I have often heard fanciers remark about the phenomenal success of breeders like Dr. Alf Robertson, Bill Willcocks and the late Bill Adamson, and the so-called secret recipes they use - well there is a secret recipe - inbreeding.
Inbreeding basically means to breed birds together in a family in the hope of trying to bring out all the out-standing characteristics of that family. In other works we are relying on the Laws of Heredity to help us achieve our goal which in this case, is to breed the ultimate budgerigar.
The most important ingredient required to become a successful breeder of exhibition budgerigars is 'The Eye'. Having 'The Eye' does not only mean that you should be able to recognise a good budgerigar when you see it. It also means that you should be able to recognise the breeding potential of a bird by looking at it.
It must be remembered that in order to establish a winning stud, you must have the correct basic stock to start with. There is no secret formula by which one can breed the ultimate bird by taking short-cuts. It takes years of careful planning and selective breeding to acquire a uniform stud.
The first thing to do is to have a look at the description of the Ideal Budgerigar, as laid down by the Budgerigar Society. From this description as well as, from the scale of points, you will be able to determine what the most important requirements of an exhibition budgerigar are, i.e.:
Shape, size and deportment.
Shape and size of the head.
Colour
Mask and spots.
Wing-markings.
These are the main points to consider when one is considering how to breed a Show-winner. All these characteristics are carried in what is termed genes. Certain groups of genes are responsible for head qualities while other groups are responsible for the size of the birds, and so on. So, when you buy birds you should have a good idea what to look for. It is also recommended to have two different families running parallel at the same time.
Let's say that you have purchased a cock bird from Breeder A, which is line bred (from related stock itself) and it is a very good specimen. Your master bird in this case will then be this cock. You must then do some test breeding with the cock, because although he shows certain good points, you do not know what characteristics he is carrying in a recessive form.
You must remember that the idea of inbreeding is not to reproduce the original bird, but to improve upon it.
Once you have paired the cock up to several of your best hens, you should keep all the progeny until they are approximately 7 months old. It is only at this minimum age that you can assess their true quality.
If you have bred a number of chick from the cock, your culling and selection must be very strict, and only the best chicks must be kept for future breeding.
You now have a number of half-brothers and half-sisters to mate together. These youngsters will be carrying some genes from the cock as well as from the hens it was mated to. These appear in dominant as well as recessive forms. let's say that the cock excels in all departments except for its spots. The obvious thing to do would be to pair him up with hens with good spots who are also good in the other departments. In other works, what we are hoping for in the short term, is that the spot qualities of the hens will be dominant to that of the cock. If however, the progeny do not have large spots, there is every likelihood of them carrying it in a recessive form. This is where the beauty of the half brother to half sister mating comes in. The progeny of this mating should display most of the good qualities of the cock, plus the bigger spots.
The next step would be to take some of the grand-daughters back to the original cock. This is a first class mating, because there are some extra good points established in these grand-daughters which should help to improve the family even further. Once you have established a uniform appearance amongst the family, it is fairly easy to maintain the general quality by breeding related birds of the family together, i.e. first and second cousins, uncle to niece, etc. You will eventually end up with a family of birds, which resemble each other so closely, that you will be able to pick out that family amongst hundreds of other birds which re exactly the same colour.
I have often seen cases where a Beginner or a Novice comes from nowhere to win a show with an outstanding bird. The other exhibitors usually call it a 'flash in the pan' and forget about the bird. Rightly so, it is a 'flash in the pan' nut if the breeder of such a bird is shrewd enough to use it to his inbred family, they will have to sit up and take notice. This is a phenomenon when a breeder pairs two birds from two different aviaries and their genes click together, so well, that all the good points come out in one particular chick.
You will eventually come to a point where you must bring an outcross into a particular family, because this family is by now so closely related that they are maybe starting to lose size, or fertility or something else. This is where your second family comes into the picture. It usually takes approximately 7 years to establish a winning family, and by this time most of the bad points will have been removed. This is what we call a pure bred family. At this point you should bring in an outcross from your other family and start breeding it into this family on the same basis as before.
Sometimes you need to bring in a certain quality into the family, i.e. smooth feathering. This quality is found mainly with Cinnamons, and although you need the smoothness of their feathering, you do not want the Cinnamon-factor in this particular family. Cinnamon is a sex linked factor, all the male youngsters will be split for Cinnamon, and as such will not be of any use to you in your established family. The only chicks which will be of use to you will be the Normal hens as they cannot be split for Cinnamon. The Cinnamon hens and split Cinnamon cocks from this mating should either be put back to your Cinnamon family or be discarded.
Most breeders use the terms inbreeding and line-breeding to explain how their own breeding system works. There is in fact, little difference between the two systems. As I have mentioned before, inbreeding is to breed birds of a family together in the hope of securing the best points of the family. Line-breeding means to breed back to a specific bird. You can therefore see that there is little difference between the two. There are also no real in-breeders or line-breeders, because most breeders use both methods of breeding.
You will, from time to time, find a bird which will transfer most of its characteristics to its youngsters, no matter what you breed it to. This is called pre-potency. This is a very important quality in a stock bird, providing of course, that it is the GOOD qualities that are pre-dominant.
There are however, not too many of these birds around and most breeders have to take the long road to success.s HOW DOES ONE IN-BREED?
Let's say that you have purchased an outstanding cock, and you have paired him up to several of your good hens, and the chicks turn out to be mediocre. Most breeders will make the fatal mistake of getting rid of the chicks. Although the chicks might look like a miserable failure on face value, they will be carrying a lot of the good points of the parents in a recessive form. Your next step would be to mate the best of the half-brothers and half-sisters together. The second generation chicks will be far superior to their parents. You next test breed with various combinations within the family, as well as to various outcrosses at the same time, i.e.
Grand-father to grand-daughter.
Father to daughter.
First cousins.
Second cousins.
Nephew to niece.
Uncle to niece etc.
After this has been done you will be able to assess the true value of your stud.
I would not advise you to breed brother and sister together, as this mating is too close. It can cause all kinds of problems within the genetical make up. The only time when one should be tempted to use this mating is when the parents of such youngsters, which were both outstanding birds, have died, and you have only produced a few chicks from them.
I know that there are a lot of breeders who do not believe in inbreeding, but I believe that this is the only way by which one can establish a winning stud. In any case the proof of the pudding is in the eating. To quote Dr. Alf Robertson. "The island of Jersey has not had a single outcross in hundreds of years, and they are still today, breeding the best Jersey cattle in the World". You can check the systems used by all the top breeders of live-stock in the World, and you will find that all are in-breeders and line-breeders.
The beauty of inbreeding is that you can, in the long term, plan your success, instead of forever hitting and missing, and it is from this very term that you will derive most of your gratification. In this way the term 'luck' will be changed to 'skill.
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