Brian Keenan’s Yorkshire Canaries – A Canary Room special

Champion exhibitor, panel judge and author Brian Keenan opens his birdroom for a special extended episode of the show. Packed full of advice and tips a must watch for canary lovers of any variety

[Applause] oh dear welcome everybody uh welcome welcome welcome to another special episode of the canary room we’re on the road um we’re on the road actually it’s the closest on the road I’ve ever done because this man lives a mere Stones Throw well TW 14 14 Milestone you need

To be Tess Anderson the G it’s it’s not that far it is of course the wonderful Brian Keenan now this is a show which is 25 years in the making although the canary room hasn’t been going for 25 years but that is how long I’ve known this chap when you were clean

Shav M yeah when I had when I had a waist a waistline and and no facial hair there are pictures somewhere I’ve got a picture I might I might add the picture on yeah we’ve got some at Old Swan yeah we have we have that’s where we first

Met we met at Liverpool old Swan Cage Bird Society back in back in the 1900s 1800s we were we were both a lot younger less wise than we are now but look we’ve got a fabulous fabulous fabulous episode installed for you and Brian is going to share his knowledge which is

Considerable of the bird that he loves which is the Yorkshire Canary um so lots to look at we’re in his bird room I’ve been here numerous times before um it is always a treat it’s always good to spend time in Bri’s company so look you know what to do everyone grab yourself a

Cuper and look here’s here’s my and BR and here’s mine and Bri’s got his as well we’ve got double cers going on grab yourself a coer canary cups as well indeed yeah nothing missed here and enjoy the show Cheers Cheers so ladies and gents we’re in um we’re in Bri’s room which is um it do you know what Bri it’s thought it’s a thoughtful room isn’t it so when you when you think about the room here you’ve got it’s bathed in natural light um in fact there is no artificial

Lighting in here doesn’t exist I don’t have it no um so what there is is a rather large Skylight and which is reflecting off my beautiful fringe and and then you’ve got the two windows at the front and the interesting thing which struck me when I when when it came

In and and like all of us like many bird Keepers by it’s fair to say you’re a tinkerer aren’t you when it comes to the the time all the time my room is like painting the fourth Bridge it never never stops so but talk about the

Shed I built this the year that the Old National um closed down 2003 yeah so 20 years 20 years exactly in that case we’ll have to have a party of the cake 21 21 it’s it’s 21st year 20 2024 is special now it is beer as well

Then so it’s a block built room um it’s lined and it’s insulated so it’s a solid upd room it used to be a flat roof and it used to extend right to the outside so it was 24t um I soon found that the wind came in across that corner so that’s why I

Separated the uh the room made it smaller in one respects but I’ve kept the draft out and draft for canaras is no use so that’s that was practical um lesson number one if you like on a darker D winter day I didn’t really have enough and I used to have

Lighting and everything else but I didn’t have enough natural light because it’s only side windows there only the two so that’s when the Bops went in and our good friend John Hughes he came along and did the business he’s like a little monkey Up on the Roof sorry John

If you’re watching John he means that with great affection yeah not a gorilla or a monkey um but he helped me out with that and and it’s been it’s been a godsend so I have enough natural lights that they’re now getting what 7:00 in the morning till 6:00 at night it’s what

Early March yeah they’ll be ready to go in the next fortnite or so which for me is I normally go into April but the birds are fit and when we come on to talking about food and the management I’ll talk to you a little bit more about

That and why they’re ahead where they would normally be but but the evolution of the bird room and the cages is the next one cuz I had cages down here right in the far end I had oh FL to ceiling wall to wall flights and my sun mik had some foreign

Birds the quiet ones that don’t sh and don’t eat the shed to Pieces books parakeet and little quail and tiny little finches and they all live there until he got fed up with it and then I got me shed back so but I built fitted in cages and

I built them in Wood changed that after a short time into upvc and that was great I then got the idea that I like um a grill so I had to adapt the cages and I had them around this wall and that wall but I was limited to 60 or so cages

Um I couldn’t use that because of the windows and in time um they developed some decent fire cages which means I can get the light through and still use that back wall so that was that was why they are there I liked the fact that they had

Grills and I could use that for the youngsters it doesn’t hurt the bird’s feet but they couldn’t get to the stale food yes so to change these cages so this is the second Incarnation if you like of me built-in cages yeah and and I’ve got grills there made out of cake stands

Which work this this man is a this man is an absolute genius in the um resourceful I’m going to call it Bri resourceful resourceful so yeah cage Grills made of cake stands we will have cake stand I’ve we got a second yeah yeah go on you you go and grab me I’ll

Talk to the camera for a minute he’s he’s not joking I’m going to have a little sip of coffee as well everyone but this is what you need he he showed me these as a as a grill um which essentially is is a cooling rack isn’t it that’s all it is yeah the

One thing that the canaries have never managed yet is they’ve not been able to bake a cake they can lay loads of eggs so I could make a cake but they’ve never done it for themselves you see that’s yores for your Bri should been not usess not practical

Whatsoever but these work yeah um and you know it’s fits an 18in cage um give or take you to snip a bar out but other than that it’s it’s a useful thing yeah having said all that i’ now I like the idea of being able to move cages about

Now so I built some more I’m halfway through them so yeah we’ll see we’ll have a little look in a second at the back wall you have and one of the interesting things about this briy is the um the the sort of the color that

Sets them off and and it it’s almost I don’t know whether we’ll pick it up on camera but it’s almost like a wood grain effect but it’s a beautiful color yeah it’s called Chartwell green um it is a very it’s like an apple blossom really

Um I like the idea of having color in the cage and whether it’s yellow blue green I like green because it’s a nice warm color um but it stops blindness uh and and white reflecting off white there’s no um there’s no rest fite for the birds so if the light’s coming in

And bouncing around the last thing you want is blind Birds yeah so that’s why I like a different color on on the the back of the cage um the one thing I don’t like about the wire cages is there is no back having said that they they do

Make one but again it’s white yeah so um I have another slightly different shade of plastic green it’s a willow instead of an apple um still in the tree family Bri well yeah well there we are but you can cut it to size and it’s a two foot and

It’ll clip behind so I can slide the slide out take the end off obviously that goes in and that keeps the rubbish inside the cage cuz at the back of the cage you don’t want to have to move the cage every time to clean out the back

The next step and I’ve got two 8 before sheets there and that will do me 16 to 20 cages quite happy with that you know that’ll be enough until breeding season yeah so here he is so that’s um that’s the room and and it you know it looks in

Good shape you’ve you’ve got a there is normally a sort of judging stand isn’t there in in the middle of the room that you can I’ve moved the stand out of the way M and you and I aren’t dainty anymore we were ones we were ones we

Were ones saying it you believe it there’s photos there are oh yeah but you can fake those now you’re know yeah but normally is a judging stand quite honestly I can raise these up they shouldn’t be on the floor but they are just for now if a Razor’s up 6

Or 8 in and I put a wooden top on there slatted yeah it would be a judging stand anyway yeah um so you know there’s another option for me so it is it’s a wonderful room it’s full of wonderful birds and uh well let’s have let’s have a little chat about them so

Bri Yorkshire now I remember first coming around here many many many years must be 20 years since oh yeah and um and they bit you still do ferocious little things but but tell me tell me about your your love of of of the Yorkshire and where did that start mate I’ve had Yorkers

Ever since I became a bird keeper and I was 8 years old 20 20 years bit longer just a little bit 73 Now Matt so that’s a long time looks good on it doesn’t he looks good on it um I used to go for Country walks we lived in a little

Village and it was open farmland and Fields and I used to go for the country walks most weekends of my parents and I was trying to sneak up on the green finches and sparrows and I never ever caught any obviously but they thought this lad’s got an interest so um my dad

Worked with a guy called Edwin Hena and uh Eddie um Eddie was a yor breeder and he was at the top of his game at that time and uh I ended up getting three birds it a trio was a white bird and two hens for a Christmas present they lived in

Well a triple breeder that my dad made and it lived in our living room I didn’t read any of that you I think they’d invented television and coal fires had gone out so it wasn’t really that bad but you [Applause] know um but from that this also got an

Interest so I helped my dad build it was a little 8ot by 6ot wooden shed it would have taken him a quarter of the time who hadn’t helped but that became my birdroom um and it it housed me bike and me Cricket gear and me fishing gear and footballs and you

Name it as well as the birds yeah but um my hobby Grew From there uh so much so but there was an indoor flight it was a half flight so from ceiling down to sort of this level and I put three yor of hens and a white cck word with them and

A breed a breed 16 in one year doing what he shouldn’t do yeah Colony breeding yores yeah well that’s right and I think there was nine whites out of the 16 so you know it was okay um and i’ got cages on the back wall um we’d also

Got a few foreign finches and bits and pieces there was um red cresty cardinal and it was on a flight on the opposite side and it was mad and you couldn’t calm it down whatsoever and I was a member of ashon underline CBS Club there

And there was a budy man there um Bill Adams who was called and he was a lovely guy and he read hundreds of budges but he says I’ll show you how we calm Birds down and grab a bud and he straight into a Bo that’s what I did in those days so I

Tried it with the Cardinal didn’t work bill whatever you did for you bu just didn’t work with the foreign Birds I hope there’s a happy ending to this story and that the Cardinal was okay after that the Cardinal was fine it ended up in BW Zoo a children’s section

Wonderful where you got fed up of the foreign finches so um the curator the zoo was a member called Bill Ramsey of ashon on line c c so I went along to him Bill I’ve got these are they used to yeah bring them in so we took I don’t

Know a doen 15 and I swapped them for six wrestling tickets cuz so the birds went to the pettin zoo and went to watch I went to watch the wrestling what can you say not a great deal not a great deal so that was really

The the sort of the the yorky that was my introduction um I went from there cuz it was a strong CBS scene in those days and there were only four or five specialist clubs I mean yorkis in the Heyday had about 12 in the UK um it’s

Dropped back a little bit now but they’re still there you know some of merge and what have you but I could go I could do an Ashton I could do man Northern counties which is a strong Club Stockport was a strong club we used to show at reddish Denton they were all

Within SS of a 5 Mile Striking Distance of where we lived it was all buses and things like that take the show boxes on the bus which could do that sort of thing in those days you know Lancashire had a specialist um show um and then I’d go across to the

Ycc and I’m talking about the time I was 12 13 14 years of age you know um and you weren’t shown as um as Junior you were showing in the novice section there against people who’ve been in it for years yeah and that was my introduction

To it um places like Burton on Trent which would have an entry of 200 yores back in those days and from that grew the Midland um York club and that’s still happening now we just um expand we’re just expanding and forming a new yorking club in North Wales

Brilliant and that’s you know it’s unheard off to start and bring a new club in but there’s there’s a group of fancies that are enthusiastic and this is angle I’m talking about moris and and it’s a good base so they’re going to use the CBS Club but publicize it as a yor

Club and and and it will grow and it’ll help both them the local PES and the CBS and that’s the thing pull it all together yeah so you know it’s back to the roots and then come back refreshed with it really I think it should be a

Good thing no and I think we’ve talked for many many years you know our time together at Old Swan and then various different things about the importance of of those sort of local CBS clubs and and you know the chaps on B Maris um Richard and arwell and the rest of the lads

There are just a really really good bird Keepers and that’s that’s what you need isn’t it unfortunately there are far too few of us who are willing to to do the graph to put that thing on and put it on that’s right you I know when when I was

With Bernard Williams and when I was with um up with Donald Skinner Reed you know looking at some of their their sort of artifacts of the clubs the local clubs that were around here around the turn of the 19th century um with you know Everton and Walton and Liverpool

And district and you know there was it seemed there was a bird Club every you know in every almost but uh but those days are are sadly sadly behind us so the York’s been it’s been a it’s been a while in the making for you mate and it’s fair to say

It’s taken you it’s taken you all over the world hasn’t it with your judging it has yeah um I’m well known all over the world um the infamous Brian Keenan but they still they still invite me back but I thoroughly enjoy it and you meet so many different people from

Different walks of life but you just wouldn’t meet um and I’ve met some wonderful people in every country I’ve been to you can’t single one out and say this is better than that because cuz it isn’t they’re all bird people and they’re all Brothers really yeah and we

Have even even with language barriers we’ve got a lot uh in common and you make yourself you make yourself with sign language you make yourself known yeah yeah no absolutely I know my my first ever international trip was um was to Bologna uh and that was I remember it

Well that was with that was with you um 7 shades of pasta and I have I have great fun memories of that and of course most recently in December last year we found ourselves on a mulz adventure the pair of Us multi were great yeah I almost brought that Cannon home I was

Sing on you if you only had that hold luggage instead of just hand luggage You’ you’d have got it back but but I think that’s important isn’t it the the the birds whether it’s that your whether it’s the fight it’s those friendships that that we can build over

And you learn so much from different people because their way of doing things isn’t you know it’s not as ingrained as our way yeah Ian you do learn You’ got to go with an open mind um but I i’ taken the way that they’re feeding Colin is feeding um his canaras differently

Than than we do over here but we’ve got access to the same products yeah and you can hear the bird singing away now um and I’m not pairing early but they are ahead of where I would expect them to be yeah because I’m using that feeding method so that’s something I brought

Back from Malta and it’s working and I think that’s one of the things which is one of the things that has always impressed me about you Bri um is you do you do an you won’t say this but I will you’ve done an awful lot for the hobby

Publicity officer of the ycc you’ve you know regular ascribe to cage Birds you had Brian J Canary Pages as a website you’ve done an awful lot of of of work to sort of promote and further the hobby um which which is to your your great credit one of the things that that I

Love about you and I always have as well as your ridiculously good sense of humor and I hope you pick that up that you know you’ll watch this show and you’ll think those guys are over familiar it’s because we’ve known each other for 25 years and we’re very quite similar

Characters but one of the things that has always always impressed me has has been your willingness to um to adapt and review and look at new things and and take those things on board and you know I know in the early days when I didn’t know anything about Canary keeping you

Were very helpful to me and then as my knowledge grew I know that there were things that I’d done and you’d gone oh that sounds really good and I’ll pick that up and and and that for me that you talked about it there your open-mindedness I think that was that

Was pivotal in in the in the got to be we’ve got to be and and the reason is Nobody Does it right 100% of the time and there’s always room for improvement you don’t need to change everything when you’re look if things are going well why would you change but

You always think at the back of your mind I could do something slightly better yeah um one of the things I like to do is to give the birds what they want to eat because they will eat it yeah um one of our guys wrote on um one

Of the internet forums last year my birds are wasting an awful lot of egg food soft food I like you know what you’re right because the amount that you you do waste and throw away because it sours and all the rest of it there must be something better and I

Believe that that’s something better is is the food stuff that I found in molter um couple of products and I think you’re using them as well yeah um the powdered dry egg food is something that has definitely brought the birds forward use the breeding preparation yeah the UNIF

Feed UNIF feed breeding prep just a finger drawful and you see the bird and they’ll peck it and they’ll peck it they won’t scatter it because they know it’s all the same so if you notice myed Hoppers it’s just plain Canary little bits of of mix but probably a we fornite

Old something like that so again theyve no reason to scatter it what the uni feed does is is it it’s got enough additives and all the vitamins and protein and so forth to keep the body in the bird body in good condition they immediately the droppings

Change and you can tell if the bird’s got the squitters you know there’s something wrong these birds are doing less droppings and they’re dry yeah they’re firm they’re black and white so you can tell the well-being is there and that’s through the uni feed for the last

Well a bag I keep 60 or so Birds um that bag for me lasted 6 weeks so although it’s an expensive products I’m saving a fortune on seed and soft food yeah um the seed I’m feeding that seed Hopper once a week not every day and it used to

Be every day seeds 40 a bag yeah yeah so again I’m saving on the seed the soft food I’m not throwing away I’m saving on the I used to say I know keth Keith Keith F if he’s watching this will will concur that the the garden birds are

Some of the of bird breeders are some of the best wellfed Birds ever I’ve got some color fed sparrows coming oober nice little orange nice little orange on them brilliant brilliant stuff so I think yeah I think the the UNIF feed is is certainly something which um

You know has worked and we know you know our our good mate Chris molu um from pet Source pet Source Supply do you is is bringing it the one the one good thing about it is it’s a new product but there are already lookalikes coming along

They’re not going to be developed in the UK but they are going to be brought into the UK yeah so at the minute for it’s been here for what last two years or so un feed it’s always been hard to get a hold of Chris has made it a lot easier

Because he does keep his stocks up uh and good luck to him for that and a lot more people are buying it um but there are other products and they will be cheaper so we’ll have continuity of Supply we’ll have a choice of supply and that’s all for the good absolutely and

That’s always one of the things isn’t it and you know anyone who’s sort of thinking about changing their their sort of feeding program as as you’ve done I know we spoke at Great length in in molter with Colin and the lads over there and you know they’d seen the

Success of it um but but it is about that continuity of supply and it’s why you know people like people like Chris and and what Chris and Brad can do there and keeping that continuity of Supply is is really important that’s really important yeah and the good guys cuz if

They’ve not got it in you’ll get a phone call a couple of days later it’s in now come and get it yeah and what more can you ask yeah no good stuff let me show you something while we’re all about music go on hang on a second everyone

We’ve got he’s gone out of camera again what’s this what it’s it’s a magic jar this magic jar is my old soft food right it’s 50% Rusk it’s 50% soft food it can be anyone’s just just and then I throw in a little bit of um a little bit of

Seed and and bits and pieces dious Earth is in there and it keeps the the crop and and the gulet I would use that in the peak of breeding time twice a day right so and it makes 3/4 of this bowl in here the way you mix UNIF feed is you

Take a little bit and you put an equal amount of water to it so there’s me measuring scoop do you know what we’re going to do I’m going to I’m going to get another camera I’m going to pause it here cuz I’m get another camera so we can zoom in on this

Okay right Bri we’re back we’re back now everyone we’re back on we’ve got the we’ve got the second camera here which is uh which is picking up bry’s hands so go on sorry you were saying this this is my super Chef so I’m putting that amount

Of UNIF feed yeah and the same amount of my old mixture yeah and I’m doing that specifically to cut down the UNIF feed yeah because I don’t want the birds to be so fit that they’re ready to leave the youngsters at a fortnite yeah um and

That’s that’s a real danger yeah all you do is you put the uh you put that into the bowl you put an equal amount of of water in it and just leave it for 30 minutes yeah and you end up with a cake so you just scrape it around you’ll

See it it grow as you strap across there so you making you can see that it’s still relatively damp yeah but you can see the volume that’s coming out of it yeah I put that in just to dry it off a little bit and that’s just porridge P J Supermarket cheapest we’ve

Got and we all know what this is Pearl when they’re actually breeding I’ll also give them sprouted seed and that will go on the top of the mix once I’ve mixed it yeah so no additive nothing else just mix it away there okay smells great doesn’t it

Doesn’t it it’s a it’s a lovely mix mixture and the bir will go straight to that and that’s from three of those now I was using that to get twice that volume of used one to that much yeah in total yeah can’t go wrong so no and I think I think the you

Know when you when you look at that if I just tilt it up to the camera there you can you’ll get a little see of it yeah it smells good it looks good the most important thing is the birds eat it it sounds good sounds good because they

Sound in in really really really good fettle um you know and they they look in really good fether as well don’t they’re in good feather they’re bouncing all the way through you’ve been hearing the bir sing away yeah even the hens sing at times and I’ve known for singing hens

Unfortunately always a jooy the singing hen especially on the judging St but no this this is good um I think that the savings that you’re making from not having to buy additives the savings that you’re making on seed that you’re not throwing away uni feed is going to

Pay for itself yeah it’s twice the cost of normal egg food that will come down I’m sure it will when all the local lights come in um and as long as the quality is there then why not yeah you know it’s an Italian product the people who came from that company have already

Set up a second company at a a fra of the price which the multis are using yeah that’s the product that they’re using that the will show the were different Spanish products again the same sorts of things so they’re there you just got to get here yeah you will and they

Will one one of the things Bri which um I think is often you know the the Yorkshire is is H it’s one of the bigger types of canary um one of the things which I think can sort of put um people off at times is when it comes to keeping

Some of the bigger varieties whether that’s the Norwich whether that’s the Yorkshire or whether it’s the Border many breeders and you know iclude myself in this um are reliant on um on feeders so having a sort of almost two sets of birds in a room which can a be quite

Frustrating cuz you’ve got birds that are there just to to to sort of rear other birds for you um and you know it if I mean I I have new colors um which I use to help fear uh to to rear my I thought that’s what the fives were doing for you booger

Off we’ve had this we’ve had this joke for 25 years it doesn’t it never grows it never grows old but anyway one of the things um the first thing I said to you when I came into the room is where’s the feeders gone gone and you have created a and

This is I know this is not easy to do you have created a stud of self rearing nor self- rearing York shes of a show standard quality which is which is no mean feat so there are tricks okay so you’re right you need to work at it um there are several things several

Different factors at play the first is I have had feeders in the past I’ve never used them out and out as feeders I’ve used them as a backup so I’ve never kept 200 hens or or things like that I’ve Limited Ed it to maybe half a dozen

As peirs because two smaller birds will pump the feed into and and the orchards are growing Bird by the time it’s leaving the nest it’s just big or bigger than a mosaic anyway yeah or any of the other smaller birds it could be any other other varieties are

Available um but I’ve never used them out and out just as that they’ve just been to get me out of jail now the yores will rear and the trick with that is having them fit enough to breed in the first place and not overfit which is back to the way I’m

Feeding now and not getting them beyond that certain point because they’ll walk away from the chicks and want to lay eggs again yeah um the second thing is if you’re going to go down that route and all the oldfashioned fanciers if they were breeding Norwich they kept

Norwich yeah they may have kept borders which were a lot smaller then bigger than the five is now but they were smaller than they are than the B is they may have fostered Swit a few eggs around but it wasn’t common so they could do it

And and the old yor it people they could do it but again it was a smaller bird so you’ll find that in the in a bird room you have different types of feather you have larger birds and smaller birds it’s the smaller ones that work the larger

Ones will lay eggs some of them exceptionally will rear but they’re Never As Good As the more active shorter feathered closer feathered and hence small it’s the same frame yeah visually they look smaller yeah so I’ve got some smaller hens in here and I know that although they bred the right way they’re

Not going to produce necessarily my best Birds they may produce something so their job is to take the eggs from my better birds and they will rear my better birds will still get a go and you know my birds will lay three three nests of eggs if you like so they’ll all get

At least one Nest to rear the chick doesn’t know whether it’s been reared by its mom or a foster mom no or whether it’s been reared by a mosaic or a Yorkshire or an or it just doesn’t know but if it’s a homebred bird it’s used to your management your conditions and

That’s the trick you can you can buy a good bird a lot more easily than you can buy a good hen so you got to breed your own hens and that’s the key if you do that however you do it it’s a material yeah but you’ve got to do it

And I think that’s that that’s sort of important isn’t it I know I remember um one of the the founding fathers of of the F Canary um uh Walter lumon I remember speaking to him on the phone and he said you know um breed good hens

And and that was a sort of foundation of you didn’t ask him if there’s anything warn under the kill no I didn’t I didn’t yeah no I’ve been warned about that but um but I remember him telling me you know very very very early on about you know keeping good hens and

And and one of the things I guess Bri is when you um you know when you think about the the the the hen I want to keep calling them norch they’re not Norwich are they they y keys they y keys I think one of the important things like you say

It’s not they don’t know the young don’t know what they’re being readed by but one of the things I’ve found and I don’t know whether that you have is that the new colors are slightly flighty yeah or they can be and one of the the sort of frustrations that I’ve often had in

Using flighty feeders is that that can translate a little it almost seems to translate a little bit to The Young and the last thing you want is a flighty Yorkshire well you don’t you don’t want the young jumping the nest too early because they can’t survive may not even

Find the way back to the nest to roost of the night time um but no we need to train there’s no point having a good bird if it won’t behave itself in the show cage I had a wonderful bird this year and it’ll win its class it’ll get

And and it’s had two I’ve only shown at three shows it was second best twice it should have been best twice and it started bouncing around now I know that’s my fault because you know it behaves perfectly here yeah but it a show who it’s somewhere else let me have

A look cuz it’s fit enough to do that um I’ll live with that I don’t mind setting no no and and talking about um the the sort of the the success on the show benches it’s fair to say over the last few decades I’m not going to put a

Number on the the number of decades Bri but there you can’t count that long there’s been there’s been a few decades in which you’ve uh which you’ve you’ve kept yys you’ve um you’ve had your fair share consistently of success and for me that that speaks great volumes of the sort of

Stockmanship in that you are you’re there or thereabouts consistently year in and and year out yeah um the way I breed my birds is is perhaps different to the way other people do um I keep more birds than I need to keep and I

Keep if if I like a bird in the nest invariably I’m going to like more than one bird in that Nest now you don’t know whether the best bird is going to rear the best chicks or it could be its brother or its sister you just don’t

Know that so if you’re going to keep birds then you you’re working in families so and the other thing you don’t know is canaries die very quickly and if you just get one and I’m going to breed this bird all the way around the room that’s great in theory but lose it

Next week and you’ve lost your whole line yeah so brothers and sisters have a big part to play and equally if you if you work one bird everywhere what on Earth are you going to PIR the youngsters to cuz the coming back and the half brother half sister and next

Year you’re even more closely and all of a sudden you’ve no Vigor yeah and that’s why you need an outcross and hybrid viig so I don’t work that way I work in family groups and it may be the brother that produces the best it may be the

Sister um the bird that that was winning consistently for me this year say won two shows its brother won the third Show’s Best in Show to me it’s the worst B I’ve got in the room I’ve got eight buff coocks here but it was chosen as the best

Yorkshire I also had six best bird at that show the same show a guy came in here he says what’s that is that bird there what’s that that’s tremendous I said it’s better than the winner isn’t it he said yeah well it didn’t behave on the day

Yeah and it’s the same family and that’s the whole thing yeah and that’s often the case isn’t it with showers we know ourselves we we just just done an episode with with Gerald and one of the things he talks about is that that sort of when he’s looking at the evaluation

Of the birds he does in a stock cage oh yeah because that’s when they’re they’re s at home they’re relaxed and you can see that and that’s perfect I mean that’s why we all have show benches so you can put them in the showcas training cage to each other and that’s ideal

Because they are relaxed and as you say grab yourself a cup and and spend a day with them or whatever yeah you need to do it but when it comes down to the pairing and the breeding I I run the with two maybe three hens you all

Get a chance of that um but I don’t know which of those will go on to third hen fourth hen fifth H even you just don’t know no until the hen’s ready and they run the in they’ll mate and pull him out and his job’s done it’s as

Simple as that and I do that until he’s laid his second egg but you just don’t know is it’s is it if it your best bird it’s a show bird you’re looking at do showbirds reduce showbirds or do stock Birds show so you’ve got to think of it

A little bit canny yeah watch the feather you want good feather you want bad feather because it’s a blend and we are mixing the cake back to the food again now but we are mixing the cake yeah um and we just want the a good

Outcome at the end of it and I think that’s that’s the important thing isn’t it you know when you you look in a room of birds and you’ll look at the sort of the visual qualities of the birds you are looking at those you know a you want

Birds that that are that are as close as possible to the model B you want Birds then that mix and blend well um and you know that you know it’s not the selection process for me it’s it’s one of the most exciting things in the

Season is is the sort of the pairing up process and you know looking and then seeing the chicks come out the nest and thinking I got that one rice that that that for me is what is is what the sort of the the the the Hobby and the

Breeding is about but you talk about those component parts and within the families you’ll have those component parts that you need to keep the stud moving forward keep it moving forward you may have two or three different lines uh and we’ve all got that and and all of a sudden you’ll bring them

Together for a specific reason um I bred a lot of green birds last year and I’ve specifically got rid of a lot of them as well because I don’t want a Miner’s lamps so I can see the birds in the cages I’ve kept a few because they are a

Good vigorous bird when were’re allowed to sell abroad they want the green birds because they believe they’re a stronger healthier bird than than the clear and they are they’re Closer To Nature in that respect um but you you don’t want a whole room full of them so i’ I’ve made

A change um and I’m working more on the clear Birds line but within that line there’s going to be the similar blood yeah and and that’s that’s the that’s the trick yeah keep that same blood keep it working you need to dip into something else and get that hybrid

Bigger yeah but if it’s halfway to begin with then you know you’re more likely to get success the first time around yeah so you you you’re kind of der risking it aren’t you you’ve got you’ve often you’ve got the outcross that you need in your own room and ultimately when you’ve

Got a room which is as wonderfully appointed as this then you’ve got the you’ve got the size and you’ve got the scale lot of birds you can pair them all yeah you’ve just got to go with an open mind as to why one of the birds I was

Going to pair green to Green this year um she’s a really good hen this is her second year and I put it to a green bird P pan came over from irand he says you’re just going to breed the same I thought well yeah that’s the idea in one

Respects he said I’d pair it to the and he picked on that cck bird he said um I’d pair it to that he said because it’s different enough it’s carrying the right feather for that hen and it’s such a long bird you’re going to change them

Slightly but you know what that’s not a bad idea yeah so you’re getting both docks now round one and round two are very much taken care of and and one of the interesting things with your keys and you mentioned it about you know it being

A second year H um do you find in increasingly that the sort of the unlighted birds are um are a little bit unreliable is it still the case that you’re waiting for that second year till the till they’re flighted till they really really perform or or is that not the

Case so much anymore I used to believe that um and I’ve been taught a lesson by a novice and a new novice that you know Russell yeah um Russell’s had birds from me he’s he’s got birds from different sources not a lot of different sources and those are related sources anyway but

They’re coming together um and I’ll let him have the bird this year and it was read in June and yesterday Three Chicks hatched off this bird it’s a bird now it will have fertilized those eggs in February so it would have been 8 months old in my mind

I don’t want to pair a unless it’s 10 months because I want that fertility and I don’t want to waste a good hen on it he’s gone straight in eight months old and there’s his chicks so I’m changing my views on that that if the bird’s fit enough it’s holding enough

Yeah so it’s going to do it yeah and why shouldn’t it but again he’s using the same feed yeah they getting all that stuff and and the body is absorbing that and it’s got what it needs I think that’s got to be fit enough to breed job

Done yeah no it’s it’s it’s making making a difference in that sense and and when it comes to the sort of you know the number of birds that you’ve got in here is it fair to say I know talking to Keith he he prefers a sort of you

Know obviously he looks at the the the the feather and the pedigree and all of those things but he prefers an unlighted bird bird with a flighted bird as part of his pairings is is that something similar that you adopt in here I try to do that certainly in the first Nest yeah

It doesn’t matter whether it’s the male that’s the flighted or unlighted or the female makes no difference and I’ve kept more or less the same balance of adult hens to Young hens um I’ve maybe I’ve got one four-year-old hen and we’ll we’ll look at her afterwards when I remember which cage she’s

We’ll find her don’t worry we um a guy came in and said what do you think of that pen he says that’s a lovely unlighted hen she’s the oldest bird in the room she’s a four-year-old hen um I’ve got one two two three year olds the rest of them are last year or

This year um and they’re here on Merit yeah so the the birds that have worked anyway the birds that I want to breed from or maybe it’s an odd bird that I didn’t breathe from but I do want something from and we’ll go that way yeah one of the tricks I’ve done I’ve

Close R the birds for a number of years now and the co colors cuz we buy them through ycc yeah and we follow the co color pattern red this year red this year yeah but the numbers I can if I get 40 I’m happy but I can hold about 80

Youngsters and I consistently produce that many um my rings in year one are from not to 99 okay year two they numbered 100 to 199 and this year I’m on 500 to 599 and I do that because when I’m working my pairings out in the dark winter months

When you haven’t got time in the shed it’s only one number I’ve never got the same number in room you see you don’t need a red ring and a yellow ring and a blue ring or whatever it might be you just need a number next year I’m back to

Zero but there won’t be many this has got 0 to 99 as a six-year old bird or seveny old then yeah no so yeah that’s a little trick absolutely wonderful wonderful stuff we’ve we’ve gone to um we’ve gone to the other side of the room everyone just just a just to change

Sceny just change and one of the interesting things actually is that right on top of these gauges here and the birds are still steady as anything I’m I’m slightly concerned the one behind me is going to bite me he’s coming to the bath now just lean

Back listen I’m not as tasty as UNIF feed um so um we we’ve just been just been having a little giggle off camera um but you’re some of the pairings we’re going to talk about a couple of a couple of pairings that you’ll you’ll put together this year and and we’ll have a

Look at those birds as as we’re talking um through the magic of editing um um but one of the pairs you were saying which is a pair to uh or be sort of straight behind us we’ve got a a buff coock and a yellow and those are

Those are the birds that did well for you on the show bench and you’re going to put the parents I am it’s something I don’t normally do um I I like a pair but I thought I would then change it because the youngsters all I like them I’m going

To improve them um but because I pair to more than one partner and it’s the that that I work on more than the hen in that respect generally speaking anyway um but obviously I’ve had two birds I’ve shown at three shows I’ve had two second bests and the best

Out of two brothers um yeah I’ve got to go with that pair again yeah yeah and the father um was was a clear buff it was a stock bird but a big strong too much much better on him so the hen I used complimented him was a similar line

So it was coming down the same way but again she was a slender much more Sleek better feathered Bird good leg good drive you don’t see that in New York at this time of year cuz they’re all pulling themselves out just because too fit but that was the pair and I got I

Think seven off and over the two nests the hen laid eggs all over the cage uh I picked them up and gave them to another yor mother y not even the Mosaic cuz they were busy um but yeah I hope she she can find the nest this time she even a go anyway

Fingers crossed she does find the nest and then looking at the lads behind us there’s a there’s a yellow well this is the yellow that that won um second best at two shows and that’s one of the sons yeah um the buff coock above him was best at the our winter show and

That’s uh the second Nest brother this is the uncle it’s the the full Brothers to the father yeah so again there’s another cup there which is the full brother to those two winning Birds there’s another one here that’s another full brother to the two winning birds so

I have a lot of that line um I think i’ I’ve got nine birds all that carrying that that same blood yeah um this is one of them this is last year’s unlighted again very late bread I didn’t I didn’t um I didn’t pair it up last

Year because again it was July August red so he never got a chance yeah but I’ve held on to him um and I’m going to use that bird and see where he comes tremendous um leg he tapers down that’s one thing you don’t get in in in in a

Buff coock normally that carrot shape and driving down but he does it yeah so you know that’s what we’re going to go for and see where we get fantastic and then the hens is is it sort of on this side of the room hens on the

Other so the hens are sort of the have got you know really nice size cages the hens are in doubles at the moment as well give them it’s a three it’s a three foot double for the hen it’s a twoot single for the for the bird there I

Can pull slides on that and make it um a larger cage so you can join these cages together plastic cages um and these can can go in one 5 m strip or 4 M strip whatever it is so I’ve got plenty of uh light space this is the um the hen that

Was the sorry off shot there but I’m back everyone he’s back everyone he is wandering around his room Alan wicker over here doing his travels I like to see the birds you know I get open and close listen let me talk to you about the wonders of this technology you

Talk about the birds I’ll film it in a minute fil I’m getting the hang of it you are you are yeah we’re nearly the end of the episode everyone it’s just about got it so there’s a there’s a hen over there a variegated yellow hen yeah variegated

Yellow hen she’s the mother of the of the good bird so that’s the same pair yeah um that that we’ll try and I don’t think she’ll get a different partner because she’s produced the goods with that one yeah um I don’t think I’ve got I’ve got one that that might do the job

But it would be a slight risk you know yeah and and real you know realistically you don’t you don’t need to take that risk do your I don’t I don’t with that particular hen no she’s not a wonderful you know I wouldn’t show her she’s not

That sort of a bird but she suits the partner yeah you know she’s long she’s the right feather everything that I need I’ve got a sister to her um so that will go to the second buff coock so it’s the same pairing but the sister hen and and

The brother is like so we’re doubling up that Way now what what hasn’t gone unnoticed as we come towards today’s episode is that Bri’s got his little check shirt number on especially especially for you man especially for the occas you’re the only one in the world who’s got check sh I’ve gone I’ve gone small check today

Everyone and Bri before we wrap up today um what one of the things that uh that really impressed me when I when I filmed the ycc show um uh year before last I think it was now um was the um the respect the is the gentleman of the

Fancy and the the sort of the fanciers at the show were very very much the sort of the the gentleman of of the Hobby and you know there was a lot of congratulations there was there was no um it it was a lovely it was a lovely atmosphere and and and that’s that’s

Important isn’t it for the Yorkshire to continue it very important that yeah I mean most of the people in that room have known each other for a good number of years and and that’s what you get at the specialist Club so you’re going You’re competing with friends yeah um

And if you win one day and I win the next we’re not going to fall out over that that that’s great that’s that’s part of the hobby it makes it go around um there are some people who don’t you know go without they want to win all the

Time but there’s few and far between yeah we’re we’re all competitive animals to a degree but you keep birds not to win on the show bench you keep birds cuz you like the birds yeah and it’s here in your room where you see the best of them

And it’s here where you spend more time with them as well so there’s no point in falling out with someone at the show no no back home and enjoy it yeah absolutely and and that that’s the key and for anyone who um is is thinking about Yorkers if today has given you a

Taste of Yorkers then you know it’s important isn’t it the ycc um which has it’s on Facebook it’s on Facebook it’s also on uh it’s got its own website got its own website with with a new website we’re about to launch um within the next

Few months or so um and it will be a good professional website the other one was you know built in in the infancy of websites and it’s not been updated for several years because we knew we’ve got something better coming um yes we’ve got Facebook um you need to manage Facebook

Um you need codes of conduct and we’ve not put that together yet but we will yeah um because you know Facebook’s great if it’s used correctly absolutely I think it you know as an envir for promoting the hobby it can be great but it relies on on people Common Sense yes

Common Sense good good common sense and the final thing before we go um there’s two things that I’m I’m observing in the room one I can see at least two white Yorkers yep yep three Al together I can’t see the other one but I I’ll on

The floor I said it I said at least two he’s off again Alan wi’s off again and back what I can’t see Bri is any cinnamon no I haven’t had cinnamon for years right um it’s difficult to get a good cinnamon and the reason for that is the feather quality

Of the cinnamon it’s a finer feather so it doesn’t lie it lies very well you get a lovely quality bird but you tend to get a Slimmer if you like more elegant but perhaps a little bit finchy faed because it’s not got the bolt behind it cuz the feather dep the texture is

Different um I will get some cinnamon at some point but I’ve not had it for 20 or so years I use green birds and variegated Birds to control the feather in that respect yeah um but it works you know one day I’ll get cinnamon back I like a cinnamon himself yeah not there

Today no good stuff well listen it’s been as always pleasure an absolute pleasure to spend time don’t wait another 25 years man come again yeah I I get a feeling I get a feeling when this episode goes out that um that it will attract an awful lot of of views

From from this country and from far and if you are interested in in Yorkshire you will find out more um from the ycc um Bri it’s always a pleasure to spend time in your company whether that’s in a bar or in a football ground in a football ground or in a birds room

Thank you for your your generosity and your time um and and as always you know doing everything that you can to promote this fantastic hobby so much appreciate very much loved it ah bless you rise everyone if you haven’t subscribed to the channel why not why on Earth

Wouldn’t you want more of this in your life um from Mr Keenan and from I good night from me and it’s good night from him good Night