The idea of Showing and Breeding Show Class birds is to advance the quality of your Flock or Stud.

 

Stud is an interesting word. Generally it means a collection of like looking and closely related animals. Breeders that are constantly bringing in different outcrosses find it hard to call their collection a stud.

 

With that in mind we pair our birds and occasionally bring in the outcrosses that will help strengthen our deficiencies in our "Stud" of birds. But there comes a time that the Stud has grown to a size that needs attention. We need to reduce the number of birds we have. We need to Cull them.

 

Culling has often been associated with killing. This is not the true meaning or my understanding of the word. To me it means to remove from your aviary. My way is to sell or give away my birds. Yes I have given many birds away free to those that I think deserves them.

 

Culling is a difficult thing as we really do want to keep all the birds from some reason or other. But you need to take emotion out of the equation and think logically, or at least try to.

 

I cull in both variety and family.

 

1. I select the young cock birds that will not make the standard of show birds. Refer to the ANBC Current Standard. They will go straight away.

Eg Recessive Pied with too much Wing Markings.

 

 

 

2. I catch up all this years Cock Birds in the green series and place them in my training cages. Their ring numbers and parentage is noted.

The top 2 or 3 are kept. The others are placed in a holding cage.

 

 

 

3. I then catch up the young cocks in the blue series and go through the same selection process.

I do this for the grey series and then into varieties eg the Opaline, Opaline AOSV, Cinnamons, Spangles, Double Factor Spangles, Yellowfaces, Dominant Pieds and finally my Recessive Pieds.

I also do the splits separate to the normals. I have Normal Split recessives and Spangle Split Recessives.

 

 

 

4. I then do the same with the hens, but hens are different than the Cocks. Hens you must look past the variety or split and look at the bird. The Hen’s make up in breeding causes different changes on the chicks.

eg I would keep and dirty winged recessive hen if she was a good bird rather than a dirty wing cock. A good Hen is hard to find or buy.

 

 

 

5. Next I do last years birds, those that kept from the last season. These I divide into those that have bred well and those that haven’t. Those that haven’t breed well are valuated on there performance. If a cock has been paired to 5 hens and hasn’t filled an egg, he would have to be a very good bird to stay.

 

 

 

6. Next I do the previous year and so on.

 

 

 

7. I then check the lists for those I have kept and count the numbers. This year I want to cull to the top 50. If I still have too many I then revaluate them and might cull a bit harder on some lines, eg opaline cinnamons might go if I have better Opaline and Cinnamons.

If I have less than I wanted and can revaluate the birds in the holding cages.

 

 

 

8. Next I check the families to see if I have lost any one. If so the family is then revaluated to see if it is worth another season or if I let it go. I have lost families that haven’t been successful.

I have now three many families (lines) in my aviary, Armstrong, Ganzer and Frampton. I have outcrosses from Hollingsworth who has a similar back ground to Armstrong, that being Tonkin.

 

Young birds and those that didn’t do so well in the breeding cabinets are sold to pet stores or to the public that are looking for a pet bird. The birds that haven’t bred well are given to other breeders that want to try their luck. All I ask with this is a chick back if successful.

 

Older birds that have done me well are sold during shows to other breeders. Lately I have grown a good name with my birds and they usually all sell at shows these days.

 

 

I hope this helps you if you are thinking about reducing your aviary numbers.

Brilliant write up Daz. Thanks heaps :bluebudgie:

*sigh, I wish I had more than 50 birds so that I could cull to the top 50 :bluebudgie:

I have 144 at the moment from 8 days old. 79 are older than 6 months. 19 are older than 6 months but are this year rung. 76 are less than 6 months old. So these will be culled first and are probibly the most difficult as I don't know how they are going to mature.

Cheers Daz, that was a great way of explaining how to cull well

I'll have to check those figure because to me they don't add up. :bluebudgie:

:bluebudgie: Nope they don't add up for me either :sadsorry:

65 are older than 6 months .. thats better... pushed the wrong button in the program.

I cull much the same way Daz well I should say Greg does :bluebudgie: .

Thats is good. The idea is to keep the ones that are above your average and let them breed.

 

One thing I should add is that it is better in most cases to keep a 2nd rate sybling to an outstanding one as the better the birds the harder it is to breed them. I have some outstanding birds that have never bred. They look good but I can't get chicks.

Would you say you have a Wells Line at the moment or are your birds still to similar to Armstrong, Gamzer and Frampton's still?

Who desides if you have your own Stud or "Line"??

This is little but do you keep your Armstrong, Gamzer and Frampton lines separate or will you cross lines (I noticed you do some line breeding in another thread)?

That is a difficult decision to take. As I said a Stud is a colection of closely related animals. "With simalar fetures." I think I still have a colection... but am working on it. I have birds that I have called. Blair & Pool / Ganzer / Frampton / Krang. I should call them wells. I thionk if I pair two birds together that I have breed that should be wells.

My method of culling is a little different to that listed above and I'll explain why.

 

I keep all of my birds in a series of suspended aviaries varying in size. These are used for breeding (1 pair per cage) and holding. Hence space is usually a rare luxury especially when breeding . I keep around 50 birds at most times comprised of my breeding stock, birds resting from breeding and current year young. This means I perform a mini-cull as required generally every 6 to 8 weeks.

 

As quality of bird is the deciding factor I don't judge my birds in their varieties but instead retain those that I believe are of the best quality. The only exception here is if I have only 1 or 2 of a variety which I'm trying to develop then I'll be a little more forgiving. However I generally breed mainstream varieties. I generally don't catch up all my birds as they are able to be viewed (and are constantly :rofl: ) from close up. Birds are only caught up when there is little between them.

 

So, how do i decide what to keep? Well with each bird in the aviary I ask myself a simple question: Will I ever want to show or breed from this bird? If the answer is no to both then it is sold. Birds are culled thus:

 

Firstly, problem birds (ie problem breeders, non-layers, infertile birds etc) are sold to the local pet shop.

 

Secondly, nestfeathers (or UBC's) are also sold where they exhibit a very narrow head, shallow mask or are very small. This leaves all the better sized and feathered birds to develop when a decision can be made after their moult. Blow of head feathers is not a priority at this stage. I know most people prefer to retain their babies until after one moult, but to me the babies which are that far behind the rest with the faults listed above should not make it into the "want to show" or "want to breed from" category so I make space for others. It also saves feeding birds for 6 months that will not be required. The only exception here would be an only chick (probably a hen) from an outstanding parent which may be retained. But as I said, space is a premium so I can't keep them all!

 

Third, cocks in particular that I continually overlook to breed from (for say 6 months). This is saying to me I can always find something better in my aviary to use so these cocks are also sold. It is pleasing to see birds which a year ago were though of as a "must retain" suddenly being downgraded to a "not required". This means progress has been made. As the current years birds become old enough they will enter the breeding team and if progress has been made replace the lesser quality ones.

 

I believe in being ruthless with retaining cocks as I only want to use the best ones I have to breed from. Hens are a different proposition. I keep many more hens than cocks as there are always plenty that require a vacation from breeding, are not in condition (they have decided they need a vacation!) or don't like any of my chosen partners.

 

I have 2 exceptions to the above: one hen will never leave as she has been a gem and has single handedly help get me started. Also I have a cock who I bought at auction who never filled an egg and after buying developed a nice big fatty cyst :rofl:

 

 

So in summary, my method is one of continual cull in which hopefully the average quality of stock gradually rises by removing the lesser quality birds. And as young birds age the best ones become a part of the breeding team superceding existing birds.

Edited December 16, 200816 yr by Daryl

Thankyou Daryl for your outlook on culling also....very good reasons behind your culling, and I will take it all on board.

I would love to know others thoughts on how many breeding stock should be kept over until the next breeding season (ie. not including immature birds not yet assessed)..

 

Should you aim to keep for example your top 50 hens and top 50 cocks or do others aim for a different number?

I would love to know others thoughts on how many breeding stock should be kept over until the next breeding season (ie. not including immature birds not yet assessed)..Should you aim to keep for example your top 50 hens and top 50 cocks or do others aim for a different number?

Numbers is all about percentages of your whole flock. It can vary depending on how many birds you have and how many you can keep in your aviary and holding cages, and of course how many you are allowed to keep as dictated by your shire council. I currently keep around 250 - 300 birds and I have a cull cage right now of approx 30 - 40 birds. I will keep them for now as Dave is coming for a visit and may want to look through them. I dont look at numbers as such, and so far I tend to cull very much along the lines of Daryl.......and these days I am being tougher in regard to what I am keeping.

Edited December 16, 200816 yr by KAZ

That is all very good advice, thanks so much :rofl:

 

Kaz has a very nice selection in her cull cage :rofl:

Edited December 16, 200816 yr by **Liv**

Thanks for your info daryl. It is very interesting to read the different ways people cull. Thanks :rofl:

Once upon a time, when we mentioned the word CULL on BBC, people thought we were talking about killing the birds

I must admit that's what I thought it was when I first arrived at BBC.