DONALD SKINNER-REID recalls an eventful year where he learned to manage more than one breed of canary, and made a breakthrough with his Scots fancies on the show bench
CANARIES
THE Scots Fancy Canary Specialist Club (SFCSC) requires novices to show as such for the first five show seasons. There seems to be good reason behind this. It’ll take you five seasons to breed birds that are recognisably your own bloodline. It’s also a good “apprenticeship” period, although I think that I will always be a novice at heart, because I learn new things every year.
In 2014 I acquired a pair of Norwich canaries. Their breeder said they were self-rearing. He spoke the truth. I reared eight in 2015 and 13 in 2016. I use these as feeders for my Belgian canaries.
In 2015 I acquired a stock of Belgian canaries and brought a pair, plus a white one, back from Belgium, where I had exhibited at the Gouden Ring Show for the second time but attended in person for the first time. Just to make my life even more complicated, I bought two pairs of Giboso Espanol from Bo Pawlyszyn.
This story is from the September 6, 2017 edition of Cage & Aviary Birds.
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This story is from the September 6, 2017 edition of Cage & Aviary Birds.
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