Abstract
For those aviculturists who are
mutation fanciers, a very interesting
letter was received by the Watchbird
magazine editors in response to Tom
and Karen Nemerovsky's article on
their recent achievement towards two
different mutations of the Quaker
Parakeet (August/ September 1992).
john Connan from South Africa has
produced a mutation similar to the
Nemerovsky's cinnamon Quaker, only
his appears to have a darker base
coloration. He calls this mutation a
cinnamon. Mr. Connan has gone one
step further and crossed his mutation
with a blue Quaker and the new double
mutation is indeed beautiful. The
following is an excerpt from his letter
that also includes some avicultural
techniques in breeding this species.
Dale R. Thompson, editor
. . . I bought some b lue and split
Quake r Pa rakeets in 1988. In their
second season with me, a chick was
hatched with red or amber eyes. On
feathering, the bird turned out to be a
light yellow bird with a lime green tint.
It was even yellower on the belly and
very light on the thmat. The flights
were light brown. This brought me to
the conclusion that there was a fair
chance that the bird was in fact a cinnamon!
And it appeared to be a hen.
On this assumption, I mated this
youngster to an unrelated blue cock
bird. My assumption that it was a hen
proved correct. This pair successfully
produced a green cock split to blue
and also split to - dare r hope -
cinnamon!
In the meantime, the original pair
(split cock and blue hen) was successful
again and produced two red-eyed
cinnamon chicks. Cock parent bird
was mated to a blue hen and this time
produced two red-eyed cinnamon
chicks, both hens split to blue. Where
the hen from the first pairing had a
66% chance of being split to blue, I
now had two definitely split to blue
cinnamon hens .
My next step was to take the double
split cock bred out of the first cinnamon
and mate him to one of the cinnamon
split to blue hens. Both had
been bred away for one generation,
which to me is acceptable genetically
speaking.
In the very next nest of five eggs,
four chicks hatched with red eyes.
Two had a yellowish down and two
had the smoky down similar to that of
a blue chick. I could scarcely contain
myself while waiting for the feathers
to break through. Eventually, bingo,
two light blue chicks," with brown
flights - cinnamonblue.
The birds are quite exquisite, a
lovely soft powder blue with light gray
underbelly and almost white throat. I
have not had them sexed as I do not
feel the slight risk necessary. They will
show me their sex by their actions
before the time I want to mate them
for the coming season. I find the
majority are prepared to breed at one
year of age.
I breed them in a cockatiel type of
nest box, giving them a few bits of
dried alfalfa stalks to stimulate the
breeding hormones. Their normal
colony-type of stick nest is unsightly
and unsuitable, as it is virtually impossible
to do any type of nest inspection.
This aspect is very important to me as
one must know what is happening in
the nest!
John M. Connan
Marydale, South Africae
Thank you from
Matthew Vriends
I would like very much to thank the
literally hundreds of bird friends who
showered me with get-well wishes
and flowers (my hospital room looked
like a flower shop in less than two
days!) during my six-day stay in Jewish
Hospital of Cincinnati after triple
bypass heart surgery in February of
this year. My heartfelt thanks (from
indeed a heart now well repaired!) go
to my wife Lucia and daughter Tanya,
who were with me all the time, also
my brother Cornelius, who came all
the way from Holland, and assisted us
for over a month! Thanks, brother!
I further like to extend my thanks
and appreciation to my surgeon Dr.
Victor Schmelzer, and my cardiologist
Dr. Donald L. Wayne, who were (and
still are!) brilliant and caring, and who
became good friends overnight. I
thank and highly endorse the efficiency
of all the some 60 or so people
from the Jewish Hospital in Cincinnati
that may have served me during my
hospitalization - they all were
extremely competent, caring, and
well-trained to carry their function!
I am particularly appreciative to the
dozens upon dozens of you who
prayed for me and showed so much
concern, especially (just to name a
few) my publisher Barroa's and his
editor and my friend, Don Reis,
Michele Earle-Bridges, my illustrator,
and my good friends and colleagues
of LIM Animal Farms. Thanks for the
many who visited while I was in the
hospital (especially Mr. and Mrs. Rob
Kaegi and Dr. Rob Dahlhausen), and
to those who made (often many) telephone
calls to me, in particular Marge
Maguire and husband, of Capital district
Cage Bird Club, Albany- and
while you may not have found me
always overly effervescent, and full of
conversation (especially the first few
days!), remember that a talk could
create a cough, and a cough can be
compared to having a baby. Let me
explain: the most important item
given to me after surgery was a little
red, heart-shaped foam pillow. I was
told that when I got ready to cough (I
had to cough every other hour!), hold
it over your chest and squeeze. It was
not necessary to tell me twice, the
squeezing part I mean. We all have
heard women talk about childbirth,
and I would challenge a pain tolerence
test for the delivery of a baby,
and the price of a cough. Of course,
during the operation the chest bone
was sawed in two, the chest opened
with expanding devices, the heart
placed in ice, a heart/lung machine
attached to do the function of the
heart, while the repairs are made to
the heart. The heart then is placed
back and the chest cavity sewn
together again and wired; consequently
the slightest movement
resulted in very noticeable pain, but
when it was time to cough or to
sneeze the pain was multiplied a
hundredfold!
Thank God, it is all over. I'm doing
excellently, am up and about, and full
of joie de vivre! So, again, my dear
friends, I would like to thank all of
you for your kind support and attention!
God bless you all!
Matthew M. Vriends
Pleasant Plain, Ohio •
David . .. We'll Miss You
by Mike DeSart, Oregon
We'll miss your good advice freely
given to anyone you thought needed
help and your offers to help others in
need. We'll miss your contributions to
aviculture such as starting the Inglebrook
Cage Company and running it
for many years. We'll miss your articles
and letters in bird magazines and
your thank you notes or calls when
something was done for you. We'll
miss your presence at many of the
bird functions in our area, as well as
up and down the west coast. We'll
miss your concern for the many problem
birds you took in and cared for
that others had given up on or
couldn't financially take care of. We'll
miss your calls for help with some
information you had misplaced or forgotten
such as a phone number or
how to get from one place to another
in the city, yet you could call a great
many of your 200 or so birds by name.
David, the one word that best starts
to describe you is congenial, but it
takes what follows just to try and finish
your description: an aviculturist, a
photographer, an entrepreneur, a
businessman, a proud man, a salesman,
a gentle man, a promoter, a
good friend, and most of all ... a man
who loved his birds and cared for
them to the best of his ability.