2013 Season

My fifth generation line-bred white-rumped shama chick.  It is 18 days old.  It began learning to take food from the floor of the cage 4 days ago. Now, at 18 days of age, it is able to take food for itself from a tray on the floor of the cage. Hand-feeding is still necessary though not so frequently.

Let me share with you a story that a buyer of shamas from a breeder told me.

The seller of shamas had bred the species for only approximately 2 years.  He was asked by the buyer of a shama from him for his views on line-breeding.  He said he was against it.  He gave as his reason that the 2nd generation would produce "nuts and fools" as he put it.  Thankfully, this has not been my experience.  In fact, I think that if the breeder knows what he is doing, the quality of line-bred birds should progressively improve.

To successfully line-breed, the breeder needs to start with stock that have all or most of the qualities that he intends to produce in his birds.  The foundation stock should have as little defects as possible.  Then only can the breeder hope to achieve his dreams.  I can only assume that the above breeder did not have good foundation stock to start with and he is achieving very inferior results even  with his 2nd generation.