Budgerigars - This N' That!

James Keith

Ever since I was knee high to a grasshopper, I have had a fascination for birds and cage and aviary birds in particular. Although each breed has its own particular attraction, breeding and exhibiting budgerigars has provided me with many challenges, not to mention satisfaction and enjoyment.

Even though spare time was at a premium during my University days and earning a living as a practising psychologist and nutritional therapist, I always found an hour or so each evening to look after my birds. Indeed, I found it provided me with a restful and much needed release from my daytime work attending to my patients.

As a rule, budgerigars are healthy and highly intelligent little creatures providing a great deal of colour and interest in the birdroom. After nearly sixty years breeding and showing virtually all of the colours, they still give me a buzz every time I see a new family emerging from the nest and maturing into adult birds, each with their own character and physical attributes.

Breeding good, line-bred stock is certainly a challenge. Indeed, it could be said that it is not for the faint-hearted. Yet, it can be very rewarding not in a financial sense, but in pitting your knowledge and experience against the fickleness of Mother Nature, for no matter how well you plan your matings, you can be certain that she will throw a spanner in the works from time to time - just to make certain you keep your feet firmly on the ground.

Like all things in life, you only get out of the birdkeeping hobby what you put into it nothing more or less. The secret of being a successful birdkeeper is always be willing to learn, for none of us can ever know it all.

Over the years, many informative and interesting books have been written on the fancy, from highly technical breeding and exhibiting manuals to more simple and basic publications for those who wish to learn about how to care for their pet.

For the beginner, it can be a real nightmare finding and choosing the right book. Some books intended for beginners provide the merest of details, often missing out on many basic, but nevertheless important items. Books for the more advanced fancier also share this problem to some degree. But that is the way of things, each author including content that he feels is important. Of course, there is nothing wrong with that, for to include every aspect of the fancy would probably take volumes and even then, it's a fair bet that something will be left out - after all, no one can think of everything. Indeed, if authors tried to cover every aspect of birdkeeping or anything else for that matter, books would never be completed!

At the end of the day it all boils down to what we want to learn from a book. Is it a general book about the fancy, dietary information, husbandry, ailments, breeding, birdroom design, colours, genetics, etc., etc.? If it's any of these and a whole lot more, it's a fair bet we won't be disappointed - all we have to do is find it!

Personally, I have found that the most instructive and illuminating books are those based on the author's personal experience, gained over many years of successfully breeding, showing, and keeping budgerigars in general. The best of these publications are usually written in a down-to-earth manner, and relatively free from technical theorem and jargon.

A word of advice, the problem with most beginners is that they fall into the trap of reading everything they can find on the subject before they have even dipped their feet into the practicalities of general birdkeeping. As a result, they become confused and dismayed by all the information they are trying to absorb in a short space of time.

Because almost every fancier has developed his own methods for caring for his birds, etc., it follows that one author may contradict the views and methods of another, leading to further confusion in the mind of the raw novice. To help avoid this, it is wise to find an author you like and stick to his advice. By so doing, a great deal of confusion will be avoided and progress made.

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http://www.natcure.co.uk/gpage.html 

Budgerigars - This N' That! (c) James Keith. MRNT. LMPA James Keith is a Psychologist and Nutritional Therepist who hhas written many e-books on stress and the natural healing of chronic inflammatort problems