Great Lakes Avicultural Society (10/18/2003) - MI
Judge: Roland Dubuc
Exhibitors: 8
Entries: 51

Judge's Comments:

Once again it was a great pleasure to judge the show for the Great Lakes Avicultural Society. It is still the only show that I have ever judged that houses its judges in a Bed and Breakfast. What a treat!

The Love Bird division was a major with 51 birds. Overall the birds were of very good quality. The rare section had only one bird and very nice Abyssinian male, but the bird was just too small to advance in the top 10.

The Fischer's faired much better with a total of 14 birds exhibited. I laughed when I saw the numbers, saying to the audience "I guess you knew I was coming." We had six normal green Type I. A couple of the birds did not have good color, some dark shading in the cheeks and not enough orange on the head. The dilutes were also not of the top quality. The color on the wings was not even. One young dilute green was good but not exceptional. The blues lacked clear cheeks and good head color. The top bird, a normal green, went on to place 2nd overall in the show. The second placed normal made it in the top 10 as well.

No masked were shown.

Green peachfaced has a total of 8 birds. Once again I have found the normal green section of the peachfaced to be a bit disappointing. The size we used to have has simply disappeared. The normals were of good color but lacking in size, as was the lutino and the opalines. I am not surprised to see this in the opalines but the other birds should not be so small. In our scale of points these birds get an overall score of 15 points for "size". None of the birds in my opinion got this total. So the best most of them could do before even going up for top benchwas start with a score of at best 90 and any other fault would lower that score even further. The best of the 3 green opalines won the section. It was slightly larger than the other two shows but even with that in mind in my mind it could not place very high on the top bench. It eventually make it to 9th place. At any other major show it would not place.

The blue peachfaced had 11 birds. Once again what I always thought was the strongest section of any love bird show had many weak birds. Size again was lacking in most of the birds. An American dilute blue was by far the exception. For a mutation which generally lacks in size this bird was very good, it went on to place 3rd in the show and the whitefaced blue which had very good color went on to 5th place. I should note also that there was one blue opaline shown which had the best color I have ever seen in a blue, but once again the lack of size was a factor in its not advancing.

The green pied had only 2 birds but one in normal green pied with >30% yellow was very good size and placed 4th overall. The blue pied section also had 2 birds and this time a whitefaced blue pied won the section and went on to 8th overall.

The American cinnamon section had only one entry, a whitefaced blue, which did not advance. The Australian cinnamon section had three birds. Two young and not well trained. The adult bird, a medium seagreen, was quite nice and placed 6th overall.

The violet section had 6 birds. These birds had great size and color. The best bird was an exceptional whitefaced violet. It had a perfect white face and white forehead. One of the cleanest and whitest I have seen in years. The bird also had very good size and went on to win the show. Barb Theeke should be congratulated on raising such a beautiful bird. Those of you showing should be happy there is not Nationals this year. I think this bird would have given all of you a run for your money. The second place bird, a normal violet went on to 7th place.

The longfeathered section had a green bird show. This one we discussed at length. The bird was OK in size but for a longfeather I found it to be too small. The birds should be huge, not just good size. Some in the audience claimed that other judges told them only these intermediates could win. I explained that even in the new official handbook we have not been able to get all the peachfaced sections yet. But, the term best longfeathered will indeed be given to the larger birds. How about feather quality on these birds? Was the next question. I explained that the birds I saw in Europe and so far the birds we have raised ourselves have had very good size. If you work with your birds and do your job correctly there is no reason why these big birds can not have good feather texture and a sleek appearance. I went on to explain that my fear more than anything was the fact that many of the breeders were taking large imported longfeathered birds and mixing them indiscriminately with their good normal stock assuming they were going to get all intermediates. This is not the case, I would suggest to the exhibitors and to those not in attendance that they read up on the genetics of the longfeathered birds and see what the true results are.

I had two champions exhibited also. The better of the two birds was a dark green American cinnamon. It is indeed a great bird. Good size, good deportment but the day I saw it is simply did not have great feather condition. It was almsot as if the feathers had not been preened enough. The second best chamption was an opaline. Again as with the other opalines in the show the bird was really too small. In fact I mentioned to the exhibitor after the show, I could not believe the bird was a champion. It suprised me that the bird had ever won a show and I would doubt it would make it to grand champion even though it had enough points.