January 2010

Wednesday 13 January

The first entry of the new year and one of the quietest times in the birdroom as preparations for the build up to the breeding season gradually increase. I have one more addition to come into the stud, a cock bird that I hope to bring in over the weekend.

The birds seem to be doing well despite the cold, although slightly worrying is an increase in the number of feathers in and around the flights, my hope is that the birds haven't gone into a second moult, there hasn't been any sudden increase in light or heat some I'm hoping they just got spooked one day and that explains it. I've increased the egg food from twice a week to three times a every other week, and will move to three times a week from February and I'm also offering halved satsumas on a weekly basis.

It's a difficult balance when you have birds in flights, the additional flying space is obviously beneficial for exercise, however I beleive this is counterbalanced by the fact that controlled feeding is harder to achieve, put simply, seed always has to be readily available and you have no way of limiting the intake of individual birds. I'm hoping to get my new cage blocks up and running by Mid February and once in place will check all of the birds and single any off that seem to have gained excessive weight.

My breeding plans were drafted in October and finalised throughout November and December, I've retained more birds this year than ever before. Funamentally I've done this as I believe I now have the quality and depth to do it, and I want to ensure the stud remains competitive. In my mind I'm toying with the idea of working on a three year cycle, so every third year I'll retain more cocks and hens (assuming the qualities there) with a view to cutting it back again (having retained the best of the best) the next two years. I can reason the theory - I'm just not sure what will happen with the practice!

Saturday 30 January

It's been a quiet couple of weeks in the birdroom, a couple of the flighted hens seem to be struggling with the cold nights and have been seperated off, I had plan to use them as part of the breeding team so, depending on how they work out I may have to juggle plans.

I've made my final addition to the breeding team, a quality self green buff cock from Gerald Spencer, he's one of 4 dark buff cocks I'm running with this year and is half brother to one I took in from Gerald just before Christmas. There are 8 dark yellow hens in the breeding programme so I hope to breed some quality dark brids again this year. It will be nice to breed a few more self green birds as the majority of birds bred over the last few years have been heavily variegateds!.

Construction of the new cage blocks starts tomorrow, hopefully the majority will be completed and i'll just need to paint them up. To compound matters I'm moving house in a couple of weeks, the new place has a cracking brick built outhouse, that with a bit of work would make a nice bird room, the dilemma is when to move the birds - they could stay where they are for the remainder of the breeding season - that will present some challenge from a time point of view, however if I move them (which is likely to be 1st week in March) theres a real danger they'll not settle in time for the breeding season.

Something to mull over the next few weeks! Great to hear from a couple of breeders who had birds from me in the last year or so, Mark from Malta followed up his best Fife in show, with a bird bred out of a white cock from me, with third place at the world show - a superb result, another friend from the island has contacted me this week to tell me a couple of the hens I sent out last October had built up and just laid their first egg! Could do with some of that Maltese sunshine myself!!