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Articles
History The original budgerigars that are in the wild, and the ones that were brought into this country in the early l900s, were all what is commonly known as Light Greens. Then along came the Yellows and in the early 1920s there were Skyblues bred, I think, firstly in Japan. In the 30s emerged the Opalines; in the 40s Australian and English Greys appeared on the scene. In the 60s we saw the emergence of the Spangles, and finally, the latest to rear its head is the Saddleback . At the moment there are so few of them, so it is safe to ignore them.
Basic Introductions
Modern Exhibition budgerigars are larger than their wild cousins, with excessively puffy head feathers, giving them an exaggerated look. In full show glory, the eyes and beak are almost totally obscured by feathers. Budgerigars are relatively easy to care for, and can be taught to speak, whistle tunes, and play with their humans. They are as intelligent as many larger parrots, and thrive on the mental stimulation of toys and interaction with humans. In captivity, they can survive anywhere from 2 to 12 years, although there have been reports of budgerigars living for as long as 13 and 14 years. There has even been a report on Burke's Backyard (an Australian TV show) that a budgerigar called Jeff has lived in captivity for 26 years. Their life span depends on the budgie's type (English budgies do not live as long as their cousins in Australia and America, due to years of inbreeding to change their size and features) and the individual bird's health (which is influenced by exercise and diet).
In the wild in Australia the Budgerigar is a green bird (known as a normal green in the cagebird) but has been bred by fanciers to now occur in a vast range of colours and markings. In England it was developed to be a much larger bird with a broader and higher domed forehead and this is the bird now seen on the showbench in both countries.
Before start breeding its need to know and understand few importent basic points, these points are:
1- Breeding Season 2- Dominant, Recessive, & Sex-Linked Factors In Budgerigar 3- Color breeding 4 Sex linked (Some Detail on Sexlink) 5- Basic Information 6- Breeding types
1- Breeding and None breeding Season
Before start understanding breeding techniques we should know about our breeding and none breeding season. Please never try to force your birds to breed in none breeding seasons, here in below chart I tried to describe our breeding and none breeding seasons by months name and numbers.
2- DOMINANT, RECESSIVE, & SEX-LINKED FACTORS IN BUDGERIGAR (BY GHALIB AL-NASSER)
3- The Color Factor in BudgerigarsSome points for Beginners:- There are three shades in all of the colors except the Violet. The colors are in the following groups -
Light Series
Medium Series
Dark Series
When crossing: over any combination of light medium and dark they are shown in the following way Pair Combinations
The following table is in another form which some people may find easier to understand light, medium and dark factors in budgerigars.
4- Sex Linked Mating Table
Use this table to find out the expectations of a sex-linked variety.
Some Detail on Sexlink:
Opalines, Cinnamons, Lacewings, Albinos/ Lutinos, Texas Clearbodies,Slates.
Sex Linkage is one of these. There are characteristics which are described as sex linked because they are controlled by the factor which controls the sex of the Budgerigar. There are six varieties which are known to be sex linked. These are Lutino/Albino, Lacewing, Slate, Cinnamon, taxes Clearbodies and the Opaline. The Opaline is probably the best to describe how this works.
5- Basic Information
Male/female Identifications:
It is very easy to visually identify your Budgerigars either it is male or female, other wise in many other varieties like in Love birds which is another popular bird’s type for bird keeper is almost impossible to visually sex your birds.
But In Budgerigars You can visually identify sex of your budgerigars. Mostly Male budgerigars have a blue patch of cere (fleshy part above the beak, where their nostrils are, this is called the cere). But in few types like Lutino/Albinos and Recessive Pieds the cocks cere tends to be a fleshy pink. On the female budgerigar it is brown. For easy understanding just remember the male nose always will be blue or pink. And the color female cere (nose) will off-white or brown
The young birds all have a somewhat similar mauve shade, as do certain coloured adults outside the breeding season. Young birds which have "barring" on the head will have the barring continuing almost down to the cere and are called "unbroken caps" while the adult birds will have a white "cap" between the barring and the cere. In adult birds the eye will have a white ring and a black pupil while the baby birds have a black eye without the white ring. An experienced breeder can usually accurately assess the sex of young birds.
Breeder identification:
If a bird is bred by a breeder it will have a closed ring on its leg. These rings are provided by the Budgerigar clubs and are placed on the baby bird when it is a few days old. They cannot be removed nor can they be put on older birds. Each ring will be engraved with a number which identifies the breeder, and also the individual bird and the year it was born. The color of the ring issued is changed every year so that the age of a bird may be identified from a reasonable distance. And any other record like parent color and featurs or any other history also can be search from breeder.
Best breeding Age:
The best age to consider breeding your budgerigars is when they are over 12 months old.Females over 4 years old and males over 6 years should be "retired" from breeding. They will need a special budgerigar nest box which can be purchased from most pet stores. Budgerigars may be bred in a colony in an aviary but you will have to provide more nest boxes than you have pairs of birds and even then you may have some fighting between hens. It is easier to pair the birds up in individual breeding cages and this also allows you to keep records of breeding, avoid inbreeding, aim to produce certain colours, and also to limit the number of babies you breed in any year. How many eggs Budgerigars lay and when baby will leave the nest box: Budgerigars lay between 3 to 10 eggs (the average is 6) and they take 18 days to hatch. The babies are born naked and blind. The eyes open at 6 days and by 28 days the babies are usually fully feathered and ready to leave the nest. By the age of 5 - 6 weeks they will have all the wing and tail feathers, be able to fly and be weaned by the parents.
Pair Selection:
When selecting pairings, my considerations are influenced 70% by visual qualities, the other 30% is made up of what I know about the birds concerned. Obviously, when an outcross is brought in, more account must be taken of visual properties, as less will be known of its pedigree than that of a home bred bird. There are some breeders who hesitate to introduce an outcross into their studs at the highest level. They prefer to pair it to a lesser bird of their own, in order to lessen the risk of bringing in a fault. But mostly breeder sad that If a budgerigar of quality is worth obtaining, then it is worth the best suitable partner you can find. When the cocks are selected, then the hens are looked at, with a view to match with the various cocks, ensuring in the process that the same fault does not appear in both cock and hen. Once the pairings are agreed, then they can be put into breeding cages, providing they are both in tip-top breeding condition. Sometimes, a pair may have to be changed. On occasions pairs are just not compatible, and in no way will they accept each other. When that occurs, you have to act. It is very rare that the best cock is paired to your best hen. Often, you find they are to similar in appearance, both having the same fault, however minor it may be.
Considerations of some common faults before paring:
· Broken backline · Hump on the neck · Hump on the cushion · Hollow back · Protruding chest · Crossed wings · Drooping tails · Falling away behind the perch
The body of the Ideal budgerigar should carry through behind the perch in a graceful sweep, and the tail, which consists of two long feathers, should be carried in a straight line with the body.
6- Breeding Types
a) Inbreeding Or Line breeding system
Disadvantages The budgerigar's situation is made much worse by the tremendous damage caused by up to a century of reckless inbreeding - (pairing of related birds). In fact this damage is more serious than anything mentioned so far. Here, non-exhibitors are just as guilty as anyone else, because in many a garden aviary no attempt is made to prevent close relatives from pairing. A cock will be free to breed with his mother or sister, and a hen with her brother or father. Other available mates will in any case be uncles, half brothers, cousins etc. The budgerigar is not a species designed to cope with this, and the damage is the same as it would be in a human community. The effects are depressingly common and include slow growth, slow maturity, general lack of vigour, life long production of soft or pale droppings, accelerated claw growth, lowered fertility, weakened respiration, very highly strung or aggressive temperaments and premature death from all sorts of complaints. Few budgerigars around today have completely escaped all of these sort of problems. Additionally, there are nasty genetic diseases about, such as the prolapse factor that ended one of my budgie families. Buying a bird, especially for breeding purposes, is a very risky business - which of course gives people another reason to inbreed.
Advantages The exhibition budgerigar has evolved rather than being designed deliberately from the outset. The increase in size began, I believe, with breeders' efforts to reverse the dwarfing and degeneracy that had come about because of inbreeding. Inbreeding had been used intensively to build up the numbers of the exciting new colours, which sold for very high prices. This started the trend towards heavier birds, a trend which has continued mainly because breeders have wanted a challenge and have therefore updated their 'Ideal' bird every so often. Show-breeding can't stand still, and no one involved in it wants it to stand still
b) Controlled and Uncontrolled Breeding systems
Controlled or cage breeding system Controlled breeding or cage breeding is the method used by all breeders of exhibition budgerigars. Controlled breeding, as the term suggests, is the bringing together of the cock and the hen of the breeder's choice, and allocating a specific breeding cage (i.e., one pair to a cage). Cage breeding has many benefits, such as ensuring offspring identification, and reducing bickering, fighting and undesirable termination of fledglings. It enables the hobbyist to enjoy Budgerigars in their home. For modern budgerigars breeding every fancier working in to breed top quality bird, so for that they use inbreeding or line breeding system to improve quality and feature of their birds. To get best result they pair their best bird with another best bird, for this they not only look at visual quality of the both partners but also they need to know accurate family background of both birds, so that kind of result to get proper result you can only get for those birds are bred by cage breeding system.
That’s why every successful breeder never thinks about colony breeding system now days because we all know still there is much more excitements in Budgerigars breeding hobby.
Uncontrolled or clolony Breeding systems Uncontrolled breeding is also called colony breeding. In this system more then one pair breed in one big cage. But now it is not a recommended system for breeding budgerigars because breeding result as compare to cage breeding system is very low. In colony system a hen can mate with multiple cocks and you can not control it, so you can not keep and maintain accurate family record, that’s why it’s called uncontrolled breeding system.
In colony system no body know that when a hen attack on another nest box, so during fighting not only one of the can seriously injured but also if nest box has some eggs or chicks they will also destroy. Due all above reason colony breeding is not recommended for budgerigars now but some fancier still doing it with some problem. So if you have plane to breed you budgerigars as colony breeding system then remember all nest box should be hang at same height and with reasonable distance, it would be much batter if any type of separators can fix between all nest boxes. With these type of Wooden or Mattel separator a hen will unable to see neighbors nest boxes, it would reduce chances of attacks.
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