Talking Birds March 2017 Preview

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$4 parrots, finches, budgies, canaries, pets, fancy poultry & pigeons, veterinary advice, Aust.& world news, conservation March 2017

Preparation, knowhow must for incubation, hand raising

Falcons get seats on planes

New blood Lovebird Budgie good for behaviour flecking canaries examined problems

Gouldians Screamer now easy problems to breed fixed

Orange bellied parrots

Exquisite red-front macaws

THIS MONTH IN YOUR MAGAZINE Australasian feathered news in brief 3 Avian vet directory 17 Aviary Marketplace 25 Budgies: Flecking, cinnamon problems 13 Canaries: Time to bring in new blood 11 Club and avian vet listings 27 Duck killer cops restraining order 21 Falcons have airline seats 21 Fancy poultry: Black birds a hit in US 23 Fancy poultry: Turkeys need help 14 Finches: Gouldians now much easier 12 Forthcoming events 26

Iknowledge AM the first to admit that my of chooks and turkeys is limited, even though there are numerous chooks of various varieties here as well as a sole female turkey which lays every year and is given an egg to hatch.

Last year she raised a guinea fowl and this year she is doting on a peafowl chick.

I was interested to hear that garden guru and budgie expert Don Burke had come up with a new chook variety and that fancy poultry writer Megg Miller, who publishes Australasian Poultry magazine, this month chose to write about turkeys, which apparently are on the decline.

They are both very interesting articles even if, like me, chooks and turkeys aren’t your thing.

■ FLECKING DRAMA: Flecking in exhibition budgies is a huge problem and this month Fred Wright explains what that is all about and how it can be overcome.

From what I can work out it’s quite complicated and involves cinnamon birds as well.

I found it intriguing.

■ NEW BLOOD: Anyone who is serious about breeding canaries is aware of the need to bring in new blood in order to introduce specific elements. This month Jeff Leaney explains all.

EDITORIAL & ADVERTISING Lloyd Marshall Telephone.............................03 5983 2566 Email................. lloyd@talkingbirds.com.au Website .............www.talkingbirds.com.au PO Box 216 Balnarring VIC 3926 Australia DEADLINES FOR ADVERTISING BOOKINGS AND COPY April 2017 edition Display advertisements..............March 18 Aviary marketplace ....................March 25 SUBSCRIPTIONS Subscriptions to Talking Birds, which cost $4 a month anywhere in the world, can be arranged by filling out the subscription form on the final page of this edition and sending it together with the appropriate payment or credit card details. The form can also be found at www.talking birds.com.au COPYRIGHT Copyright for all editorial copy and photographs published in Talking Birds remains with the author or photographer and cannot be reproduced in any media without the author s/photographer s permission.

Geese get stuck into mangoes 20 Health: Human dental work for birds 16 International feathered news in brief 4 Long flight for plenty of sex 23 Magpie geese get into mangoes 20 Oldest albatross has anther chick 4 Parrots: Blue-throat macaw s new site 24 Parrots: Captive-bred orange-bellies 18-19 Parrots: Lovebird behaviour examined 20 Parrots: Preparation, knowledge vital 6-7 Parrots: Red-fronted macaws not easy 10 Pet birds: Screaming problems fixed 15

the blue box ■ GOULDIANS EASY: Canberra wasn’t the best place in the world to keep Gouldians when I was a youngster and the people who did well kept them in fully enclosed aviaries, some of them heated.

Those finches have come a long way since then and these days they are almost classed as birds for beginners.

John Buchan has a close look at them this month.

■ HAND RAISING: Former prime minister Malcolm Fraser said life wasn’t meant to be easy and that can definitely be the case for anyone attempting to hand raise any parrot species.

This month parrot expert Bob Philpot advocates preparedness and knowlege as the two critical areas for successful incubation and raising those little critters.

■ DENTAL CONNECTION: Birds’ beaks can break for myriad reasons and repairing them is a task best undertaken by a qualified avian vet.

Respected Melbourne avian vet Phil Sacks this month addresses that subject, where human dental methods are often used.

As always this edition has something for everyone. I hope you enjoy it.

— Lloyd Marshall

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Chooks able to produce eggs of any species The next step will be to transA RADICAL plan hatched to maintain diversity of the poultry gene plant follicles from rare birds into pool proposes use of genetically mod- the surrogate — that is done before the surrogate chick is hatched from ified chooks as surrogate mothers.

The true value of rare breeds, ac- its own egg — meaning it would go cording to a team of scientists on to lay eggs belonging to entirely working to save them from ob- different breeds of chicken.

Given that hens would also need solescence, is not their decorative crests and plumage but the di- to be artificially inseminated with versity they bring to the poultry sperm from the same rare variety the approach may appear unnecesgene pool.

In a radical plan to preserve rare sarily convoluted.

Why not just breed the rare birds varieties such as the Nankin, Scots Dumpy and Sicilian Buttercup sci- the normal way?

The scientists’ ultimate goal is to entists at the the University of Edinburgh’s Roslin Institute have create a gene bank of chicken breeds bred genetically modified birds de- preserved for posterity and since prisigned to act as surrogates that mordial follicles can be frozen efficiently while eggs cannot the surwould be capable of laying eggs rogacy technique serves an from any poultry species. essential work-around.

Speaking to journal...the The Roslin team has ists at a Boston confersurrogates will be set up the Frozen ence Mike McGrew, Aviary, a £14m projable to lay eggs from who is leading the ect aimed at preproject, said: “These any breed including serving a wide varichickens are a first poultry s wild predecessor ety of poultry step in saving and the red junglefowl but breeds. protecting very rare “We’re interested he is doubtful about poultry breeds from in chicken because loss.” whether it will work that is the animal The surrogacy techefficiently... which is the most connique, which places a new, sumed animal on the planet mind-bending twist on the classic chicken or egg question, and we want to protect all the difinvolves first genetically engineer- ferent breeds of chickens that we have,” said Mr McGrew. ing hens to be sterile.

He predicted that the surrogates That is done by deleting a gene called DDX4 that is required for the will be able to lay eggs from any development of primordial follicles breed including poultry’s wild pre(the precursors to eggs) meaning decessor the red junglefowl but he that the surrogate hens will never is doubtful about whether it will lay eggs that are biologically their work efficiently across species — it is not likely that the surrogate own.

A batch of sterile GM chicks hat- hens will be giving birth to eagle ched at the Roslin Institute in 2016 chicks for instance.

Richard Broad, a field officer for became the first genetically modithe Rare Breeds Survival Trust, fied birds created in Europe.

“We produced a hen that doesn’t said the idea was appealing: “You have any eggs,” said Mr McGrew, can save all kinds of breeds, put who is first author on a paper on the them in a freezer and there would be a genetic ark for us,” he said. work published last month.

Heat hits flying foxes

MORE than 700 flying foxes died last month during a heatwave in the New South Wales Hunter region town of Singleton, with many corpses hanging from trees.

The mass death at the Burdekin Park colony peaked as temperatures hit 47C, Wildlife Aid Inc bat co-ordinator Jaala Presland said.

“We had half a dozen brought in on Friday evening. Saturday we knew the temperatures were looking high again and we had 80 come in, and the death was sort of starting to tally,” Ms Presland said.

ODD SPOT Some bats were found lifeless hanging from trees while others littered the grounds of the town’s central park.

“The death toll is currently sitting around 700, that’s just from the park and very close surrounding areas,” Ms Presland said.

“They come in and we need to rehydrate as quickly as possible, their bodies need to be cooled down relatively slowly so they don’t go into shock and then we transfer them out to different care groups.”

COVER: CARNABY S COCKATOOS WITH WESTERN ROSELLA. PHOTO: BOB PHILPOT. SEE: PREPARATION HELPS BUT KNOWLEDGE IS CRITICAL PAGES 6-7.

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