We are very happy with what we have already bred this year and looking forward to another batch of young soon. Our linnie eggs are hatching soon! Our 12 month old green/blue hen has decided to get it right on only her first time laying. We have two pairs on fertile eggs. Anyone interested in trading stock, let me know. I won't be selling any from these pairs yet. I would love to get very cobby linnies as I find them very stunning. Greens, blues, or lutinos are fine!
On the cockatiel front, almost all of our early 2007 babies are weaned now. We are looking forward to very exciting pairings. We have purchased some birds from
Linda Arnett and are going to put in a good amount of Greeson to our pairings this year. We've started up the year with some great style and size in our first greeson cock, now we are looking at expanding on to a larger line. The pearl/pd cock we are looking forward to is from a Charmin/Hogan son and a 54/16 offspring hen! He's going to be a good line for us to dabble in! I am also breeding an old line from
Carl Helton into my birds from a bird I have
partnered with Josh Maple to breed. I've got him set up with a great cinnamon pearl hen from Kathy Short.
Hope to see you some of you on the exhibition trail. I'll be keeping up North most of the year with shows in NC, VA, MD, , CO,and RI in the plans. Next week is the Bird Clubs of Virginia show with two of my favorite judges:
Lee Horton and Phil Feret. Both are very knowledgeable and always a joy to watch judge. Next its back to PCBS (Virginia Beach) to see my SPBE guru
Al Decoteau "Dr. Al" and
Sabrina Hull judge two cockatiel shows. Then, its back to my own club, RDCBS, to see Pat Tucker and Gary Morgan. If you would like more information about the RDCBS show, please let me know and I'll forward you on more info (Memorial Day weekend). Its always a huge time and always proves to be one of the largest shows in the country.
SPBE will have shows at PCBS, RDCBS, and BCV also. You can contact
Julie Mitchell for the VA Shows (she's the VA show extraordinaire). When I first started exhibiting, VA had no shows and since Julie has come along.... She's been awesome for the state of VA
On other news, we'll be posting new pics on the website for our 2006 purchases. We have a normal grey male from
Phil Feret who is a beautiful sibling to a huge normal hen that he entered into the National Show at just weaning. Our normal is turning out very nicely and we hope to have him paired soon to a great wf cinnamon pointed hen. We also purchased a lutino out of the sister of the 2007 National Winner. Its a HUGE hen and was the biggest bird in my aviary at just 10 weeks of age! She's going to be beautiful and I'll be pairing her up with some of my lutino line (swartz line)
Hope all of your breedings are successful!
Karl and Leslie