As far as I am aware, the use of Artificial Insemination in Budgerigar breeding is only outlawed by the Budgerigar Society in the UK, with all other countries neither condemning or encouraging the practise but accepting it as a method to be used as the fancier sees fit. (If I am wrong in this assumption please let me know.) The difficulty, as I see it for the British fancy, is the rule exists but it cannot be upheld or policed - but I guess that’s true of a number of regulations surrounding our hobby.
Personally I do not have any strong views either way when it comes to AI and I am aware of fanciers in both the United States of America and Australia who regular utilise AI as a part of their routine breeding management. However, the thing that I was surprised about was the strong anti-AI views that were expressed at a local Budgerigar Society meeting I attended earlier this year. In general, the majority were dead against the use of AI on the grounds of a number of objections. These ranged from the view that it was against nature, through to the probability that it could provide an unfair advantage to certain individuals who had the necessary skills and finance to exploit it.
To put things into prospective, from what I have been told, AI is quite a straight forward procedure and something that the majority of fanciers could do in the confines of their own birdroom with minimal equipment and skills. Also, AI methods if allowed could be put to at least three uses.
The first of these would be a "sperm bank", whereby fanciers could purchase vials of sperm from the top cocks anywhere in the world - and quarantine would not be required. To ensure that this was conducted in a fair manner the collection, control and sale of the sperm would need to be entrusted with the national society of the country from which the bird came and then co-ordinated through the national society of the destination country. Records would be maintained to ensure that genetic abnormalities such as the gene for Feather Dusters did not get passed on.
Of course fees would exchange hands, and the societies involved would also get a share which would generate an additional income for them. The cost of sperm should be considerably cheaper than going out and buying a super bird, the income from the sale of sperm to the owner should be higher than what the bird would have fetched. The greatest benefit is more fanciers could share the possibility of reproducing a winner from a proven bloodline.
The second use for AI is in the birdroom with your own birds. I am aware of one American who uses AI with all of his selected pairs as a matter of routine and can boast a better than 95% fertility rate. This practice must surely do something to improve the morale in the hobby, as the reason why most people leave the fancy is they cannot get their birds to reproduce satisfactorily in terms of numbers let alone quality.
The final possibility is the use of an AI technique but not the complete AI procedure. We are all aware that there are periods in the cocks life cycle when he in infertile and does not produce sperm. There is a distinct possibility that the reason we have so many infertile eggs throughout the breeding season is either because the pair do not mate or more significantly, the cock is not producing sperm. A simple check would be to use the AI method for sperm collection to check if the cock is fertile or not.
What are your views? Please let me know.