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From: fleming@acsu.buffalo.edu (christine m fleming)
Newsgroups: rec.birds
Subject: INDOOR: New parakeets soon, but, i need some help!...:)
Summary: Inbreeding, and differences in 'pet' and 'show' quality birds
Keywords: inbreeding (cancer), mutations and line-breeding, "English"
          budgies, 'pet' and 'show' quality????
Message-ID: <80287@eerie.acsu.Buffalo.EDU>
Date: 17 Jun 91 23:26:30 GMT
Sender: news@acsu.Buffalo.EDU
Organization: SUNY @ Buffalo
Lines: 56
Nntp-Posting-Host: autarch.acsu.buffalo.edu


I have finally located someone with whom (i think) i will feel
comfortable getting a new companion for my bird Calysta (who receintly
lost his friend Maranga...) 

The scoop on her is that she feeds her birds very well, and that they
are healthy. (The woman who bread my bird kept only her card after she
had been to a bird show -- out of 10 others that she talked to. SO,
since i trust her a lot, this breeder should be the best in the
region. And trust me, she is far away!)

She breeds the larger "English" type, and she has 'pet' and 'show'
quality. Now this is gibberish to me. Of course it is obvious -- if
you want a pet get the 'pet' quality bird. Well, are they rejects or
something that they are ONLY pet quality?? What is the REAL difference
in these two definitions? I assume that they come from the same
stock, and are treated (handled and fed) the same, so what is up??? 

True, i do not (NOW) want to breed the bird, or show her. But, what if
i do someday? (Or if i want to put her in a show one day just for fun
and she hates it, so we never go again???...) Will she make a BAD pet
because she has been bred for show? Will she get along badly with my
(apparantly 'pet' quality bird), or be snotty because he is not
refined enough...;)??? Does being 'show' quality have more to do with
conformation rather than personality and/or health?? 
If so, how do you tell with a baby???

(And gee, I always thought that the regular "American" style birds
were the 'pet-quality' and the "English" were the showier types....)

SECOND... Thank you for all of your advice about Maranga. I have
gotten a little more information about the reason that she was ill. It
seems that the local breeders of parakeets have inbread their stock to
the point of harming them. Apparently, they have cut the lifespan of
their birds in half over the last 5 or so years, and the birds are
nowhere as healthy as before. (That is why my friend sent me a
considerable distance: to get away from the existing stock and into a
more diversified area -- both for my sake and for the simple fact that
if i got a bird from around here Calysta would have a great chance of
breeding within existing family lines [if they bred of course...] and
i would be furthering the whole mess once again....) The most common
thing that has been killing these birds is cancer, and it seems like
Maranga might have been from one of these flocks....:(

(Do the "rarer"(?) colour mutations have to be heavily line bred to become
established? Am i safer with a normal-green, rather than the fancier,
newer mutations???) (Maranga was a BRIGHT lutino with a kelly(?)-green
stomach, but, i do not know about her parents, nor even what store the
origional owner got her and Calysta from, so (unfortunately) i cannot
go and talk to them -- not that they would remember/care...) 

Thank you to everyone who mailed! I will be responding soon if i
haven't yet...:) 

...jones
(fleming@sun.acsu.buffalo.edu)