Establishing a Lutino Stud

Steve Cox

Based on a Lecture at Western Counties Budgerigar Breeders Forum. Adapted by Marion Wixon.

I am in partnership with my father, and we share the management and care of our stud. During the breeding season I am mainly responsible for pairing up the birds, supplying the water and preparing the softfood. My father, Gordon, takes care of the feeding and general management of the birdroom and prepares our budgerigars for exhibition.

How we Established our Lutino Stud

Initially we purchased Lutinos from three studs. These were Mr and Mrs Whatley, I Saunders, and M and L Clarke. When we paired these lines together they produced very good youngsters. I later found out that all of the above had purchased Lutinos from the late Reg Watts of Weston-Super-Mare. So what we had originally thought were unrelated birds, were in fact, all related. This, perhaps, was the reason they had been so successful in producing the quality Lutinos we have today. Later we bought Eric Lane's stud of Lutinos. The best twelve birds from this purchase were introduced into our existing lines. For easy recognition the different families of Lutinos are identified by different coloured split rings.

Recently we have had a measure of success with Normal varieties which have originated from Doug Sadler stock. My own preference is for the Light Green but we keep most other colours in Normal and Opaline and also have some Dominant Pieds and Dilutes.

Management

Our birdroom measures 40' × 10', and is of wooden construction, with inside and outside flights. We have fifty-two breeding cages which are evenly divided between Lutinos and our other budgerigars. The breeding units are 2' 6" × 2' deep. Our nest boxes are wooden, "box within a box" type, and placed on the outside of the cage.

We feed a fifty/fifty budgerigar seed mixture, plus plain canary and small parakeet seed. Our water is boiled, and once a week, all year round, we add "Prime" to it. As I said earlier, I prepare the soft-food, which consists of a bread-base mixture of Bailey's Number 1 pony feed, six hard-boiled eggs and plenty of grated carrots. We used to feed soaked oats during the breeding season, until four years ago we suffered a problem with "sour crop." Since we changed to the current soft-food we have experienced no further difficulties.

Pairing up

We study our birds all through the year and take notes of particular birds within families. These notes are referred to when it comes to breeding time. At the end of September we separate our cocks and hens. We catch up the hen first and then select a suitable cock to compliment the hen. Both are assessed in a show cage. The pair are then introduced to the breeding cage and a nest box attached.

Our ideal pairing would be first or second cousins, grandfather to grand-daughter, or similar, not too close, family pairings. Consideration is also given to feather quality when pairing up. The visual qualities of the cock and hen are considered in order to balance out different features. If a pair produce good quality young birds we let them carry on breeding for a second round. If our aim is to fix a particular feature, we would then split the pair and repair them. The object would be to get enough youngsters to be able to pair half-brother to half-sister the following year. One of our most successful Lutino cocks was number 13/90 who did very well on the show bench. However, it was his brothers who produced some excellent offspring.

If some pairs produce clear eggs, we remove one perch forcing the hen to fly to the remaining perch when she leaves the nest box. This has proven a successful strategy. Another problem we sometimes encounter is cocks attacking young birds when they leave the nest box. This is possibly because the birds are too fit and are eager to breed again.

Breeding Lutinos

We only pair Lutino to Lutino, and will continue to do so as long as the colour, quality and size, remain good. We won best Young Bird at Western Counties in 1995, with a Lutino cock, so we seem to be getting it right! Our best youngsters do not come from any particular pairings or lines. When pairing Lutinos we always consider colour but it may surprise you to learn that we never pair two good-coloured Lutinos together! Similarly, we never pair two pale-coloured Lutinos together. Our preferred pairing is a good-coloured Lutino to a pale or intermediate-coloured Lutino. This I find produces a young Lutino with very good colour. Another factor leading to good colour may be the fact that we include a lot of carrot in our softfood.

Lutino fertility is very good, as we find we breed three-quarters Lutinos, even though equal pairs of Lutinos and non-Lutinos are paired. Generally our Normals do not appear so fertile, and we experience more breeding problems with them. One obvious answer would be that our Normals are buffer birds, but this does not explain the disparity. The feathering on our Lutinos is as buff as on our Normals. They seem to have a lot of down under the feather, therefore, when pairing up, I trim the vent feathers. Although our Lutinos exhibit this buff feathering, we have never bred a Lutino "feather duster."

A couple of characteristics I have noticed over the years, is that our Lutinos prefer breeding in our lower-down cages, which are darker and they also seem to be the last birds to come in from the flights at night.

One thing which concerns me is the judging of Lutinos. The light at some shows is not very good. Light from fluorescent tubes tends to show a false colour on Lutinos. I would certainly recommend that Lutinos should, wherever possible, be judged in as near to natural light as possible.

Other pages in this section:

The Albino
The Lutino
Establishing a Lutino Stud

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