Mmmmmmm very good question actually.

 

I had the opportunity to have a pair of proper "bush" budgies here at my place to be displayed at the Nationals and I could not help myself and I took a photo of one of them (a light green cock)in a show cage with my biggest bird (a cinnamon grey hen) - found the picture!!!

 

 

In the wild budgies are tiny little pinheaded things and they are very fast and very nimble flyers. In the UK small stock shows were very popular (still are) and were kinda the advent of livestock showing generally - dogs, horses, birds, pigs etc.

 

As budgies became a popular pet people - particularly initially in the UK - started to show them to decide which was the best. Obviously you have to have some guidelines as to what constitues "the best" so they developed a "standard of excellence". Most show societies be it budgies, dogs, horses etc have an agreed "standard of excellence" to work from. Now with budgies people generally liked the bigger more feathery birds and selected for them and so the budgies changed significantly from what the standard was and the standard was revised to more correctly represent what the budgie had started to look like and to what people thought should be the aim for show breeders.

 

To be honest I don't think there are too many other show animals whose standard has been changed so regularly and to such an extent as the budgie. For example another standard I am very familiar with is the German Shepherd the standard size for a dog is 65cm at the shoulder and that has not changed for many years. The aim in this case is to keep the breed from become monster sized and imparing their ability to undertake strenuous work. In budgies it's really only what people like to see in a show cage so they have changed over the years with much selective breeding.

 

Another similar example although not a show animal is the broiler chicken. From the common backyard chicken breeds, poultry companies have been able to selectively breed a bird that now will reach a killable weight at around 5-8 weeks and looks quite a bit different (much more solid square shaped body) to your average chook.

 

It's all to do with selective breeding really. So size and feather on all show budgie varieties has been increased from the natural state. It is just hard to do this with some varieites especially without losing what is called for in the standard for that variety.

Edited September 4, 200915 yr by nubbly5

thank's for that nubby5

 

WOW !!!!!

 

... I don't believe that they need to be a smaller variety, I believe they are behind. Any Clearwing on the bench is an improvement on the birds back in the 60s & 70s We just have to get them up to the present sizes.

Isnt size a recessive trait? The saying goes that if you were to let all your show birds colony breed, eventually you would end up with small pet shop sized birds within a few generations.

 

Dominant traits always run rampant without controlled breeding. Thats why size and feather length were selectively bred and paired for, and why line breeding is so valued among certain show breeders.

Thanks for spending the time to explain that Nubbly....

 

Good luck with your clearwings...I look forward to the progress...

Yes I've heard so many different things about breeding clearwings. Mainly breeding clearwing to clearwing. When I bought my first ones I was told that they were clearwing to clearwing for many generations. Then out popped these really weird diluted clearwings. After long conversations with John Mulley and others re these birds it appeared that they were a dilute but with the clearwings modified by the clearwing. I have to say that there definietly seems to be more than just the 3 phenotypes of greywing, clearwing and dilute in this series.

 

Anyway, after pinning down the breeder he did admit to having used dilute regularly to up the size. He advised that I kept the biggest of these clearwing dilutes and put them back into the clearwings (I had already sold them and then split the pair as I believed that they were of no benefit to my breeding program - bugger). He was one of the many that said normal splits will bugger the wing markings (which they do) but how else to get features like feather and size into them when they don't already have it? Anyway he is not the only one I've heard of who uses dilutes - common practice apparently but I can see I would still lose something in wing clarity as the dilutes are still not 100% clear anyway.

 

That's why I plan to run a family bred soley for wing clarity (chosing the biggest of them each time to breed though - so I still might be able to slowly increase size at the same time anyway) and then play around breeding splits from them or putting in marked outcrosses and then breed these back with the wing clarity family. Maybe that's completely the wrong way to do it - I guess I'll find out.......

 

I will be trying dilute too but have to wait for the babies that I bought to mature.

After careful consideration and in great part due to this post I have withdrawn the Jeff Lloyd Cobalt Normal cock bird I was going to submit for the SWBC auction.

 

He is split Dilute and is the father to the 2 clearwings I put into last month's SWBC show .... and the hen got Best Clearwing. :happy-dancing:

Hi Nubbly,

 

I have a latent interest in this most challenging variety myself - hoping to breed them once im settled in canada. I came to the conclusion myself that show size dilutes are the way to go when crossing out clearwings and already have a rough idea of one or two breeders i might source those dilutes from in canada.

I heard that normal splits give you dirty clearwings, and dilutes used with clearwings can have an opposite effect - they dull the vibrancy of some clearwings. Then it can be a problem of 'which are the dilutes with clearer wings, and which are the diluted clearwings?".

 

The key here is keeping track of your double factor clearwings. That way you can pair your double factor clearwings to pure dilutes and normals. Either way its a long road buddy, and i will definately be picking your brains in a few years time to get starting tips and learn from your progress :happy-dancing:

Hi Nubbly,

 

I have a latent interest in this most challenging variety myself - hoping to breed them once im settled in canada. I came to the conclusion myself that show size dilutes are the way to go when crossing out clearwings and already have a rough idea of one or two breeders i might source those dilutes from in canada.

I heard that normal splits give you dirty clearwings, and dilutes used with clearwings can have an opposite effect - they dull the vibrancy of some clearwings. Then it can be a problem of 'which are the dilutes with clearer wings, and which are the diluted clearwings?".

 

The key here is keeping track of your double factor clearwings. That way you can pair your double factor clearwings to pure dilutes and normals. Either way its a long road buddy, and i will definately be picking your brains in a few years time to get starting tips and learn from your progress :happy-dancing:

 

 

Looking forward to when you get settled in Canada and breeding clearwings too so you can share your experiences as well.

 

With 20:20 hindsight I wished I'd kept some of those diluted things to test mate. If they ever appear again I will do just that to test my theory (thanks to John Mulley) that they are indeed dilutes. We might find that they are actually diluted clearwings (that's what my thought was initially as I'd only ever seen dilutes with wing markings) - but probably less likely given the scenario, still who knows.

 

Yes DF clearwings. That is the challenge. When I bought these guys I was told they were paired clearwing x clearwing for generations. Then I got these diluted things and rang the breeder who said no they HAD used dilutes in their clearwings. Good one!!! So currently I really only have an idea about a few of the birds being split for dilute (based on the production of the diluted clearwings) - BIG SIGH.

 

Oh well! I've plopped in 3 different outcrosses this season so we will see where that goes.

Edited September 5, 200915 yr by nubbly5