2015 season

Last December and early January were cold months with unexpected heavy showers, cooler weather and strong winds.  It is now late February; the Monsoon rains have stopped and the breeding season for birds has commenced. I have paired my few selected pairs and they are doing well.

I was fortunate last year in getting a number of chicks from my difficult to breed males, Ballet Dancer and Skyhawk.  Ballet Dancer was 13 years old last year but he had more chicks last year than any previous year.  Amongst his male offspring were Samson and Curve.  For this year, he has been loaned to Michael.  Skyhawk also had more chicks last year than any other year but as the chicks came towards the end of the year,  I need to wait until they have completed their first molt to be able to better assess their quality.

Until this year I have not been able to have any chicks from Apache for the past 3 1/2 years.  He is the father of Cochise, Piston and Funkie.  These are birds that are well known for their courage, song and display.  Since the hatching of Piston, I have paired him each year in the hope of getting chicks from him but he has been largely unproductive.

With the knowledge and experience that I had gained from successfully breeding Ballet Dancer and Skyhawk last year, I had greater hope of also achieving success with Apache this year.  I have been lucky.  The January pairing resulted in infertile eggs but in February, 2 of the 4 eggs were fertile and hatched. The aim now is to try to continue to improve on his fertility.