Bird sizes!

[josiedownunda]

Ok I am full of weird and wonderful questions today and here is another. I was having a discussion on another group with regards to tiel size. .....with Americans mind you!!! There appear to be some breeders over there who claim their average tiel size comes in at nearly twice the weight of ours. Someone asked the question as to whether if the bird is twice the size do the internal organs actually become a lot bigger as well or do they still rely on the same size organs for their larger bodies to function with! It is known that with over increased size there can be health probs crop up......is this because of organ size or not? Any comments welcome.
Jo-Anne

[hillcresttiels]

Hi Jo-Anne more Hog wash the only country that comes close to our birds in size is the Poms ther English Variety is a long slender bird and their crest length is some what bigger otherwise the Genuine Aussie Variety is the classic. I have English Wfaced Cinnamon Pieds long birds with sleek bodies and a darker strain of cinnamon to ours cheers Frank

[fischer]

Hi Jo-Anne, Could you let me know the adress of the group?
I would be interested to know the exact wording used in that claim, because there's a difference in the meaning, their birds could be twice the weight, and still be the same size, It would simply mean their bird's are grossly overweight .
I'm not doubting Your or Franks knowledge of Tiels, I defer to your expertice anytime, I'm simply interested wether diet has anything to do with their claim? Example pellet diets etc.
Frank, Re our comments on the rarity of pure normal grey tiels,
while I was away over the weekend, I was at a mate's aviaries,
and he's selling a number of his Tiels, in amoungst them are a couple of pairs of normal greys that were originally bred from wild bird's, these 2 pairs have bred for him and have produced nothing but normal bird's, and have not been crossed with anything else since, so they would be as pure as you could find. They will be arriving here in a couple of weeks ;D.
Hope this makes some sense, Cheers Tony

[AussieBirds]

Further to the normal grey Tiels, I have seen what would consider normal tiels in pet shops and are being sold as that. My question is how do you tell if a Tiel is "normal" and hasn't been crossed with another colour and is a split bird. Tony you sure are fortunate to find these birds and it will be a greast experiance breeding thses birds, I have a pair of red rumps that are normal and they give me a great deal of pleasure when they breed.

John

[fischer]

John, I'm not sure myself , apart from knowing their breeding
history, and most pet shops and bird dealers couldn't tell you a
breeding history other than what the parents were. I have been looking for normal greys for some time, but to be sure your getting normals, you would need to know their history back at least 4 generations, without other colours cropping up in the clutches. Frank and Jo-Anne could answer this better then me.

I have a colony of pure green Peachface here and the best way to tell if they are pure is clear toenails, If even one nail is dark or black it means they have some other colour in them, I only keep the one's with clear nails, so I'm gradually building stock that will be 100% pure. Finding such a bird in the dealers etc is nigh on impossible, they are all split for other colours.

I'm not sure if this applies to Tiels, I really havn't had much to do with them for years, but I'm certainly in the right place to have questions answered ;D.

Yes John, very lucky, more than you could guess because my mate has a lot of greys and other colours in his aviaries, its just that I spotted the normal greys tucked away in a corner aviary by themselves that I asked about them, and he could relate their full history

I'm a bit of a fanatic about keeping some naturally coloured birds in Aussie aviaries ;D. Cheers Tony

[josiedownunda]

Unfortunately Tony the cockatiel hides things very well. It can take quite a long time to be 100% sure a bird has no hidden splits and crossing them with a variety of other colours too. If one of the pair is carrying the wf gene then the only way it will appear is to put it with a wf or split wf for it to show up and then if you are using only splits it could take clutch after clutch. I would hate to think of the breeding involved to be totally sure a bird is 100% grey. But good luck with yours...I hope they are true blue 100% Aussie pure grey birds!
Jo-Anne

[hillcresttiels]

Like I've always said any purchase should me made with a guarantee especially in this case Tony, goodluck
Frank

[Catbird]

You can breed out the carrier genes as long as you know the genetic stock of your birds. This is easiest in old and established bloodlines where few splits are present.

I was trying to be so picky with my pastleface pairings, but after some searching I found that trying to get certain combinations with limited splits was nearly impossible. Had to settle for what I could find.

I think 'pure' bloodlines of all species should be kept. And as for trying to breed bigger birds - why? How does that increase the beauty of already amazing birds? I saw a 'normal' Scarlet-chested Parrot the other day and I was astounded by its beauty, its been that long since I've seen a normal coloured bird. Usually only yellows and blues.

- Claire

[hillcresttiels]

So as long as we keep the lines we dont need to worry about size?Well i always thought that a bird of size is a bird of health,I think you really need to see what breeders over here in the eastern states have done with some of our Tiel stocks there are Whitefaced varieties around here that are not much bigger than sparrows and generally most of these birds survival rate is very low, so if I were in your shoes and i couldn't breed for size or compatibility I simply wouldn't breed at all and not put 2 birds together simply just to breed cheers Frank

[fischer]

Hi Everyone, I must have explained the situation badly,the Grey
normal bird's involved are only 3 or 4 generations removed from the original wild birds and have never been bred with any other colour. When my mate bought them there were about a dozen or so, and he used some of them in his own breeding programs, the rest were, and are still kept in a seperate aviary,and have been breeding only grey bird's over that time.
so there has been no interbreeding with the remainder.
As to 100% guarantee, this is about as close as you can get ;D
with birds, Iv'e known my mate for nearly 25 years and he's always been truthfull and keeps detailed records, the only thing I'm not sure of is were the original bird's came from because I didn't ask .
Jo-anne, thats very usefull information about the genetics and
the time involved to breed the splits out, 4 generations was only a guess on my part, and a bad one it seems, I said I havn't had Tiels for a while and have no real idea of the problems and how involved the genetics have become .
I was just trying to answer John's question as honestly as I could.
As I said, this Forum is the right place to find out. I'm really looking forward to breeding these bird's and will buy the entire
remaining pure stock he has, I'm not sure of the exact numbers
but there were about 12 bird's in the seperate aviary.
Will let you know how I get on with them .
Cheers Tony

[hillcresttiels]

Hi Tony I think your probably as close as one can get to having pure Normals just remember what i wrote about my visits to the wild stocks, however I think your on the right track and wish you well with them cheers Frank

[Catbird]

Just to clarify ... what I meant was that I don't see any point in breeding 'monster' sized tiels! Birds twice the size of the natural bird. Like show budgies which are 3x the size of the natural bush budgie - what benefit does that have?

Of course, bad breeding practises resulting in scrawny, thin looking birds isn't good either. The size issue can go both ways.

I wouldn't like to see the bird keeping arena go in the way of dog and cat breeding, or even poultry breeding, where we have birds with over or underdeveloped features which we think are nice, but usually comes at a price with health associated problems.

- Claire

[fischer]

Hi , I have to back Frank here, I cant speak about Tiels, but I know exactly what he's getting at, breeding bird's without carefull selection for size and shape of a bird produces nothing but runts, this is especially true in line breeding,and unfortunatly
too many breeders these days are trying this to breed new colours.
I can speak about the results of this type of breeding and poor selection in Lovebirds, I went to the big Lovebird show a couple of years ago and the bird's were about half the size of my pure Mask Lovebirds, and the Fischers were runts too. This is a direct result of poor selection and indescriminate breeding practices.
Cheers Tony

[hillcresttiels]

Thanx Claire I'm glad you calirified that as you know health and well being are the two main factors breeders need to consider.Just to let you in I am currently breeding line to line there is not one split amongst my flock but I must add that it has taken me generations to accumulate a flock where i know every little detail about each and everyone of my birds and am I am always confident of breeding good quality large lines. I could breed for eg Pastelface to Pastelface do develop Doublefactor Varieties but for what!! To have a Bulge in my wallet no Thanx! Take a look around some of the U.S site and you will see Doublefactor-Dominant-Multi- Mutations of Tiels that are no bigger than a large sparrow and if this the path we are taking In Australia then I will be the first to hang my boots up and call it quits, thanx Frank!!