Any breeder will tell you that one of the keys to success is proper pairing of birds. However, this goes above and beyond
simple compatibility. Dogs and cats have been domesticated for thousands of years. Parrots have not. In fact, the only
bird domesticated as well as these two species is the chicken. Only a few species of birds have been bred by man and
manipulated to make them different from their wild counterparts. Aviculture is a very new development. Like the medical
field, it is only in the last 50 years that we have begun to make great leaps and bounds. More and more people are buying
pet birds and lots of us are breeding to supply them as pets. Only a decade ago parrots were imported in mass to the United
States where they could be snatched up at killer prices. This is no longer the case. Those importation doors have been
sealed forever and the direction that aviculture will take is entirely up to us.
So how does proper pairing fit in to all of this? Genetics play a large role in how any living creature will turn
out. You need only to look at your own family tree to discover this. As a kid I always wondered why my sisters and I all
looked so different from each other and family members. Sometimes it takes a family reunion to start seeing the
similarities. I look like my dad, who shares the same looks as his dad and brother, Kim looks like our grandma and two
aunts, Kelly takes more after Mom’s side of the family. Health conditions are even easier to track. I have hypoglycemia,
same as my mother. She and my cousin are lactose intolerant. The genes which control all our good and bad qualities play
just as big a role with our birds.
Color
Many of us, myself included, breed our birds for color. While many people are still struggling with the fact that humans
come in all different shapes, colors and sizes, we bird breeders are doing our best to flood the market with new and
exciting mutations. Budgies and canaries used to be the only species that came in different colors and types. Now just
about every species has at least one or two mutations being developed. Cockatiels and Indian ringnecks are the winners of
this category. What we need to keep in mind through all this color breeding is that other qualities are just as important,
if not more so, than color alone. Health problems can plague birds that have been poorly inbred. Some inbreeding is
necessary to establish mutations but we should all do our best to make sure bad traits don’t get mixed in there too. We’ve
all seen the bald spots on lutino tiels.
Temperament
Health aside, the most important trait we need to keep track of is temperament. Okay, so if you’re breeding some species
that’s extremely rare and just getting rarer don’t worry about it. If you’re breeding for pets, however, or even for future
stock a good temperament is very important. Rare colors may bring in good money but according to our
survey the number one quality people look at when buying a bird is character. Think color
made the number two slot? Wrong. The second thing most people look at when buying a bird is you, the breeder. Color and
other physical attributes came in a weak third.
Of course, this survey was answered by bird people at a bird page. So what about the rest of the world? The general public
doesn’t know that much about birds. They don’t know which colors are hot and which aren’t. What they do know is that the
bird that waltzes up and hops on their finger is probably going to be a better pet than the bird sitting in the corner or
the one backing away.
What about bird breeders? We like mutations so much that it has to have some bearing on our decision. To a degree, yes.
I breed for color and I’ve picked plain-colored birds over great mutations because of personality. I also hold back the
friendliest for future breeding stock. It pays. That brings me to another point...
Holding Back Stock
Why let all the good ones get away? Every year you should pick a few of your best babies to hang onto. Birds die or need
to be replaced. Why go to another source when you know the health and history of your own birds the best? After a while
your breeding records should start to look like The Bible: Chipper begat Pepé, and Pepé begat Shasta, and Shasta begat...
The line I just mentioned is one of my own. I first spied Chipper in a pet store and he was the only outgoing bird in the
cage, he even chattered while inside a brown paper bag on the ride home! Pepé, a handfed, was so feisty that I hung onto
him. Now I’m holding his daughter Shasta, a very friendly parent-raised who is even more comfortable with my hands than
any of my handfed tiels. She’ll even lie on her back!
You can also hold back chicks from pairs with a good track record. Sell all the babies from bad parents into the pet trade
and hang onto a few from each of your good pairs. Also let your pairs get some practice once and a while- every year let
them raise one chick all the way through to weaning. How would you feel if every time you started raising kids someone
yanked them away from you and you had to start over? Give them a chance to feel like they've accomplished something.
Uncontrolled yanking of eggs to increase production is what caused button quail to lose all parental instinct. If you've
got one that incubates, let alone raises chicks, you've got a very rare bird. Letting your pairs raise their own babies for
at least a few weeks instead of pulling the eggs not only gives the chicks a great start but it gives the parents good
experience. Every breeder should want good parents who know what they're doing. Not only does this make for good stock but
it can also help you out of a bind because now you'll have pairs that can foster chicks from bum parents.
Breeding for good qualities and hanging onto birds for future breeding are keys to making sure aviculture heads
in a good direction. Who wants a world where our only bird choices are aggressive pairs with lousy parental skills and
skittish handfeds?
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