How times have changed

[CQDude]

I was just thinking the other day how times have changed with finch/bird keeping. When I was a tin lid, all the finches we kept consisted of zebs, double bars, shelly's ( which I am guessing is the white zeb now), bully finches ( which would be mannikans now) and if you didn't swap them with your mate you went down to the creek and trapped them with the trap you bought from the local produce store. Bloody turtle doves used to be a nuisance though, they would fill the trap up and leave no room for finches. No-one "sold" birds you would give them away or swap with your mates. We also got rainbow lorrikeets when they fell out of the tree drunk, lol.

Also one we saw a lot in the bush but never kept was a blood finch, which I would guess at being a crimson now ? Funny how we ( humans feel the need to change the names of things, probably to make them more marketable) I used to breed tropical fish in a fairly big way and name changes were common there also.
Anyway, that is enough of remembering 40 years ago, makes me feel old, lol. We have a lot more to choose from now, too many as it makes it hard choosing which you want, lol.

[shanny2]

i want gouldians and when i am a bit more experienced i want to get parrot finches and some double bars

[Jayburd]

yes they certainly have changed...
bullys would be Chestnuts, bloods crimsons, never heard of a shellies.
I think you'd need a license for Double Bars Shanny.

[gomer]

Sounds like interesting times.There sure has been alot of advancements since then,I like to think so anyway.

[Jayburd]

is it just me or did finch breeders in the old days always seem to do better than us with our modern disease cures and equipment? could it be that with the advance in technology and medicine, that our birds have grown 'softer'?
that's what it seems like to me anyway.

[CQDude]

That's quite possible, with all animals. We had our old tom cat come in the other day with a badly infected ear, obviously been bluing with a fox or something. My wife called the vet and he said email me a pic (we are 100k's out of town) and he said it would cost $700 to fix him with antibiotics etc, or shoot him. I said to the missus just let him be for a few days, put some betadine on it and if he doesn't get any better I will shoot him. Well he is good now, has a furless ear at the moment, but the dog kept licking it and fixed it up. If we had have listened to the vet we would've shot the kids cat !

I think crossing/inbreeding has a lot to do with animals/birds having lowered immune responses as well, when we kept wild caught birds, in their normal forms, we never had any probs, just my opiniion though.

[spanna]

i agree. as i'm only keeping relatively common species i don't try and wrap them in cotton wool so to speak. if a bird is sick it gets treated, but if not i don't go dosing them for everything they may or may not have (besides the occasional treatment in the water). i believe this is one of the reasons some birds aren't as hardy as the wild ones of the same species. the other thing i see as a future problem is creating strains of immune parasites/worms etc. if people keep medicating all the time there is a higher risk of a parasite or bacteria (or whatever it may be) becoming immune to treatment. same as creating superbugs in hospitals. survival of the fittest has worked well in nature for millions of years, i try to keep some of the same principles in my breeding.

that being said, if i were keeping rarer species they would have regular treatments for anything and everything, as the loss of a bird could be expensive and detrimental to the species in captivity as a whole through loss of genetic diversity. it all depends on the circumstances i think.

[jusdeb]

i think Jay that most birds would have been wild caught and the immune systems and blood lines would have been stronger . I was just thinking this morning how many people go in to pet shops and buy " a pair " of birds without finding out if they are related. Imagine how many birds per year are being bought and bred that are actually brother and sister ....there goes any hope of good birds continuing .
Things sure have changed back when my father was young he would help his Uncle trap parrots , this was his bread and butter job with shearing , mustering etc being done at different times , this is how people made a living and no one called the RSPCA it was just a job .

[gomer]

He must of heard you say I"ll shoot him to the missus

[iaos]

As for name chanages. It is generally colloquial names (the old bushy names) vs common/accepted names.

As for healthier birds. I know there are many reasons why wild birds have a shorter life expectancy (predators, food availability etc) but i remember reading that in the annual gouldian count, around half the birds are uncoloured. Meaning 50% of the birds are less than 12 months old.