Canis lupus hominis

Conformation showing has dramatically changed the budgerigar. The two birds on the left are show budgies, while the other is a pet-type bird. Show budgies are significantly larger than their wild and pet-type counterparts. They also possess more puffy feathers on the head, which make their eyes look smaller.

When I was a kid, I used to love to go to the local pet store and watch their vast colony of budgies. They were sold as “parakeets,” which is technically correct. Budgies are parakeets, but they are only one of many species of parakeet.

At different times, the store would stock budgies that were quite different from the normal pet stock it normally carried. These birds were massive in comparison. They also had so many profuse feathers on their heads that their eyes and beaks seemed tiny compared to the more typical pet birds.

I asked one of the employees at the store what these birds were and I was told that these were rejects from a breeder who was producing budgies for showing purposes.  I thought it was a bit strange, but a few months later, I bought a book by Matthew Vriends on how to breed budgies.  In those days, I was a bit of a genetics freak, having declared myself a professional hamster breeder, so I was interested in finding out how bird breeders selected for color in their stock.  The book cost only 5 bucks, so I thought it would be a good read.

I was amazed to find that there was a show standard for budgerigars.

I thought it would be hard to selectively breed these birds. After all, didn’t they mate for life?  Didn’t they have extremely mercurial mate preferences?

Well, no, it turns out.  Humans can selectively breed budgies, and they will usually accept whatever mate they are given. They go very nicely with the philosophy of “Love the one you’re with.”

There was discussion about colony breeding budgies or breeding them in pairs in separate cages. Colony breeding seemed easier. These birds breed in small colonies in the wild, and if one wants to produce, it’s better to replicate the wild situation. However, it’s harder to selectively breed in captive colonies. Budgies, though they appear to be monogamous, are very happy to engage in hanky-panky.

But one can get budgies to breed in a single pair cage, and that allows one to have greater control over which bird breeds to which bird.

Budgies are a relatively new domesticate.

In the wild, they travel around Australia as nomadic foragers. If conditions are right, they will form gigantic flocks that are more like the avian equivalent of locust swarms. They were only known to the West in 1805, but extensive breeding of budgies in captivity traces to only the 1850’s.

It wasn’t until 1925 that some budgie breeders in England decided to form a specialist club to promote budgie shows. The Budgerigar Club, as it came to be known, was founded at the Grand National Show at the Crystal Palace, and its first bench show was put on the following year in conjunction with the Grand National.

And the budgie as a show animal has changed dramatically from its wild ancestor. It’s not as severe as we’ve seen with certain dog breeds, but it is a change that is quite significant.

In the United States, there are feral populations if budgie.  They aren’t particularly numerous, but there are places where once can find them. I believe the largest population of these birds can be found in Southern Florida, which is already full of things that shouldn’t be there– several species of iguana, Burmese and African rock pythons, and spectacled caimans are just a few of them.

But I don’t think these show animals would last long in the wild.  It generally accepted that they aren’t nearly as hardy as the pet-type birds, and their average lifespans are much shorter. A pet line budgie can live over 15 years, but the show birds typically live only 7 to 9 years.

Not an unfamiliar story, eh?

I have no idea how much inbreeding goes on with show budgies. My guess is it is pretty extensive, for it is pretty hard to fix so many esoteric traits in a bird like this without very tight breeding.

Compared to dog breeding, there isn’t as much breeding for extremes. Indeed, they are far less extreme than what one will find in show pigeons or show chickens.

But competitive breeding for shows has dramatically changed the budgie.

It didn’t take very long either.