Bucks
and Berks Budgerigar Association
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| Talking points |
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| Green series Texas Clearbody |
We were the first to make it to the club meeting and
while waiting outside for someone to show, I realized that wearing the jacket I
left at home would have been a good idea. It was cool I thought for this time
of year but then I was in England and maybe this was just normal for October.
The meeting hall is made of painted stone with old fashion
windows and when you walk into the room you can see clear to the peak of the
roof certainly a beautiful place to meet, however I wonder if you would commit a
bird that got out of its cage.
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| Checking on seed |
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| Cage holder |
As members began to appear I noticed that bags of
seed had been placed at the front of the room for them to pick up. Setting on
the stage were show cages with beautifully made covers, but they had something
interesting I remembered from my trip to England last year. It was a strap
which attached to all 4 cages. This way you could carry 4 of them at a time in
one hand. More and more people were arriving and I helped set up some of the tables
and chairs. I felt a bit uncomfortable being new, but a few gentlemen
approached, introduced themselves giving me a warm welcome.
Tea was served as
we begun to congregate and chat. It wasn’t long before birds in show cages were
set at the front of the room and we settled into our seats.
This meeting was like any other I had been to in the
States. Parliamentary procedures took place as motions were made and voted on.
While this was happening I was taking pictures as though I was part of the
establishment. I have learned that people adjust in time as I move around the
room but in such a way that I do not disturb anyone. I like to take a variety
of pictures from different angles and viewpoints which make things more
interesting, and I’m always looking for expressions that tell a story.
The Texas Clearbody was the subject of the day and
our speaker was Alan Joyce.
According to Wikipedia the Clearbody was first discovered in Texas, USA and so
adapted the name for the mutation. It was discovered in the mid 1950s and
appeared in an aviary using the colony breeding setup. In 1958 it was
discovered that the mutation was in fact Sexlinked by Mrs Gay Terraneo and John
Papin of California.
Ghalib Al-Nassar
The general appearance
of this variety in green and blue is similar to normal but with the following
differences. The flight feathers are pale grey instead of black; the body color
is suffused and may vary in intensity from minimum through to almost 50%
of normal body color depth and increase in intensity downwards and towards the
rump area.
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| Using Opaline |
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| 7th Place All American 2011 |
In
2009 I started breeding the Texas Clearbody and by accident when one appeared
in the nest of a split Lutino cock to a Clearbody hen. I was able to breed my
first blue and green series cocks. The interesting thing is that I didn’t know
that the cock was split as I brought it in from another breeder. In the same
rounds I also had Lutino hens in this pairing.
I later went on to win a show
with my green series Clearbody in the Intermediate division in New Jersey and
later in 2011, I placed 7th at the All American which competes in a
rare division against all levels of competition. I was thrilled with the result
and committed to breed the Texas Clearbody into the future.
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| Add caption |
What
is the best method of breeding this mutation? We covered this at the meeting.
Using dark factor birds seem to eliminate the color sheen as the birds mature. However
I talked to Rynier Burger of South Africa who has been doing research on the
topic of suffusion. In his view he finds that his best results come from using
grey, and greygreen birds in his Texas Clearbody pairings, or a split grey
father and Albino mother pairing. This helps eliminate the sheen in the blue
series dramatically. He noted when breeding the Clearbody to the sky blue you
will get a blue sheen through the body.
In
the green series Clearbody Rynier believes its best to breed with the grey
green rather than the dark factor birds as mentioned above. He adds that when
using grey, greygreen, Albino, and Lutino, it is more likely that they can give
you the undesirable color sheen if the grandparents were light or dark factor birds.
Rynier
prefers the opaline Clearbody over the normal. “I use opaline to improve the
spots and considering the Clearbody is sex-linked it is easier to control the
chicks as opaline is also sex-linked”.
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| Controversial point |
His preferred pairing is opaline hens to
Texas Clearbody cocks to improve the percentage of getting male chicks that are
split instead of females that don’t split. Considering the Texas Clearbody is sex-linked
it is difficult to breed cocks if normals are not available. The best method of
breeding cocks is by pairing Clearbody to Clearbody in which case you are likely
to get 50% cocks. However often you will lose size considering the Clearbody is
a recessive mutation.
There
are many strategies and theories to breeding Texas Clearbody’s and any budgie
mutation for that matter. What would it look like to have a Spangle Clearbody,
or Dominant Pied Clearbody or how about the Goldenface Clearbody? These are
interesting questions. Do we ruin a mutation by breeding this way? Some
combinations are beautiful in spite of the fact that they go against the
standard of color we are working towards. Should we not encourage this? I have
often heard breeders say, “budgie first” or “I’m color blind”. When we
encourage the hobby I believe that we need to teach new breeders to breed what
they like first, and then encourage them to show their birds. It’s the love of
the bird that sustains us and keeps us around, but it’s the people who carry
us.
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| Doing paperwork |
After the meeting I had more conversation with members. It’s always fun to share with people the way things are done from your own home turf, and along the way you make a few extra friends. We couldn’t stay long as we had a long drive to an evening visit at Rick Watts bird room.
