We must have all heard about the Fortune Teller’s magic bowl - the one that can help that special person look into the future. If I had one of those and gifted with claims to see so many years ahead, there is a possibility that I would not have said in my July, 1996 column that U.K. Breeders were experiencing their worst breeding season ever. At the time what I wrote was probably correct. But 1998 seems to be an even worse breeding season for some than 1996.
I know of several well-known U.K. exhibitors who have barely scraped to breed thirty birds this year. According to what a number have told me, they have looked at every-thing and tried every-thing Ñ but still found clear eggs galore. And when they did get chicks, many did not survive the first three days.
So what has gone wrong? That is the mill-ion dollar question every-body is asking. There is no doubt that the breeders are experienced. They have been at it for years. Some tell me that they have hardly changed their procedures, but what worked in the past simply did not do so in 1998.
The breeders who have suffered seem to come up with similar answers to those in the same situation in 1996. They question the feed; their soft food; over-selling; inbreeding; over-use of supplements; using buff birds; buying from the wrong source and their long established strains simply dying out. Whatever the cause it has affected most of the U.K. shows this year. One top championship show in the south of England struggled to get just 600 plus benched. Not so many years ago the norm was over 2000. Probably there are not so many breeders around today compared with ten years ago, but we still have a large number who are really keen exhibitionists Ñ and they have not been seen on the show bench in recent years. I believe if they had the birds that they would be proud to show, then they would have been seen on the benches.
On the other hand you have breeders who are getting a marvellous breeding season and I must refer to one in particular, namely Frank Silva. I visited Frank recently and one of the intentions was to see those nests full of chicks.
Frank Silva has two birdrooms. They are not big by any means. You could say they are like two average rooms be-cause both have inside flights taking up around half the length of the buildings and together, the breeding pairs total forty. At the time of writing (July 31st) Frank has rung just over 700 (yes, seven hundred) chicks. That he is breeding quality is evident by his wins on the show bench this year Just look at the South Hants and London & Southern Counties show. He virtually swept the board with his exhibits. But what does he do which is so different to other breeders? I went to Watford to try and find out.
In the first place, Frank Silva’s aviary is spotlessly clean. I did not get that smell which one gets in some aviaries. There was nothing stale about the air. If anything, it was a bit on the cool side. I could see no additives anywhere and his water came from the tap. It is not boiled and nothing is added to it. His seed is just plain Trill. The soft-food he makes up himself.
I could find nothing mysterious about his feeding technique, It was in fact really basic. But those birds were breeding. The breeding birds were certainly not what I would term best to best. In fact one could wonder why he put up some of the pairs together. You could see a super cock bird and quite a mediocre looking hen. It takes some courage to pair up such two birds. But when I took a peek into the next box I was amazed by the results. I think that it is this area that one finds the answer to Frank Silva’s breeding success. He knows where the birds come from and can anticipate the results. There were no buff to buff. There was no close inbreeding. He evidently uses a lot of Spangles (a variety well known for their fertility). The hens were comparatively small whilst the very best cock birds were paired up to them.
I did glean from Frank an interesting point: Despite the fact that he has bought quite a number of birds from Jo Mannes, he has never paired them together. He has used the Mannes birds with his own stock. He feels that this is the correct approach and anybody who buys a number of birds from one source should, definitely after the initial stage, work them into their existing stock.
Another point he made was that anybody who believes they will have full eggs through changing their feeding system will be disappointed. He claims there is no such system despite the claims made. He has not used any of those systems and his nest boxes are full.
© Gwyn Evans 1999
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