Les Rance, Editor, The Parrot Society UK |
www.theparrotsocietyuk.org
|
les.rance@
INTRODUCT A
s I write this introduction in mid- May 2019 I am mindful of the effects of our recent weather for breeders attempting to breed in aviaries. In February the weather was very kind to us with temperatures some days of 14C which continued for so long that it brought some of my hens into breeding condition and egg production started. Sadly the majority of eggs were not fertile and temperatures in both March and April fell back. My 2018 bred young Budgerigars that I had been wintering indoors were only placed in their breeding aviaries on 5th May as I thought that up until then it was too cold for them, so they will be later breeders this year. However, hopefully there will be far fewer infertile eggs and therefore it might not turn out too badly at the end of the day. Believe it or not, it is now over two years since the up-listing of African Grey parrots that had been added to Annex ‘A’ of CITES on 4th February 2017 and we are still advising people on what is required from DEFRA to ensure that all Greys that are sold have the correct Article 10 papers. If you are thinking of buying an African Grey you must ensure it comes with the yellow CITES documentation, it is an offence
04 BIRD SCENE
to buy a Grey if it is not correctly licenced. At this time last year we were still experiencing Avian Flu and the whole country was classified as a Protection zone, but fortunately this did not affect Sales Days of hobbyist breeding stock. It seems that chickens, ducks, geese and swans are the birds most at risk from contracting Avian Flu. Dare I mention Brexit? At this time last year I wrote ‘What is starting to interest us is the affects that Brexit will have on bird keepers and the possibility that quarantine will be re-imposed on birds coming from mainland Europe. This would make quite a difference for companies who import birds for the pet industry as at the present time, as far as I am aware, there are no functioning quarantine stations for birds in the UK. These facilities can be quite expensive to both build and maintain and therefore anyone thinking of building one will obviously think very carefully before they go down that route. This may well mean a dire shortage of stock for the pet trade.’ Really at the time of writing this Introduction on 15th May 2019 nothing is any clearer!
In this edition of Bird Scene we are
very pleased to have three excellent articles, the first being on the breeding
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