Total Pageviews

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

AWBBudgies Travels : The Holland Stud





Father
Son
Steve and Michael Holland and their father are part of the "Holland Stud" they have been breeding Budgerigars since the mid 1950s. Steve is a personal friend of mine and a mentor to me. We often converse through email sometimes as much as 3 times a week. I give Steve and his brother a lot of credit for my success in the hobby. I created a website where I could show Steve all of my birds.
Grand Son

He would print the promising birds and go over the traits with Michael. Then he suggested the pairings for me. Some of the birds I paired didn't breed but some did and I got great success from their help. Michael has a photographic mind when it comes to the background of the birds. He can tell you everything about a bird and its parents for several generations. Michael is a great one for discussing feather structure and feather direction. He taught me to pull feathers from the flank area in order to assess the quality passed on to the next generation. We talked at great length about how to take traits from one bird and put them together. He actually demonstrated how they did this by bringing out birds and presenting them in show cages. Steve is the computer guy and writer. I met Steve through a forum that I was invited to. When I  posted a question looking for someone to help write articles Steve offered. As the Maryland Website administrator it was wonderful to have quality in depth articles that gave a legitimacy to the site. Steve took pictures at the World show in 2009 and baby shows and actually showed me a picture of a halfsider budgies which has 2 mutations in one bird, a very rare thing. I was talking about how I travel vast distances to bird shows including 800 miles one way so he asked me if he could write an article about traveling to shows using me as an example for those in England that find it hard to go 50 miles to a club show. He then submitted this article to the Budgerigar Society magazine and I had the privileged of being on the first page. Steve also presented the Cage and Aviary magazine with some of my pictures from our group aviary tour which then were used in a small article in that magazine. I could never have imagined that little old me would have such an opportunity for which I am truly grateful. Steve and Michael are very respected in the budgie community in England. They are all BS Panel judges.



The Holland Stud consist of approximately 500 birds. The aviary is perfectly maintained by Michael but Steve also brings birds over to an aviary at his home and then returns them through the season. I'm not sure about Michael but I do know Steve will do talks at clubs and they are active judges.

The aviary is a continuation of rooms that were built through the past 4 decades. Some of the breeding cabinets are very old. It was really interesting to see.  The Hollands have been a wonderful example to me of what true gentlemen in the hobby should be like and they have the heart of a teacher. I intend to help them in the future with their personal website.












No comments: