Friday Youth Exhibitors Qualify for $1000 Scholarship Competition

The first birds in each division judged are the youth birds which are identified with a youth ribbon on the the right hand side of the cage. The judge selected the best youth bird from their division that will go forward on Saturday for the $1000 scholarship competition. Judges explain their reasons and share helpful hints on exhibiting birds with the youth exhibitors.

Peachfaced Lovebird Judge Frank Horan discusses the merits of the 13 youth peachfaced lovebird exhibits. Nicholas, a peachfaced lovebird breeder, although he qualified this year for the first time for NCBS youth competition, he is an experienced breeder and exhibitor having bred and competed already for four years at local shows in Texas since second grade!

After the youth division representative is selected, the youth ribbons are removed and all of the youth birds are placed in the regular division competition.

Youth exhibitors, Shane far right and Miles wearing the Tulsa Club Blue Show Worker Identification Apron, listen intently to Finch & Softbill Judge Armando Lee go over the 17 youth entries in his division. Miles was an active show worker always busy with helping steward in that division or working at any odd job where he was needed!


Parrot Judge, Phil Ryan discusses the 13 youth exhibits in his division. Youth exhibitors, Alexandra far right and Miles far left listen to his comments.

Three exhibitors Evan, Miles, and Yelenda competed in the Fife division competition while Yelenda was the only entry in the Gloster division. Yelenda was the winner of the fife and gloster youth division.

The youth division winners, identified by their youth ribbons, were displayed on the same table as the Higgins winners. The youth division plaque to be awarded to the youth division winner on Saturday was also displayed behind the youth entries.


The parrot youth division winner, selected from 13 youth entries, put on quite a show bearing all to any who would stop a moment to check him out! Congratulations Alexandra!


The youth division peachfaced lovebird winner has a beautiful face and great demeanor! Congratulations Nicholas!


Although I took multiple shots the finch winner was so active that I could not get a good shot of it! Congratulations Shane! It was a lovely bird and like the gloster, parrot and lovebird youth winners placed well in their division competitions! I also somehow failed to get a picture of the cockatiel youth winner, sorry Miles but Congratulations on your winning bird!

A total of six youth exhibitors exhibited fifty birds at the NCBS Show! On Saturday the six judges with youth entries independently ranked the birds in the $1000 scholarship competition and the results of their composite rankings awarded the finch entry the $1000 Scholarship! Congratulations Shane!!! A Special Thank You to Higgins Premium Pet Foods for sponsoring the $1000 Youth Scholarship Award!!

Second place was the Gloster, Congratulations Yelenda and third place went to the Peachfaced Lovebird, Congratulations Nicholas! Each of the top three winners, announced at the banquet, received a medal similar to the Olympics medals and Bird Talk also awarded them magazine subscriptions. Thanks Bird Talk!!

Each year, I am impressed by our youth competitors! They are really into their birds. Their main concern is for their birds well-being during the show and learning to be a better breeders.

Yelenda, who won both the fife and gloster division and second place in the youth division, has written a approximately seventy page book on caring for canaries which I was privileged to read and comment on its content after the youth meeting on Thursday night. It is well-written and very informative and I would highly recommend it for canary breeders! Yelenda, put me on your list to purchase your book as soon as it is available!!

We can all be proud of these young people who will be part of the future of our Show of Shows!!

Selected Photos - Thursday National Cage Bird Show

As a 2009 NCBS member, I received my national catalog in the mail. I ordered my show tags in advance and got a low check-out number (28) and made plans to take birds to the show.

Thursday morning, my bird buddy Doyle Johnson arrived at my aviary at 6 AM Thursday and added my 40 show birds to his well-loaded van and we started the three hour drive to Tulsa!


His son, Austin was cheerful and kept the birds company as they were loaded all around him!

We arrived just in time for me to take my turn with other board members from 12 to 2 at the membership table where I collected memberships dues and sold booster buttons. Good thing my daughter had fed me a full breakfast at 5 AM as I was too busy for lunch!

I proceeded to get my birds ready for entry, grabbed a salad in the lobby with extra chicken taken from inside the chicken sandwich, attended the speciality meeting at 4, board meeting at 5, attended the Stafford Meeting, and finally made it to Henry Vela's well-attended National Colorbred reception. This was the first but I am sure it will become an annual event, way to go Henry!!


Stafford President Rudy Diehl conducted the club annual business meeting Thursday evening including coming up with clubs three judge recommendations, in order of preference, for next years show. These recommendations will be presented Saturday at the NCBS annual membership meeting.

Branch Perches

When I was at the Minnesota show, I bought five sets of these perches. Not wanting to carry them on the plane, Mike Nichols boxed them up and sent them to me. Thanks Mike!!

The perches fit all my cages and the birds are enjoying perching on the various size branches. With the washer on the outside of the cage and the second washer on the inside and fastening the nut, the branches are very secure.

I think it would be fairly easy to make these. I look forward to shopping at the National and seeing what new jewels I can find!

Roller Training Update

Last Friday, I finally caged up three more teams. The richer mix of canary, rape, hemp and petamine got the birds singing a full song. The four that did not sing were fed the Bird of Paradise mix of wheat germ oil and vitamin coated seed and the following day two of the four were singing a full song.. The other two must have fooled me into thinking they were males!! So back in the aviary they went.

The temperature high average for now is 54 degrees. Yesterday, however, a snow storm came in and the high was freezing. I felt sorry for the birds and put them in their cabinets back in the aviary just for warmth. Will bring them out only for singing today and probably can put them back in the garage on Wednesday. That is calling it fairly close as I am riding down to Tulsa with Doyle very early Thursday morning for National!

Today, I will make final adjustments to the teams so that the best are together. I start with brothers and half brothers and then place by the quality of the flutes sang so that likes are with likes. I will also likely need a couple more birds to make up any vacancies so I can either try the thin young cocks that I haven't caged up yet or a couple of old ones. The old ones will sing easily and quickly in the time I have left, I will give them BOP seed just because of the short time.

Thin cocks let you down but if I decide to use them, I will give them BOP seed right up to competition as they are high risk to go silent if they lose some of the rare fat they do have. With the BOP seed, I know I can get them singing in 24 hours providing they are cocks!!

Often in the past, I have used about three different tutors. Each time the young birds sing, a tutor was placed in the center of the stack. First I tutored hollow roll and flute tours then great hollow bell and add water or schokel the day before the competition. I add these at the extra just to get points need to win on our scale which gives variety birds the edge. This year, I decided to evaluate more on the genetics of what they are bringing instead of having the genetic information clouded by what they had learned. I need information more than trophies!

I will bring some of the BOP seed with me to national so if anyone needs to give their birds a song stimulus, let me know. Anyone want to try it on another kind of song bird or make up a team that is singing poorly or maybe a recall team? So far what I fed on one day produced results the next morning!!

Getting My German Rollers Ready For National

Last Monday when I got back from the Toronto Roller Show, I caged up seven sets of my German rollers for the first time.



The first 24 hours in the roller show cage the cages are out in the open in the aviary. Only natural light coming from the sky lights and windows light the room. Normally, I would be using just rape and canary seed with bread but after the first day of hearing them start and stop and not being developed in song, I made a mix of canary, rape, hemp and petamine. I also feed them bread.

On Tuesday last week, the German rollers were moved to cabinets are in my garage and a dimmer light was used to darken them down. The dimmer is set to come on at 7 AM and go off at 5:30 PM. Natural lighting was on 7:09 to 5:21 PM when the birds were moved to the garage. For the first 24 hours in the cabinets, the door are wide open and then gradually closed each day till they are open about 1/2 inch.

Once a day I stack each team in bright light and give them five minutes to start singing. If a bird sings, they get to stay out for a total of ten minutes. The next day to stay out ten minutes, two birds must sing. Just like other animal training, I up the requirements each day for the reward. Cabinet doors were open as this picture was taken within 24 hours of moving them to the garage.

Hamilton Roller Show

Peter, the roller show manager, did an excellent job of running the show!


Cabinets full of German Rollers. Thirty one teams competed.




Score sheet


Tour specials awarded to individual birds.






Notice how they are stacked in a zig zag fashion and a paper is placed on top. In the US, the stacking is straight rather than zig zag.

Last weekend, I judged the Hamilton Roller Show in Canada. Having planned this trip for the last two years, I was really looking forward to hearing their birds!

Unfortunately, for the last two weeks, I have been suffering from a chest cold and so I was not feeling very well as I traveled to the show. However, their is nothing I can think of that would make me feel better than listening to rollers!! And sure enough I set and scored and enjoyed the birds for two full days!!

Select Shots Hamilton Roller Canary Show

Faye and Doris

Jake and Jashua in the holding area shared with American Singers.

Camera man, Farid shows David the recordings he made during the judging.


After the judging, I gave a seminar and responded to questions.