The Stock Bird

The best place to assess the qualities of a budgerigar is in the hand. You need to be able to feel strength and vigour, a firm fitness. While you have the bird in your hand you can check for length, width, and density of feather, supplemented by an ample covering of body down. The more feathering you can get on the head the better. After the bird has passed the hand test, I place the bird in a standard show cage. I say standard show cage, for it is vital that we start from the same point when viewing budgerigars. The show cage has two marks that remain constant. These are the perches in line with the punch bar rail, and the roofline. If you start by ensuring that the perches are at eye-level, this gives you a personal foundation for viewing birds wherever you go.

A well-balanced bird of around 8.5" on the perch should stand with its eye placed well above the roofline of the cage. If the eyeline of the bird is in line with the roofline, you have a short bird, or one that is not standing correctly. Neither is up to the standard I require.

Eye Correctly Positioned

I consider that one of the most important features of a budgerigar is its eye. If it is not in the right position, you will never get the correct expression on a bird. It needs to be well above the cere, and go as far back in the head as you get it. When looked at from the front, the backscull needs to become wider from the eye. The capping needs to come out over the eye. You need clean white or yellow feathering from the eye to the cheek patch, and from the eye you need a slightly convex curved line to the shoulder.

A good bird should have good width of backscull, which is needed to carry the desired length and width of mask. Looking at a bird with the "naked eye," I try to visualize two spots between the point of the beak and the top of the spot. The actual spot should be on the bib rather than the spot feather hanging off the yellow or white face.

On the modern bird, directional feathering on the cap is essential. One feature where a lot of birds fail, is that they are not clean above the eye. The capping should be clean right down and beyond the eyeline when viewed from the side. I like to see birds with a slightly hollow backline. Not only does this make the budgerigar more graceful, but it helps to blend the flights onto the rump of the bird. I feel the tail-line should follow the under bodyline, rather than the top bodyline particularly with hens.

Birds Should Be Tapered

I think that one of the major breeding faults with our modern budgerigar is that they are thick across and through the rump. I like to see birds as they are described in the BS Ideal, "Tapered" and not cut away behind the legs, with the chest line continuing through between the leg area. If you read the BS Ideal you can imagine a beautiful graceful bird. The only wording I would query is the number of visual flights. Years ago nature gave the bigger, buff birds a few more flights to carry them around.

I have had many a chuckle over the years when a judge has marked a cage "flights." Sure you can see a flight missing, but how many are still present? Eight, nine, or ten, and these birds are not longflights. If you can find a bird with all these attributes, not only will you have a good stock bird, you may also have a budgerigar which will win the club show.

Original text: Copyright 1997 Rodney Harris

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