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Dominant pied budgerigars

Roy Stringer Interviews Brian Sweeting

For Cage & Aviary: March 2004

Introduction

Brian Sweeting has won best young bird in show twelve times and best in show five times with dominant pied budgerigars.

In 2002, his late bred 2001 cinnamon light green pied cock surpassed everything that had gone before. This bird alone won four best in show awards, eight best champion any age awards and thirteen challenge certificates (CCs). Its show season culminated at the Budgerigar Society World Championships where it took the awards for best champion any age, a Challenge Certificate and best pied in show.

There can be little doubt that it is one of the most successful dominant pieds of all time. The fact that the only ones likely to match its record are those bred by the late Eric Lane, in the 1980s, is no coincidence.

Brian was first attracted to dominant pieds by their beautiful markings and distinctive colours, enhanced by the pureness of the white and yellow variegation on their wings and bodies.

It then occurred to him that it would be nice to see a ‘pretty budgie’ winning the top awards at major shows and this aspiration became almost an obsession. To this end he has followed a policy, year after year, of pairing pieds with his very best normals.

Almost all of Brain Sweeting’s initial stock was acquired, in 1986, from Ken Spraggs, a successful champion and outstanding stockman, located in the south west of England. Ken was a great help to Brian in his early days in the hobby.

In 1987 Brian returned to him to buy one or two good outcrosses and saw the most beautiful skyblue dominant pied in the sales cage. Needless to say it was the highest priced bird there, but Brian swallowed hard and bought it. It had been bred from Eric Lane & Son’s stock. In its first breeding season it sired several youngsters that won major awards for him during what was only his second year in the hobby.

At the time, the Lanes were breeding the best pieds in the UK and Brian was delighted to have a bird from their bloodline. As he wanted to develop a stud of top quality dominant pieds, all the chicks bred from the Spraggs cock were retained. Many of the initial bird acquired from Ken Spraggs were from Lane bloodlines and these were paired with the pied’s youngsters.

Among the youngsters from the original cock was an outstanding skyblue pied that won many best young bird awards. At the World Championships it won a young bird challenge certificate and was well placed in the beginner young bird section line up.

The following year it produced seventeen chicks in three rounds. Seven of them were pieds. Its nest mates, cocks and hens, also bred very well and 17 years later, every pied in the Sweeting stud can be traced back to that original winning skyblue pied.

However, after a few years of line breeding, Brian noticed that the proportion of pieds bred was diminishing year by year. He found that he could overcome this problem by the regular introduction of new blood into the family.

Within two years of acquiring his first pied, Brian Sweeting had notched up notable wins, but he still needed to win best young bird in show or, better still, best in show to fulfil his pied ambition. Nine year’ later, in 1996, his young grey pied was best young bird in show at Worcester BS.

This cock went on to win the CC and best pied in show at the World Championships, that year. In 1998, the same bird won him his first best in show award at the open championship show at Bristol in 1998.Brian Sweeting had achieved his ambition – and since then has achieved much, much more.

Banded pieds

When Brian first became interested in dominant pieds it was quite common to see banded examples, with a distinct band of variegation around their chests. It saddens him that these are now seldom seen – although he accepts some of the responsibility for their demise.

Dominant pieds that carry a significant degree of variegation on their bodies are prone to have that variegation run up into their faces, so obliterating one or more of their mask spots. Brian has concluded that, these days, judges are likely to place a fully-spotted pied budgerigar of lesser overall quality, in front of a well-marked pied that has a spot or two wiped out by its variegation. He says that his striving to breed dominant pieds that have full sets of spots has diminished the possibility of producing banded pieds in his stud.