We spent considerable time and effort in an attempt to get the absolute best stock to start our aviary. We tried to be very discriminating, and with the help of a few very special breeders, we started with outstanding, unrelated breeders. Our goal was to acquire at least two unrelated pairs of every Quaker color mutation available in the United States.
When we purchased Scott Doak’s Exotic Flock breeding stock in late 2005, we increased our breeding stock to 56 pairs. We added his 2 Blue and split Blue pairs, 2 Pallid (Dark-Eyed Cinnamon) pairs, 3 pairs that produce Pallid Blues (Dark-Eyed Cinnamon Blues), 2 pairs that produce Cinnamon Blues (Red-Eyed Cinnamon Blues), his original pair of visual and split Lutinos, 2 pairs of Lutino and Greens, a pair working towards combining the Pallid and Cinnamon traits, and his pair of Greens, as well as the birds he had held back for future breeding.
Each and every one is big, healthy, beautifully feathered and is proven to be free of Polyoma, PBFD and Chlamydia before being allowed into the aviary. Their health is maintained by Dr. Paul Welch DVM, MS. He is located in Tulsa, OK. Board Avian Certified, he is th eprimary avian vet for all Oklahoma Zoos. Because our aviary is completely closed, it is easy to keep it disease free. We quarantine each new bird for 60 days before introducing it into our aviary.
We made a concerted effort to obtain birds that were as unrelated as possible from breeders, whom we know emply reasonable breeding practices and for out-crossing frequently, Scott Doak, Bob Nelson, Brenda Piper, Christine McDonald, Ben Liverman, and others. Though with relatively new mutations, such as ours, all birds are more related than their wild counterparts. We have taken special care to make sure that no bird is paired with a bird from the same aviary or bloodline. We used Avian Biotech to DNA sequence them and specifically determine their relatedness to ensure safe pairings. In the case of our Dark-eyed Yellows, we determined that they were closely related; therefore, we out-crossed our Dark-eyed Yellows to produce stronger bloodlines of this mutation, and so that we can offer stronger, more viable pairs.
Our Blue lines, Pallid (Dark-Eyed Cinnamon) lines, Pallid Blue (Dark-Eyed Cinnamon Blue) lines, Cinnamon and CinnamonBlue (Red-eyed) lines, and Lutino lines, and now our Fallow lines, are all safely out-crossed so that we can offer unrelated pairs for interested breeders.
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