Dolores Noonan
Updated 1/1/2000
The birdroom is 28' × 12' and is
situated in the garage. The house central heating boiler is also in there
so the temperature remains fairly constant. There are two large flights, one for
hens and another for cocks and I have now incorporated 3 - 6' × 3' aluminium
flights which I use for young birds and sales birds, as well as a number of movable
stock cages for fledglings and for the show team. Lighting is on a time switch
set to come on at 6am until 12am and again at 2pm until 10.30pm. There are two
large windows so it doesn't get dark but the lowering light level makes the birds
go into twitter mode and noise and activity slows down.
The day starts at about 7 30am when the birdroom is opened up. As the door is opened the noise level rises as they realise that food is on the way. The budgies are fed on a 50/50 mixture of canary seed and white millet supplemented with, tonic seed, seeding grasses and chickweed in season. There are baskets hanging from the roof of the flights and the placing of the greenfood causes great excitement as they all try to be the first to get to the tastiest morsel. Some are more sensible and wait on the floor underneath the basket to catch the pieces which fall unnoticed to the ground. I use Murphy's Pro-System which provides essential minerals which are always available and vitamin tablets which are added to the water each day. Now, at the start of the breeding season I am giving a weekly feed of naken oats combined with cod-liver oil and glucose. The birds seem to thrive on this regime and the aviary is a hive of noise and activity.
On the right-hand wall hang 30 all-wire breeding cages in three rows. Underneath each row are strips of Correx to catch the droppings and seed husks. Cleaning is made very easy with this method, as the Correx is simply removed and scraped with a paint scraper, replaced and then the vacuum cleaner is then used to clear up. The nest boxes are very light and hang with hooks to the front of the cages. Once again cleaning is easy as a number of spare boxes are kept. The soiled one is removed, the chicks transferred to a clean box and the parents don't even seem to notice. The breeding pairs are fed with soft-food each day consisting of dried carrots and egg-food mixed with ground toasted eggshells and organic minerals. Sometimes chicks are not properly fed by their parents and each night they are checked and those found to be with empty crops are fed with a proprietary parrot hand-rearing food directly into the crop. This is also done for the first few days after the chicks leave their parents.
Once a year the aviary is treated with Emtryl to protect them against trichomoniasis and also with Ivomec on a regular basis to deal with parasites e.g.. mites, worms etc. It is very important for the health of the whole aviary that disease is prevented rather than having to be cured.
Finally, as with any hobby it is wise to keep records and particularly so when it tends to grow as quickly as budgerigar breeding. It is essential to know the parentage of your birds, be able to see which birds are good parents and which ones need careful watching. It is exceedingly useful to have details of breeding pairs, colours and varieties, and be able to look back on your records for each year. When selling birds it is very useful be able to give the buyer a pedigree so that he/she can see where their particular birds came from. I am using an Australian computer programme for Windows called Birdstud 3.00 which is now available in the UK. I have tried most of the other programmes on the market and must say that this is by far the best and easiest to use, that I have yet come across and is updated quite frequently.
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Copyright © 2000, Dolores Noonan. All rights reserved.