A BLAST FROM THE PAST
CRESTED BUDGERIGARS
Australia First?
Reprinted from Australian Cage Birds, 21 November 1936.
A visit was paid by your Budgerigar contributor to the aviaries of Mr. Mathews, of Kogarah, to inspect this latest mutation, and there is no doubt that the crest is here to stay.
Both Mr. and Mrs. Mathews very kindly gave all the information they had, which is most interesting
The original bird had a very slight disturbance on the crown of its head, so slight that it would never be noticed unless pointed out. It was also unnoticed by the owner until, after returning from a fortnight's holiday, he looked at the youngsters in the next box, of which this bird was the father, and lo! There were some crested young.
These young have a definite crest, and now they are parents themselves, making the third generation with crests. The definite three stages are obvious, each one being a big improvement on its parents. And now in the third generation we can definitely look ahead to a really beautiful crest being evolved, and there is no doubt that two of three more generations will work wonders.
The crest has unproved to such an extent that there can be seen two lines of zebra markings a little paler than those on the back of the head, but definitely there, and running in two circles around the crest, me within the other. Another bird has the faint markings only on the rear portion of the crest.
Right in the centre is the pin point from which the feathers radiate, much more conspicuously to the front than to the rear, giving a look of a brow over the eyes.
It is quite evident that in the progress made in only three generations. Mr Matthews (and his good wife) do not require an instruction or advice as to procedure in order to successfully propagate this most interesting and latest mutation. It is probably quite safe to congratulate Mr. and Mrs. Matthews for having evolved something new in Budgerigars for the first time in the world.
AND SOME 48 YEARS LATER
BREEDING WITH CRESTED BLDGERIGARS
Reprinted from Budgerigar Independent Research Development Society
May 1984
Research by Judy Crabb
This in turn was reprinted from The Crested Budgerigar Club England.
Although there is still a certain amount of mystery in the way Crest reproduce themselves, we can be sure that they are at least true breeding as far as the passing on of the visual Crested character is concerned although its actual expression vanes. The theoretical expectations of crested young in any next depends wholly on what the parents are like and crest x crest matings, whatever the type of crest, produced the highest proportions of crested progeny. Unfortunately, such matings, almost invariably produce crested birds of poor quality and little substance and any ground gained in the production of their parents would be lost. Not only so but it would be a waste of good material in that both of these potential parent birds could be paired off to non crested birds and thus double the number of offspring which would be useful for the future.
Crest x Crest Bred matings produce the next highest proportion of Crested young and is the recommended pairing for the maintenance of size and type as well. By the term Crest Bred it must be understood that these are non crested birds from all matings in which at least one parent was visually crested. Therefore always be sure that such birds are as described by the breeder.
Crest x Normal (i.e. without any crest background) is a pairing that often has to be made and there is little doubt that it is one that does a lot of good if the normal parent is of outstanding size and type. But it is not one that produced a high proportion of crested progeny compared to their non crested young.
Roughly one bird in every eight is crested in this mating but there is little doubt that crossing with normals from time to time is very necessary to maintain the quality and fertility of our crested birds so it must not be despised.
Crest-Bred x Crest-Bred and Crest-Bred x Normal pairings have all been known to produce the crest and tufted bird, thus proving it is more than being merely dominant in character. Quite a few breeders have been puzzled to see a crest turn up in a nest of which both parents are normal in appearance and have, therefore, imagined that a new crest mutation has come into being. However, this is not so far as the crest-bred certainly has the power to produce crested young and can even preserve this facility in posterity for several generations before the crest next shows itself. However this type of mating should only be tried as a Long Shot and never one of policy as it often takes several nests before a crest turns up resulting in a considerable wastage of non-crests, Coming from this mating these non-crested young birds should never be described as crest-bred as their value for crest production is in most cases hardly above that of pure normals.
As previously mentioned the three types of crest interchanged freely in breeding so that each can produce either or both of the other two according to whom it was mated. Thus, for instance, crest of all types come from the mating tufted x crest-bred but in cases of tufted birds paired to birds of the pure normal backgrounds full circular crest never appear. The same also applies to half-circular x normal matings but in full-circular x normal pairings specimens of all three types are usually forthcoming butt not always together from the same pairs. Thus one pair would only produce say tufted and half-circular types in their crested off-spring whilst another identical pair would produce only tufted and full-circular crested progeny. One can only learn by experience of one’s own birds what exactly they are capable of producing when suitably mated and this, or course, takes time and patience.
On the other hand, the mating crest-bred x crest-bred or crest- bred x normal, they do produce crest but invariably yield tufted birds as well. Some exceptions such as half-circular crest have been reported but these are really double-tufted or the frilled type crest.
Breeding with Crested Budgerigars presents no special problems not found with ordinary birds and there need be no departure from the normal breeding practice with budgerigars. Crested youngsters are never attacked by their parents just because they have their peculiarity and can be fostered out if necessary to other pairs with young without any fear. It is possible to see if any chick will be crested or not when it is about 12 days old, at which time a twisted looking stubble would appear on the heads of the former. However there have been birds appearing to be non-crest in nest feather and have developed a crest, usually tufted, by the time they have moulted out so it often pays to retain the young to see if they show some promise.
On the other hand there have been cases where there have been crested young and they have lost their crest at the moult but this seldom occurs.
It is not always possible to judge the shape of the crest while the youngsters are still in nest feather, as in many cases, it comes out stronger when it becomes an adult.
In general, crested budgerigars tend to be on the small side and would undoubtedly stay that way if nothing is done to improve them by pairing them to bigger and better birds. There is a right and wrong way to about this process of improving the size and type in our crested birds and this is where breeders slip up in an otherwise straight forward procedure. To take the warning first, the continuous crossing of crested birds to quality normals is not a good policy as this increases the inhibiting influences and weakens the gene so that the visible form dies out. There are not too many crested birds to the standard of our normals so one can not be too fussy. I find that line-breeding is the best way to go with the crest with the occasional introduction of a very good normal.
The practice of inbreeding with the crest is not recommended: it is best avoided. With the crest you tend to bring out all their faults. The crest have far to go before they can reach the stage where inbreeding can be done with beneficial results.
Crested budgerigars can be bred in all colours and colour combinations. However they do have an advantage on Aust. Dominant pieds, Dutch clear-flights and sex linked varieties and have presented some good size birds. Obviously crest in the straight colours, greens and blues in all shades offer the best chance of producing the best birds for show purpose as they do for normals. Sex-linked characters like Opaline, Cinnamonwing and even Lutino and Albino have presented some good birds for exhibition in recent years. The Yellow Face Blue type lends itself very well to the crested character, as unlike the birds in the green series, the feather barbules near the quill are white and thus the crest is in two colours, yellow around the edge and white in the centre, especially noticeable in the full circular type of crest.
If one keeps to the crested normal type of bird with its dominant and sex-linked counterparts as outlined above, one should not go far wrong in producing attractive birds of quality that would do justice to the crest and to one’s hard work and achievement.
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