each year, to me that’s most of the pleasure, not in showing, as long as I’m happy with the birds I breed that’s the main thing to me. I have already picked out the best hen & am going to mate her with the male that is the most unrelated to her, the cock is small, but has better colour than the hen. The others I will mate to improved unrelated Normals & then pair the splits back to the best of the pure birds I breed from the straight BES pair. I need to introduce new blood anyway. When you are interested in Rares, that’s one of the problems, the gene pool you have to work with…he has lots of Rares that others don’t have, but with some lines he only had a couple of pairs himself, that’s why we need more breeding some of the Rare mutations otherwise they will be eventually lost.

Yeah, thanks guys, I’m not giving up with my “dregs” a breeder that was with me said after we left [they probably thought I was mad buying them] don’t breed with that bird with the wing fault, it will get through all your birds. I think I will breed it, I thought it could also be mechanical damage [from an accident] at least I think when it’s bred with some strong good bird, at least some will loose the fault & I will select from the good ones. Also with the BES’s his stock birds weren’t show beaters but some were a lot better than the ones I got, so I always think even the birds that don’t look that good still have the genetics of better birds behind them, it’s just a matter of good selection. Maybe I can’t buy expensive birds, but the enjoyment to me is in breeding & seeing my birds improve each year, to me that’s most of the pleasure, not in showing, as long as I’m happy with the birds I breed that’s the main thing to me. I have already picked out the best hen & am going to mate her with the male that is the most unrelated to her, the cock is small, but has better colour than the hen. The others I will mate to improved unrelated Normals & then pair the splits back to the best of the pure birds I breed from the straight BES pair. I need to introduce new blood anyway. When you are interested in Rares, that’s one of the problems, the gene pool you have to work with…he has lots of Rares that others don’t have, but with some lines he only had a couple of pairs himself, that’s why we need more breeding some of the Rare mutations otherwise they will be eventually lost.

Norm, you are quite right in your thinking. I have seen a great many excellent quality birds hatched from eggs from birds that noone would have given a second look to in selecting them. We all know about hidden gene pools. The little DF white spangle I posted...her parents looked like cr*p and I nearly got rid of the mother. The father I wouldnt have thought was anything much, BUT they have good bloodlines. Many a show breeder will say, dont go for the showy looking ones, but their scrawnier not so special looking relatives as you will have the bloodlines to work with. The very reasoning behind me recently buying at auction a smallish olive green normal of Cec gearing bloodlines. Not much to look at but has the bloodlines.

Yes Kaz, a friend of mine says he never tries to buy the prise winner bird, mostly they wont sell it anyway & if they did it would be expensive & also it’s often been said that in lots of cases the prize winning birds wont even breed or fill eggs. So your best idea is to ask if they have its brother, sister or close relative for sale & you have just as good a chance to breed a good bird from that.