Posted June 30, 200916 yr Although I will not be putting birds down to breed until the middle of August I always get a bit of excitement up as I head towards the time. Cull done, doxy program starting tomorrow for 45 days then all systems go. So my lunchtime today I spent choosing out some pairs that I've had in mind for a little while and here are the first 5. Pair 1 - Cinnamon Grey Green Spangle Cock x Cinnamon Grey Green Spangle Hen. Not that I'm into breeding DF spangles so much than I love the combination of these 2 birds features wise and I don't much like cinnamon spangles although I have a few so reasonable enough decision IMO to put these 2 together and breed a few DF's and make use of that cinnamon rather than making it a hindrance. Pair 2 - Cinnamon Grey Green Spangle Cock (father of cock in Pair 1) x Cinnamon Oplaine Grey Green Hen. This is a brother x sister pairing as the father was 100% Gazzard bird that I want to breed back to - lost him after only 3 babies all of which I have retained and all of which have bred nicely for me as you can see. Will be a bit of an experiment but I am pretty sure the results will be worth the effort. Pair 3 - Normal Light Green Cock x Normal Dark Green Hen - This cock came 10th at the Nats this year and he is normal/normal not split for cinnamon or opaline. Pairing him with this hen is an effort to achieve 2 things - continue a normal/normal line and produce some more solid quality dark factor birds. Pair 4 - Normal Light Green Cock x Dom Pied Opaline Dilute Hen - okay bit of a mixed bag here I know. This is the brother of the cock bird in Pair 3 but not quite as strong as him obviously. The hen is one I bought at auction and (contrary to how the photo looks) she is a very long very powerful hen from exceptionally strong breeding which has produced National reps all through the family many of them placing well at previous nationals. Now I had thought of putting her into my Clearwing lines as she is not cinnamon and so long as I only keep hens that didn't show dom pied I would have a very quick way of improving my clearwing line HOWEVER she is SUCH a strong hen from SUCH good lines that I can't help myself and want to use her in my normals keeping in mind that I'll have to keep a careful eye on where the dilute ends up!!! I might even swap the 2 brothers over for the 2nd round to breed half brothers & sisters to both pairings. Pair 5 - Grey Spangle Opaline Cock x Normal Grey Hen - This cock is son to 1st place Nats Normal Grey in 2005? The hen is a direct relation to the same bird. I would be a complete dumbarse not to put these two together considering the son of this cock paired to this hen last year produced arguably my best babies for the years breeding. More pairs coming soon! Edited June 30, 200916 yr by nubbly5
June 30, 200916 yr WOW......fantastic. You have some very enviable birds there nubbly Look forward to hearing and seeing more
June 30, 200916 yr Author Thanks Guys. This is the part of budgie-ing that I really really enjoy - all that expectation. Kaz - judging by the birds you are picking out to buy and the babies you show here (and the magnificent one I saw in the flesh) your birds will be a force to be reckoned with very very very soon!!!!! I'd better be breeding some good ones this year I think.
June 30, 200916 yr Thanks Guys. This is the part of budgie-ing that I really really enjoy - all that expectation. Kaz - judging by the birds you are picking out to buy and the babies you show here (and the magnificent one I saw in the flesh) your birds will be a force to be reckoned with very very very soon!!!!! I'd better be breeding some good ones this year I think. I feel I have a long way to go
June 30, 200916 yr Author Thanks Guys. This is the part of budgie-ing that I really really enjoy - all that expectation. Kaz - judging by the birds you are picking out to buy and the babies you show here (and the magnificent one I saw in the flesh) your birds will be a force to be reckoned with very very very soon!!!!! I'd better be breeding some good ones this year I think. I feel I have a long way to go I think you judge yourself and your birds a bit harshly...... that baby I judged was an absolute ripsnorter and if your others are ANYTHING like that you don't have as far as you think - trust me. Edited June 30, 200916 yr by nubbly5
June 30, 200916 yr Nice, nice birds! I'm looking forward to seeing your Fallow, Lacewing and Clearwing pairings!
June 30, 200916 yr Thanks Guys. This is the part of budgie-ing that I really really enjoy - all that expectation. Kaz - judging by the birds you are picking out to buy and the babies you show here (and the magnificent one I saw in the flesh) your birds will be a force to be reckoned with very very very soon!!!!! I'd better be breeding some good ones this year I think. I feel I have a long way to go I think you judge yourself and your birds a bit harshly...... that baby I judged was an absolute ripsnorter and if your others are ANYTHING like that you don't have as far as you think - trust me. i agree whole heartdley with this comment kaz your birds are very very good we all feel that our birds lack till we build on them mine lack lack chicks :rofl: nubbly your birds are very good stranded high stranded rezults anyone would benefit from any bird you have their ,in their aviry :rofl: fantastic specimans mate hope i achive these kind of rezults that you and kaz are achiving when my pairs start to go down also in aug- sept cant wait for the beginning of this pairings to be followed
July 1, 200916 yr Author Nice, nice birds! I'm looking forward to seeing your Fallow, Lacewing and Clearwing pairings! Thanks Renee & GB Yep, I left them until last coz they are harder work getting pairs I am happy with and Fallows I really don't have a great selection of but bred some lovely splits last year so might have more of a chance with some of those. Probably the wrong way to go as by rights I should be using the best normals I have into the fallows and I've already paired up at least one of them Edited July 1, 200916 yr by nubbly5
July 1, 200916 yr You have very nice birds! You too KAZ, don't be so hard on yourself. You should see mine, I am the one that has the long way to go!
July 1, 200916 yr I think you judge yourself and your birds a bit harshly...... that baby I judged was an absolute ripsnorter and if your others are ANYTHING like that you don't have as far as you think - trust me. Just for you....Nubbly I found the ripsnorter in the aviary amidst his moult....looking a little crappy.....broken bloodfeather on his head etc etc... Before... and after.....NOW 5 months old ( a bit more growing to do so maybe he has a surprise or two in store yet or maybe not ) I like this one of yours......... the cock on the right Edited July 1, 200916 yr by KAZ
July 1, 200916 yr Author I think you judge yourself and your birds a bit harshly...... that baby I judged was an absolute ripsnorter and if your others are ANYTHING like that you don't have as far as you think - trust me. Just for you....Nubbly I found the ripsnorter in the aviary amidst his moult....looking a little crappy.....broken bloodfeather on his head etc etc... Before... and after.....NOW 5 months old ( a bit more growing to do so maybe he has a surprise or two in store yet or maybe not ) Look at the direction feather!!! He had it from day one and still has a good dose now.
July 1, 200916 yr Author okay 10 more pairs selected today. That brings the total to 15 and then 9 more to fill my cabinets for the first round. It got harder this time, as the first ones were ones I've had in mind for a while now. These I really had to think about Pair 6 - Cinnamon Olive Spangle Cock x Cinnamon Dark Green Hen - I need dark factor cinnamons to improve my Blackeyed Selfs plus I want more dark factor birds full stop. These are not top quality but not too bad for dark factors. Pair 7 - Dark Green Opaline Spangle Cock x Double Factor Yellow Hen - well this was a story of going to buy birds from someone who was selling out completely and asking, after I had purchased what I wanted, "Is there anything else I should buy?". Apparently this hen has produced some magnificent babies in the past some of which ended up at the Nationals so for $30 (she is an '06 bird) who can not give it a try even though as I mentioned before, I'm not actually into spangles and generally just treat them like a normal outcross. The cock bird's grandfather was 1st place at nationals so fingies crossed on this one. Pair 8 - Yellow Lacewing Cock x Yellow Lacewing Hen - this is a repeat mating of the one that bred this years 3rd place getter and the cock was 4th place in 2008. Pair 9 - Yellow Lacewing Cock x Cinnamon Grey Green Hen - this years 3rd place getter to one of my most solid hens. I have a normal green sister to this hen that is as good as her but she is out on loan. If she comes back in time I'll put him to her instead. Otherwise I'll be happy enough breeding half brothers and sisters by changing over between the hens for the 2nd round. Pair 10 - Normal Grey Green/Lacewing Cock x Yellow Face White Lacewing Hen - paired on visual appeal plus parentage of which this cocks is very solid (brother to the 4th place getter (Pair 8 and uncle to the 3rd place getter above). Plus as YF is of no benefit in Lacewing (suffusion is penalised) I am hoping to breed yellows again with this pairing. Pair 11 - White Lacewing Cock x Yellow Lacewing Hen - This is one *** (the firey pits of I'm talking about here - f-ing auto censor) of a cock bird that has never really fired for me. One more go for him or else!!! Paired with a visually appealling hen IF they breed I think the outcome will be excellent. Pair 12 - Normal Grey Green Cock x Cinnamon Grey Hen - The hen here is THE BEST bird I have in my aviary and I'm very proud to have bred her, however, like a lot of big buffy hens her breeding is hit and miss. This cock bird is an excellent breeder and father as well as having bred a handful of lovely babies for me last year one of which was 13th in the Nats this year (blue). Pair 13 - Olive Clearwing Cock x Olive Clearwing Hen - I purchased this clearwing cock at auction when he was in nest feather and I'm stoked at how he turned out - he did have great promise but that's not always realized. He does however have stronger markings than I'd like so I'm putting him with a nice clean winged hen to try and increase size with him while cleaning up the wings with her. Pair 14 - Violet Clearwing Cock x Violet Clearwing Hen - this massive cock bird I purchased as part of a package lot. He is huge but is very strongly marked so as above size with markings crossed with small with wing clarity. Pair 15 - Olive Clearwing Cock x Violet Clearwing Hen - I am striving to keep a family of very clear winged birds and this is what I'm aiming for with this pairing. The cock bird was 11th at 2008 Nationals and the hen is sister to the bird that came 11th at this years Nats. Still more to come. Edited July 1, 200916 yr by nubbly5
July 1, 200916 yr Exciting times Gina I really like the way you have explained why you have paired what you have. It helps the BBC members who are heading in that direction too. Great topic. I look forward to the whole thing unfolding with time Edited July 1, 200916 yr by KAZ
July 1, 200916 yr I'm SO enjoying this topic/post - love it, love it, love it! Edited July 1, 200916 yr by renee
July 2, 200916 yr Author okay down to my last pairs selected today. Mainly fallows and blackeyed selfs plus a couple of other randoms. The fallows are really really hard for me and I've struggled with this variety for quite a number of years. I think 90% of the problem is that I started off with 2 birds both of which were nice enough but without super normals it's a really hard variety to improve. Last year I was lucky enough to be given an amazing cock that had the chance of being split fallow, unfortunately he wasn't and the other unfortunate thing was that he was cinnamon. Now cinnamon fallows are almost impossible to tell from Lacewings and seeing as I breed Lacewings too, having cinnamon fallows is a hiding to nowhere so...... Pair 16 - Normal Grey Green/Lacewing Cock x Cinnamon Opaline Grey Hen - okay not a fallow pairing but my final lacewing pairing. This hen was selected for the Nats this year in Opaline AOSV and is from a bird I've paired up later down the page. Her big blue father has bred solid quality budgies for me for the last 3 years. The cock bird is actually a lovely bird with good background and complements the hen quite well - although he is looking a bit overawed here. Pair 17 Normal Cobalt/Fallow Cock x Normal Dark Green/Fallow Hen - The hen is the mother of the 6th place Nats fallow this year. The cock bird is bred from a very solid fallow x normal pairing. With these birds I find I have to go off their parentage more than their visual looks (coz often they don't have any really!!!). And yes it's a split to split pairing so any normal birds (unless they are super quality which is not really likely) will most likely be wastage as i won't know if they are normal or split for fallow. Pair 18 - Normal Grey Green/Fallow/Cinnamon Cock x Green Fallow Hen - this is where the cinnamon becomes a real bugger. This cock bird is the some of the cinnamon split hen shown below (Pair 19) and is split for cinnamon which means I really can only keep normal hens and know there is no cinnamon. Knowing his breeding though, it's worth it to take the punt. Fallow hen is typically the small weedy non-feathered things that I manage to pump out in this variety....... sigh. Still it's a fallow and that's hard enough. Pair 19 - Green Fallow Cock x Cinnamon Grey Green/Fallow Hen - yep breeding those split cinnamons again but with a hen this strong can you blame me?..... This boy was the 6th place fallow at the Nats this year. Pair 20 - Normal Light Green/Fallow Cock x Cinnamon Grey Green/Fallow Hen - and again! The hen here is the full sister to the one above. Cock bird looks pretty rough at the moment but he is quite long and his Light Green mother was one of my better normal hens so I'm giving him a whirl. Pair 21 - Normal Skyblue Cock x YF Cinnamon Grey Hen - the hen looks horrible in the picture but had spent the last 10 minutes going nuts in the cage to the bemusement of the poor cock bird who was just trying to chat her up and couldn't understand why she wouldn't pay attention to him. Still is a quite nice hen really and this boy is a very nice normal/normal and I would love to see more YF in my aviary as I have very little and mostly in grey birds. Pair 22 - Yellow Blackeye Self (Grey) Cock x Yellow Blackeyed Self Hen - this is an amazing BE hen that I bought at auction. Personally I can't understand anyone EVER selling her EVER. She is as good as some of the normal hens that I have and is bigger that half of them (look at her height to the top of the show cage!!!). The BE cock is a grey so that's not great but I have found that they make useful stock birds and he is one of my better ones with little suffusion. After breeding these guys for a couple of year I find it reasonably easy to tell the greys from the normals thankfully (although our state judges seem to have a hard time of it ). Pair 23 - Yellow Blackeyed Self Cock x Yellow Blackeyed Self Hen - I had this cock paired to the hen above last season so am happy to pair him to another hen this year. I have a couple of other BE hens to use but they are a bit heavily suffused for my liking and although this girl is not ideal either, she is a better choice. Plus he shows suffusion as well so I wanted to go with less rather than more even if I have to sacrifice a touch of quality. This hen would have gone to the nats this year but she was incorrectly identified as being a grey. Pair 24 - Normal Skyblue/Cinnamon/Opaline Cock x Normal Grey Green Hen - last but not least. This fellow is the father of a fair few of my really nice birds. He is getting on now '05 but I'll give him another go this year again as he is too valuable to not use. The cinnamon opaline hen in Pair 16 is just an example of what he breeds and the grey cock below (who has won best in show awards) is his son and the Skyblue, also below, is his daughter. The hen I have chosen for him I LOVE and think they compliment each other very nicely. Extra Pair - Normal Grey Cock x Normal Skyblue Hen - half brother to half sister pairing - this cock bird has won best in show awards and was selected as grey reserve for the Nats last year. I think he is an awesome bird although he can tend to sit short on the perch sometimes. His half sister sure does not do that and I am hoping to put these 2 down later on in the season as she is only a red ring and at this stage is too young IMO.
July 2, 200916 yr Wow You have outstanding birds Cant wait to see the chicks. How many pairs in total can you put down to breed at your place ?
July 2, 200916 yr Seeing pairings like these makes me wonder why I even bother trying to breed show birds, I'm in way over my head They all look great!!! Good luck with them.
July 3, 200916 yr Author Seeing pairings like these makes me wonder why I even bother trying to breed show birds, I'm in way over my head :rofl: They all look great!!! Good luck with them. Thanks Guys! Kaz I have 24 cabinets. Linda I started with a couple of pairs bought from the local pet shop. My first babies, 3 of, were rung in 2000 (gold rings) and they were puny. It's taken me this long to get this far with a lot of trials and fails along the way. But hey it's so worth it when you look from one year to the next and you can see an overall improvement in your birds. Plus I COULD afford to some degree to be a "checkbook" breeder but I can't bring myself to pay huge money for something that might just die without me having a chance to make use of it. So I tend to just buy the odd one here and there to add a feature that I need or more often the lesser varieties now, so I'm even more pleased that the improvement in my birds is generally in MY birds. The big blues family now has 6 & 7 generations of G&G breeding. You know, the biggest improvement for me came when I increased the room I had so that I could keep young birds on for longer instead of selling what I thought were just average birds that turned out to be lovely. Flight space, flight space, flight space. Anyway to make you feel better I've dug out some photo's that would be from maybe 2003-2004 and you can see where I was then so it's definitely achievable for anyone with half an eye. If you don't feel you have developed a strong eye for budgies just ask someone who you respect from your club to come help you pair up and cull out. Lots of people will help out. This guy and his sister represented the best I had bred in 2002. They were nice enough but you can definitely seen more feather since then. What you can't see really see is an overall increase in size as well. You can see the average quality was nothing like it is now. And you can see that improvement can be reasonably quick (2003 - 2009) for such a large and overall change in the bird quality. The lovely thing about budgies is that the generation length is 12 months so each year if you are heading in the right direction there should be an incremental improvement (you might not notice it for a couple of years but you will see it).
July 3, 200916 yr Thanks for the pep talk Nubbly, I'm going to hang in there. Time, effort and a lot of learning. I already have some stock birds some of which probably would have been better off left behind but some aren't to bad. I'd like to get a few good foundation birds though, I'm hoping to save a bit of $ and go to an auction somewhere as there aren't a lot of people down here willing to part with good birds, understandably.
July 3, 200916 yr Author Thanks for the pep talk Nubbly, I'm going to hang in there. Time, effort and a lot of learning. I already have some stock birds some of which probably would have been better off left behind but some aren't to bad. I'd like to get a few good foundation birds though, I'm hoping to save a bit of $ and go to an auction somewhere as there aren't a lot of people down here willing to part with good birds, understandably. :boogie: Sorry if that turned out to be a lecture of sorts...... :rofl: I would just hate someone to give up coz they think they can't get there! Hey (just carrying on my lecturing tendencies ), sometimes it's better to buy an average bird from a good stud with good birds behind it than to look for that good bird from an average stud. More often than not I've found the average birds with better stock behind breed on quality whereas good birds without the strong birds behind them often don't. I have found this repeatedly.
July 3, 200916 yr Not a lecture just good advice :rofl: and much appreciated. The birds I have are the best I could get of what was on offer at my local branches annual show, there wasn't too much on offer though. I'd like to go to an auction to find birds from a good stud. Also since my initial bird purchase I've decided to narrow down the varieties I'd like to concentrate on a little to make things easier on myself and give me a bit of direction. Also waiting for the Rob Lucas birds to come up on BuyBudgies, one of the varieties I'd like to concentrate on is Dominant Pieds. Edited July 3, 200916 yr by Linda_S
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