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His first aviary was a converted motor car crate that his father obtained
whilst delivering to the Volkswagen
assembly plant in Clayton, Victoria in 1956.
He purchased his first birds from the Moonee Ponds market.
( Dame Edna
Everidge country)
The original breeding cages were made from old fruit cases, with bird wire fronts, they were set up in one corner of the family garage,
which fortunately was quite large, as in the first year he bred
over 60 birds.
Geoff's grandfather took him to his first Exhibition Budgerigar club
meeting at Kensington in 1957, he followed this up by going to a few
shows, but he did not take to the exhibition side of the hobby at the time, and duly resigned himself
to breeding his birds for his own satisfaction.
In 1964 he sold up his birds to concentrate on his other
hobby, training standard bred horses.
He trained many winners in a period when the
American imported stallions were making their mark on the breeding scene
in Australia, and remains to this day, the youngest trainer to ever win a
major classic race in any race code in Australia.
He was seriously considering taking on training horses full time, but
after becoming very dejected
with his clientele, who sold the majority of the good young horses
in his care to overseas interests, he decided to leave the trotting industry in
1971, to concentrate on the family transport business.
In 1973, a year after we were married, he went back into budgies in a small way, until 1978, when we shifted from Melbourne to
Warrnambool, in south west Victoria
The birds were put on hold, as the home where we lived was not conducive to keeping
birds, and Geoff's business had him working long hours and travelling away from home.
We always
kept a couple of birds around the home, but it was not until 1990, when we shifted into our new home,
that an aviary was
built, and a few more birds were acquired. We colony bred for a short time,
which was mostly a disaster, with birds constantly fighting one another.
In 1992 the family decided to have a
look into the exhibition side of the hobby, after a lot of prompting from
our youngest son Tim, who also had become very keen on the birds.
We went
to a few district shows, and were amazed at the difference between the
exhibition birds, and the budgies we had at home, so much so, that it was
all that we needed to convince us to have a go at this challenging side
of the hobby.
The first year was used as a learning curve, and some cheaper birds were bought to begin the challenge.
New breeding cabinets were
built, the original aviary was remodelled, and 3 large flights added to
make a more comfortable set up for the birds, and ourselves.
Geoff and Tim travelled to many shows around the state in that first year, observing the
type of bird being benched, and absorbing everything they saw, and were
told.
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After this period it was evident
that our first birds would have to make way for a better class of bird, and a
study program of Victoria's leading breeders was put into action.
We went
through previous issues of results in the Budgie News magazines, looking for the most
consistent
breeders, who had also been on the scene for a few years
That happened to be the Bruce Sheppard/Colin Flanagan partnership from Melbourne.
Four birds were purchased
from them, they were mainly Peter Sanderson bloodlines from the
UK.
A long term line breeding plan was instituted, to build a solid frame work
for the future.
Tim eventually gave up the birds, when other teenage interests took over, leaving the
two of us to continue with our projects, he still offers an appraisal now
and then, as he has a very good eye for a quality bird, and his opinion is well
regarded by his father.
It is a very hard task to try and retain young people in the hobby these days, but once the interest is kindled, we hope he may regain his initial liking for the budgies, one day.
Show success came quickly from these original birds, with some very good Greys
being produced in the third year. Disaster struck in 1995, when most of
the birds were lost due an outbreak of coccidia, caused by poor management, leaving us with just 15 birds.
The strength of the
line let us come back from the depths of disaster, and we have progressed from the Beginner section, to Champion status,
in that seven year period..
Over 80% of the birds we have today,
trace back to that original stock, and we have no doubt, that if we had
not line bred at the beginning, we would not have achieved what we have over
the years.
We buy in the odd bird, selected on a certain feature we are looking for,
and the bloodlines being compatible with our line, checked before we
buy, and then it is bred with for one year, and sold off again.
We prefer to buy privately if we can, if not, will only purchase at
auction from the highest quality studs, which sometimes means you have to
pay higher prices, to get what you want.
Our records are second to none, with computer records a
must.
We run 2 computers, one in the bird room, one in the office, and
transfer records between the both of them, they are kept up to date daily.
Our records go back to our original birds, with complete bloodlines on
every bird in the aviary. We have tried a few different programs over the
years, but really like Jeff Stone's Budgerigar program, it does everything
we want it to do, and more.
Our favourite variety is the Albino, which we have had great success with,
closely followed by our Grey's and Opaline's.
I have a liking for the Australian Yellowface, and Geoff has a ongoing project
with Clearwings and Texas Clearbodies.
We have bred most varieties, mainly for interclub team events in our district over the years, but have cut back on some of these lines at the moment, so as to concentrate on the Clearwings and Texas Clearbodies, and a line of Dark Factor birds to be used in the Clearwings and Lutinos
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