Peter, I don't know Dutch, but is it possible that maybe the quantity of "thousands" was referred to the total of birds exported. I wonder if other NZ birds were also exported back at the time.
The article is only about Kakariki but perhaps the author has made the wrong interpretation out of his sources. I had contact with Harrie Van Der Linden, international bird judge, writer, has lots of knowledge about many species and on retirement. He confirmed me that he never saw a Kakariki in Holland until the early 70's. Those days they were sold for 2500€.
Assuming that at this time Holland, Belgium and Germany are the main exporters of Kakariki to other parts of Europe and maybe the world then I consider it possible that the original Kakariki's in Europe were not so numerous as we have always believed.
Pablo, do you already know a little more about the origin of the Loro Parque Kakariki?
P.S.: maybe we have to start another thread because we deviate from the subject.
Peter, so far I have not been able to gather information about the origins of LoroParque kakariki.
All I know is that they started breeding them a couple of years ago.
I contacted about 2 years ago Mr. Rafael Zamora, one of the head veterinarians of LPF, but he is a very busy person and it's difficult to get in touch with him. He receives lots of e-mails daily and he also guides some of the visits, and as it's reasonable LPF members have priority. And then he also spends a lot of time travelling to attend conferences or visit conservation projects.
To explain a little bit how Loro Parque works, there are 2 separate entities. One is LoroParque (LP), which is the part of the company that manages the display (parrots, sea mammals, penguins, etc...), then there is LoroParque Fundación (LPF) which manages the part of the collection destined for breeding. They have a huge breeding facility in which they breed a lot of species. That part of the collection is not available to regular visitors, although LPF members can visit that part of the collection (by appointment).
Membership costs about 120€/year. That grants you free access to the display and also the breeding facility, and you have access to the sales of surplus birds bred by LPF. There's a waiting list for species on demand, and then also members receive circulars with stock list of available birds.
I have a good colleague that is a member, he told me that in the last circulars he has not seen any kakariki available. It's possible that those birds are sold to wholesalers that buy in bulk before.
Recently I also contacted a pyrrhura breeder from UK (Les Waring). He has pyrrhura bred at LP, but he came across them accidentally. They were bought from LP by an UK importer.
As far as I know the main market for LPF in terms of birds sales is Germany, and apparently many of their breeding birds come also from Germany, but I also have news for instance they bought poicephalus from a Portuguese wholesaler.
They have a reputation of being very strict and methodic in terms of keeping species/subspecies and probably kakariki is no exception to the rule, but the only wholesaler that I could contact could not provide me with pics of the birds and it was 50€/bird + 120€ shipping and it's very expensive for me.
If in the future I can get hold of a pair or two via a member for a reasonable price and split the shipping costs I may consider it.
Something else. When I first started with Kakariki 7 years ago, there were no normals to find in Belgium. There was a growing interesm in normals and breeders started to look for them. A key figure in this was Mr Oosterkamp, a breeder in the north of the Netherlands. He started to collect all the normals he could find in the neighbourhood and sold the youngsters. These birds were also found to be pure(no mutations). Thats why everybody wanted to buy birds from him. I believe that today all of the available normals in the Netherlands find their roots in his aviary.
This year I saw a huge increase of normals in Belgium. Breeders bought them in the Netherlands and sell the youngsters as pure breeds. And yes I bought some of them. So far they correspond to the descriptions of Walter Buller. Even the eggs have the right size. (they are fertile yiehaaa).
I'm pretty sure these normals will find their way to other countries soon.
One thing i have found, if one has a little hybridisation in a normal/wild, and since kakariki breed all yr round (right condition a batch of chicks fledge every 8 to 11 weeks) It doesnt take long to have that breeding line show no sign of hybridisation because it becomes so dilute. Espec if in the early stages of breeding out any off spring that show such genes are culled.
I would imagine to a lesser extent the same would happen to mutations.
A note on that.
If one has a pond of none coloured (wild colour )gold fish, or even a garden full of freshas of none wild colours, if left alone eventually they will all return back to the wild colour with very few if any of the mutations.
So if someone was real serious about devaloping a wild colour line like Mr Oosterkamp in Europe, or a breeder in NZ where pure breed was very rare, its not hard to do over a short period of time.
If the orginal stock was around 50/50 split hybrid, it will take years..From my own limited experiance, it is far easierto simply cull such a line, but when one has a couple lines that show no hybridiastion, and a few more that have slight, a couple generations and one gets a consistant no sign.
The 3 pair I have been breeding non stop for 4 yrs, each pair producing over 130 healthy adult birds, one of those pair ..the male was from a line of orginal hybrid.....none of the off spring have shown any sign of hybridisation, to me indicates a 0% to 0.74% hybridisation.
The problem now is the healty adults and the number of chicks hatching per batch is down to 2 to 4, out of 4 to 6 eggs..before 6 to 9 eggs with a 80 to 85% eggs to healty adult ratio.
I suposs it would be interesting to hear Mr Oosterkamp's comments on the above observations...compare notes. _________________ My Spelling is Not Incorrect...It's 'Creative'
thx for your inputs
this is Mr. Oosterkamp's website http://www.rjovogels.nl/
Do you know if he speaks English and wether he would be interested in joining us and explaining his experiences with kakariki?
Talking about this.... does anybody know about Peter Wauben? It's been a long time he doesn't post on the forum, and last 2 e-mails he didn't reply. I wonder if he's simply busy for this period of time.
To be honest, during the last 2 years I have almost not visited any wholesalers. I have visited the bird market in Braga, about 1hr from my town, but the kakariki available were not good enough to include in my breeding. The salers at that market buy in bulk from NL and Belgium. Once in a while you can find a nice bird in those batches.
Maybe one day in the future I visit the bird market in Porto.
The problem now is that Portugal is going through a very tough period in terms of economy so the bird business is very very slow. And birds are a hobby after all.
But I think if the average quality in Belgium and NL improves, then the imported birds will also be better down the road.
Peter, congratulations on the eggs, keep us informed on your achievements.
Steps, it's interesting what you mention of when you allow free-breeding the tendency is to move back to the wildtype.
This conversation was held also like 2-3 yrs ago in a Spanish budgie forum. Someone raised this question of "what do you think about releasing a few english budgies in an aviary and let them breed freely, what would be the outcome after a few generations?"
And some of them guessed that the trend would be to go back to the small aussie budgie. The discussion of course was a bit more complex than that and some of them explained the reasoning, very much the same as you say now. _________________ AD ASTRA PER ASPERA
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And some of them guessed that the trend would be to go back to the small aussie budgie.
If u ever have a chance to see wild budgies in the wild, it is the captive birds that are small in compareson, noticably so.
Even thu we let our birds sellect their own pairs, we do select who they will select from... unless when we where experimenting with everything from all blood lines to see if bothers sisters, parents even from different generations prefered them or those from different lines....definately they could tell...which I believe has something to do with the crown shape/colour or even ultra violet shades in the crown. _________________ My Spelling is Not Incorrect...It's 'Creative'
Steps, what do you mean, that the wild budgie is bigger than the average australian budgie what we keep in captivity? (australian budgie is the small format, english budgie the big show format) _________________ AD ASTRA PER ASPERA
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So if someone was real serious about devaloping a wild colour line like Mr Oosterkamp in Europe, or a breeder in NZ where pure breed was very rare, its not hard to do over a short period of time.
If the orginal stock was around 50/50 split hybrid, it will take years..From my own limited experiance, it is far easierto simply cull such a line, but when one has a couple lines that show no hybridiastion, and a few more that have slight, a couple generations and one gets a consistant no sign.
I suposs it would be interesting to hear Mr Oosterkamp's comments on the above observations...compare notes.
To my knowledge he never made an effort concerning selection. He's just starting to breed with the wild colors that he found. Apparently they were easy to find in his region. I therefore ask myself why this was so, while 100 km further it was difficult to find a decent one. Probably the answer must be sought in the nearby Zwolle. This place is the annual attraction for thousands of bird enthusiasts. Birds from all over Europe are traded there. Perhaps it is because this way the Kakariki has begun his resurrection.
Really interesting thread guys. From my comletely amateurish viewpoint. Is any history in EU of yellow headed kakarikis known? I found a pet shop in the south of the uk selling some nice looking birds but i have no idea who bred them, we bought one for breeding stock, to match with our other birds. Occasionally i found people selling nice yellow headed kakarikis but its a struggle and hard going, most people don't even know its a separate species.
My breeding attempts at getting pure yellow headed kaks, are completely amatuerish but a lot of fun...
I see what we do trying to select whatever characteristics something like completing a puzzle. For me it's fun and rewarding. And it's a hobby after all, we are all amateurs here.
In my humble opinion the best thing you can do regarding purchasing birds is buying only birds that will improve somehow what you already have. I prefer continuing breeding related birds, rather than introducing new blood of inferior quality.
I understand your 'frustration', breeding such rare species is not an easy task and as you correctly say most people do not even know there are 2 separate species.
I'm a bit reluctant to breed yellow fronts because here in Spain they are really really difficult to come by, and so far only another fellow breeder has expressed me specific interest in them.
Most people that contact me for red fronts looks for a pair, so if I wanted to breed yellow fronts I would need at least 2-3 pairs to be able to provide a breeding pair to any potential buyer.
Last february I was in Zwolle and I saw a reasonable amount of yellow fronts. I was expecting to see more red fronts, but I think maybe with the new gezoomd mutation yellw fronts are becming more popular.
Zwolle for me was a bit disappointing but maybe this year was the exception or maybe some of the best kakariki were sold very early. We could not make it during the wholesalers period, and I think the best birds are gone by the time the doors open for the regular visitors.
Twice it happened to me and my friend that we were buying cockatiels, but we were hesitating, and someone stepped in and made an offer. The pace of the market is incredibly fast.
I didn't buy yellow fronts because most of them had pied markings and in general I didn't find them of very good quality. I prefered to wait for another chance.
Nevertheless I expected to see more kakariki. Maybe the problem this year is that exhibitors were not allowed to use transport crates and only cages were allowed, so probably exhibitors gave priority to the expensive birds, as space was restricted.
On the other hand Rob Opbergen also told me that recently the kakariki market was slower and in fact he downsized. Maybe this 'downturn' is only happening in Netherlands.
Peter, Harrie's project is amusing, I came across it around 2 yrs ago. There is also a group of Danish breeders doing a similar project http://www.natur-undulater.dk/
I have a fascination for budgies, my girlfriend has a pet budgie, the guy is a rock star. Now I have 2 pairs of green budgies, my idea is to progress into breeding a wildtype, but that's still a far goal. I wanted to start small, and then if I like them continue, rather than starting with too many pairs.
In cockatiels lately there is also a fashion of breeding pure wildcolor, but the format is huge, a lot bigger than the wild cockatiel. The typical pet cockatiel weighs around 80-90gr, and an European 'show' cockatiel weighs 110-120gr, and the feather is longer. Some breeders are even reaching 130gr.
For me it's a bit funny, as I'm not a big fan of the English budgie, but in cockatiels I like the bigger the better, but keeping the shape/format of the original cockatiel to some extent. _________________ AD ASTRA PER ASPERA
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The history of Yellow Crowns is slightly different. The first one was presented in 1865 in the London Zoo. The first breeding success dates back to 1872 and is in the name of H. Fiedler from Zagreb (Croatia).
It seems that in contrast to the Red fronted Kakariki they have always been present in Holland. According to Harrie Van Der Linden they were called 'Golden heads' until the 1960's.
Nowadays they are less present in comparison with the Red fronted Kakariki.
If you are looking for decent Yellow crowns to add to your breeding stock I recommend to visit this website http://www.geelvoorhoofdkakariki.nl/
In the 'kwekers' section you will find a list of breeders.
Occasionally i found people selling nice yellow headed kakarikis but its a struggle and hard going, most people don't even know its a separate species.
My breeding attempts at getting pure yellow headed kaks, are completely amatuerish but a lot of fun...
ive seen quite a few obvious hybrids about but i have seen quite a few adverts for yellow crowned in wales....but i dont know how pure they are. Also try the Parrot society hobby breaders sales at stafford... i went last autumn i wasnt looking for kakarikis... but of course i noticed them and yes... there were a few people selling good yellow crowned and quite a lot more good red crowned than i expected.
i too am enjoying reading this thread.... guys _________________ May........
Hi May, yes we got our original two some years ago at Stafford, but when they bred it was clear they where hybrids, ( more obvious in some of the chicks than the parents). Since then we've picked up the odd bird here and there which looked 'more pure' and had chicks with little ( im hesitant to say no) signs of hybridisation, and weve sold on most of our original birds as pets, so now we have about 12 birds which look 'sort of ok'. Hope to start breeding them again in spring when i have more time so thanks for the tip about wales, ill have a look in the ads. We are short of a nice wild coloured female.
to add to the budgie subject, here in australia at the moment breeders are keeping the true bush budgie or shell parrot. this bird is only18cm including 9 to 10 cm tail !!!! they are very small birds. I find it hard to believe the english budgie could ever be bred back to this bird and to its true colour. At the moment in central australia wild budgies have bred in their millions. A good article on them in Australian bird keeper mag latest issue. The wild type budgie makes great avairy subjects. totally different bird compared to what most of the members outside of oz are seeing and believe to be the true budgie.
to our community. Buller mentioned indeed only light brown legs but at the same time he mentioned a strong variability in color depth of the feathers. Birds with dark legs have a deeper green color. So probably the dark legs are a natural variation.
I must admit I give more preference for such birds. Like the one in your avatar. Is it yours?
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and yes... there were a few people selling good yellow crowned and quite a lot more good red crowned than i expected.
guys
to our community. Buller mentioned indeed only light brown legs but at the same time he mentioned a strong variability in color depth of the feathers. Birds with dark legs have a deeper green color. So probably the dark legs are a natural variation.
