With the breeding season over and a fresh crop of youngsters on the floor, there is a great deal of added pressure on loft space. This is a critical time, with the moult starting and the birds being more crowded than usual there is a great deal of extra stress on your birds. Disease outbreak and poor quality feather development can easily result at this time of year with disastrous results due to overcrowding. There are things you can do to lower the risk of these things happening. Disposing of surplus birds before this happens becomes a priority. Sick, weak or unhealthy birds must be the first to go - immediately. Break up your breeding pairs early so you do not have late youngsters. These late birds take longer to mature and in most cases are not as strong when the cold weather comes and end up using floor space which your earlier hatched potential show birds need to develop properly. Breeding late also puts added stress on your breeders and if they get run down feeding youngsters late in the season they will not moult well or at best be slow to finish and run a higher risk of getting sick. Get rid of surplus breeders or breeders that you know you are done with at the end of the breeding season to make room for the babies. I usually keep a list of people that have requested birds and at the end of the breeding season I will phone them to let them know what breeders I have available and ship them out as soon as possible before the moult begins. I will only ship birds before or after the moult. I never ship birds which are moulting. This is a very stressful time for the birds and the person receiving them wants and expects to see a bird in good condition upon arrival. Breeding birds which have proven to be poor breeders are not sold but are disposed of. Once birds reach four years of age and are still in my loft they are also on the top of my for sale list regardless of quality with very few exceptions. There are not always sales for the birds you want to get rid of however they may still be very valuable as breeders. You may want to consider farming such birds out to a fellow fancier. Old cockbirds take up the most space and cannot be mixed with babies so make sure you get rid of as many of them as you can prior to the start of the moult. Thinning out your new crop of youngsters is not as easy a task. Even after breeding Jacobins for as long as I have been I am still not entirely comfortable culling babies before the moult because they change so much. Young birds with deformities or physical defects can be culled right from the nest when they appear. There are however certain faults which you can see in the young Jacobin at an early age that may justify culling. The easiest is markings. Depending upon what stage you are at in the development of your family of Jacobins you may or may not want to keep mismarks. Even as recently as Five years ago I would tolerate the odd mismark in my Jacobins because when mated to a well marked bird only a very small number of the babies would be mismarks. Now however I have enough decent birds that are well marked that I do not keep mismarked babies. I do not consider a bird with a small spot on its head or a bull eye to be a serious mismark, that would be foolish. As long as you are aware of it and mate up the bird to another that will correct the fault. I do consider birds with several coloured tail feathers or flight feathers or with a large spot on the head to be a much more serious fault and I do cull out these babies as soon as possible. Young Jacobins that have poor station are also birds I consider culling early. These are birds that crouch and just cannot or will not stand tall. Also young Jacobins that are very thick and short in the body, and have short necks are also obvious at a fairly young age and can be culled to make room. As I have said many times before the Jacobin Standard states " strictly slender, stressing slimness " and " long and shapely, tapering gradually to the tail ". A young Jacobin will only get bigger and coarser with age so these can be culled fairly early. Some things that you should not cull for before the moult are feather features including length, thickness, feather texture and colour intensity. All of these features can improve with the moult. In closing keep your birds thinned out as much as possible, provide a good high protein diet during the moult, keep your loft clean and dry and give your birds as much space as possible with extra perches if need be. Treat your birds early to get rid of lice, mites and worms. By doing these things your birds should remain healthy and have a good moult.
Clint Robertson Email: barj@mts.net
