I n Breeding
When i returned into the hobby three years ago i decided the way forward was to purchase a good cock and at least two hens from the same breeder,thanks to Brian Sweeting this was made possible,although i would have prefered better visual hens. The blood line was the added bonus and in my opinion blood counts,if used correctly.
I was offered a cobalt cock and two double factor spangles both sisters plus a dominant greygreen pied cock with a bad wing,this cock did not produce any chicks until my second breeding season.
The idea of inbreeding is to produce better quality birds than the original,with this in mind i spent my first breeding season test pairing this cobalt cock, i was looking for the good and bad points he was carrying in his recessive form.He was paired with both double factor hens and all the chicks were kept until they were eight months old,at this age the full potential of each bird is obvious,only the best chicks were retained for the following years breeding programme.
The results of my first test pairing produced some useful spangles and cobalt hens,i now had a number of half brothers and half sisters to pair up together the following year or in my case the same year .A decision was made that if i paired up young birds when they were eight months old i could get four breeding seasons in the space of three years, this was a wise move.
These are some of my second year spangles bred out of the cobalt cock line , these are carrying genes from the original cobalt cock as well as the two double factor spangle hens.These genes will appear as dominant and recessive also but by pairing the half brothers and half sisters together the chicks from these pairings have displayed the good qualities of the cock plus the depth of mask has improved which tells me it was carried by the hens in a recessive gene.My next breeding season will be focused on improving the size and shape of the spangle spots.
My second line was to use the dominant greygreen pied cock but to do this i required at least two suitable hens.This was not easy due to the small number of birds i was carrying,i decided a cobalt hen bred out of my original cobalt cock and the double factor white spangle hen was my first choice but that still left me looking for at least one more hen.Was someone looking down on me? i think so,i found a dominant cinnamon grey pied hen 100% Brian Sweeting blood that was for sale,this was the smallest bird in my shed and it was cinnamon but needs must and i decided it must have something hidden in a recessive form.
The dominant greygreen pied cock was paired up with the cinnamon dominant grey pied hen and a nest of six chicks were reared,two were retained a double factor and a dominant pied,sadly that was also the end of the cinnamon dominant grey pied hens breeding life.
The dominant grey pied cock was paired up at eight months old and produced twenty six chicks.
The greygreen dominant pied cock or the stud cock as he was now refered to was paired with a cobalt hen who produced several chicks that were all retained for my future breeding programme.
Again i now had a number of half brothers and half sisters but this time from the pied line,these were all paired up at eight months old.The next step would be pairing some grand-daughters back with the original stud cock the resulting chicks should establish some improvements and create a uniformed appearance in the family .Once you have the uniform appearance it can be maintained by breeding related birds together.
The best cock bird in my birdroom was a spangle cinnamon grey and he was paired with the best pied hen,my aim was to breed super budgerigars regardless of the combinations of varieties .
My next pairings will be various combinations of the family grand-father x grand-daughter,father x daughter,first cousins,second cousins,nephew x neice,uncle x neice but i will avoid brother and sister matings.
2008 produced some good birds off the pied line including some variety combinations, this one line took four CCs best in show,best young bird in show,best any age ,best a/a opp sex,1st,2nd & 3rd best champion any age and best champion breeder at my only open show this year.
A few of my 2008 pied line
