Hi everyone, as some background, I have bred my budgies for the first time successfuly. I have four beautiful bubs, two of them pets and the other two with the parents. One of the babies, nicknamed 'stumpy' doesnt have a tail. at their 5 week check up with our avian vet Ray Butler, is was diagnosed with budgie short tail disease. a virus transmitted from one of the parents in the nest. It is completely normal except its tail feathers are mutated, short, and curl like a feather duster type budgie. It doesnt seem to be in any pain and can fly and function normally.

Many people who have seen this budgie find it endearing and would like one. even my bird hating sister likes it! My question is, would breeding short tailed budgies be ethical?

ethics are very important to me and the birds always come first. Know this, i AM NOT breeding for money and that would not be my aim if i were to breed from this budgie. All views and opinions would be greatly appreciated.

Thankyou! :feedbirds:

If it is a disease it probably wouldn't be heritable. If it is a condition brought about by inbreeding and you wanted to reproduce it you would have do do more inbreeding which could have very negative results. Most of the mutated genes that have given us the variety of colours that we now have have involved inbreeding to establish the strain. If the short tail is caused by a mutated gene it would be possible to reproduce it

On the highest level there is no wrong or right. Everything just is. Breed what you like and if at a later stage you decide you still like it, continue, if you don't like it, cease.

 

My personal preference is not to use budgies with problems for breeding since they usually don't breed so well anyway. But it depends on what you view as a problem.

 

If it is a virus, if you withhold the budgies from breeding for six months and treat them for mites and lice, you will be less likely to have a stumpy recurrence.

In my experience budgies with "issues" usually have other associated issues along with it...like weak heart, epilepsy etc. I wouldnt breed anything with issues as my philosophy is to only breed with birds in optimum condition and genetics. In saying this I can kind of contradict myself as I was given some birds with feather issues to breed from and also some with cysts. The results if any were dismal, reinforcing my belief you only breed the best you have for the advancement of the budgie...the chick being better than its parents.

With "dodgy issues" and hidden factors like possible other symptoms as mentioned above, I wouldnt.

Your choice.

I hear Ray Butler is one of the very best....have you asked his opinion on this ?

Edited August 25, 200816 yr by KAZ

I hear Ray Butler is one of the very best....have you asked his opinion on this ?

I hadnt thought of it when I saw him last, I may have to ask him though. I cant find any information about it on the internet, so you are right, I wont know if other problems are associated.Ray Butler said that it is inherited from the parents, so yes if i breed from it there will be more stumpies. Its father I got from a pet shop when he was very young, and he took a long time to grow his tail, so we think he is responsible. hmm what to do?? Im worried that it may be a mild version of something worse, and then the babies may have all sorts of feather problems. However it was diagnosed...Oh and there was garunteed no inbreeding