The White Elephant
by Terry A Tuxford
There has been plenty of talk in recent months about the UK’s greatest ‘white elephant’ – the Millennium Dome. Millions have been ploughed into it to keep it going, yet still it makes huge losses. Having attended a number of Championship Budgerigar Shows as usual this year we seem to have created our own white elephant – despite additional prize money and some magnificent millennium show trophies being on offer, numbers are down in terms of both exhibitors and birds benched.
I wonder just how much money is lost each year through our open shows, or easier to measure – does any society ever make a profit or break even? My own local club is indeed fortunate, Officers and Committee members and also ordinary members dig into their pockets year in and year out providing sponsorship and donations for prize money, rosettes, trophies, advertising, postage, printing, transport, telephone calls, meals and entertainment etc. yet the books still show a loss. Just imagine the true picture if these society friends were not so forthcoming. We are not alone; the same situation applies for the majority of others clubs and societies.
Maybe I’ve got it all wrong by thinking that our Open Shows should turn a profit. For my club to have broken even we would have had to charge about £1.50 entry fee per bird. But is this unreasonable in this day and age? Perhaps we should have a tiered entry fee where Champions pay more than other exhibitors? Conversely, are our Open Shows not only the shop front of the hobby but also the loss leaders and is it only to be expected that we work all year fund raising and persuading individuals to part with their money to stage this single event? What do you think – write in and let me know.
Sexing Eggs
Back in 1985 I wrote about the now late New Zealand fancier Brian Cram. He had said to me, "As I checked the egg for fertility, I noted with some satisfaction that the 5 day old egg from a Lutino cock and a Grey Green hen, carried a developing hen chick." My immediate reaction was to check to make sure I had heard what he had said and sure enough my hearing had not failed me.
This is how the theory works: If as the yolk begins to colour at four to five days, the developing embryo lies vertically in the egg - up one side or other of the shell, the chick will be a cock. If, however, it lies horizontally in one end of the shell you have a hen. A small percentage of the developing embryo do not take up a definite position but seem to lie diagonally in the shell at about the ten-past-four position. These will either be hen-like cocks or hens with cock-like heads. The success rate for this prediction is far too high to be just coincidence.
In late September this year I received an email from Professor Tim Birkhead asking if anyone had followed this up with Budgerigars and obtained any quantitative information on the success of the method. The Professor, having tried this with Zebra Finches, was looking to write a paper on the phenomenon. What he is seeking are fanciers who have kept detailed records – in particular the proportion of eggs that were correctly and incorrectly classified. Please write to me and I will pass the information on.
A Show To Attend
Over the August Bank Holiday weekend I was indeed fortunate to judge the Carrigaline Budgerigar & Foreign Bird Society Open Show in Southern Ireland and what a great event it was. I knew we were in for something special when my Chief Steward turned out to be Martin Bagnall. Martin had judged there in a previous year and had travelled over from the Midlands, with his wife to take part. Show Organiser Pascal Trill had said to me that their bird show was more of a party than a show and how right he was. With festivities on the Friday evening before the show and a Millennium Banquet on the Saturday evening you would have thought that to be enough - but no!
Without exception, all the shows I have ever attended finished when the staging was taken down. Then everyone goes home, leaving things a little flat. However, this is not the way in Carrigaline because when the staging is down and the birds are home, the partying starts again and culminates in a slap up meal in a Chinese Restaurant until the early hours. And that’s how a show should end – on a high note. Highly recommended, to be sure, to be sure!
Web Watch
Budgerigar World on-line (www.budgerigarworld.com) has been acknowledged by a London daily newspaper as ‘the leading e-zine of its type’ in a recent edition. Such acknowledgement is well received and with this high level exposure hopefully the hobby will benefit. There is no doubt that the Internet budgerigar community is alive, well and active.
Other sites worth checking out are:
The Budgerigar Society – www.budgerigarsociety.com
The World Budgerigar Organisation - www.worldbudgerigar.org
The Spangled Budgerigar Breeders Association – www.spanglebudgerigars.co.uk