John Mulley 2025

In this edition of Fancier in Focus, we speak with a long-time South Australian exhibitor, judge and researcher whose passion for budgerigars has been shaped by both family and science. From helping with his father’s birds in Camden, NSW, to building aviaries under the family cubby house and pursuing a professional career in genetics, this fancier has spent decades thinking deeply about how budgerigar breeding, animal welfare and 21st-century science intersect.

In his own words, he shares how he started, how his setup has evolved, and his thoughts on the future of the hobby.

What sparked your interest in budgies and the hobby?

Dad worked long hours as a newsagent in Camden, NSW, so I helped with his budgies. Then, many years later after moving to Adelaide in 1978, I caught one at the back door. I enclosed the area under the balcony of the kids’ double-storey cubby house to serve as the first aviary and the budgies shared that area with Bugsy the rabbit.

A hobby involving genetics became a natural extension of professional life, with that journey starting out in animal genetics at The University of Sydney then finishing in human molecular genetics at SA Pathology, with University of Adelaide affiliations with the School of Genetics and Biomedical Sciences and with the School of Paediatrics and Reproductive Health.

That background has prompted articles in budgerigar magazines to translate 21st-century science across to the hobby. Examples of that include such things as the genetic architecture for flecking, how mutations in the gene that encodes yellow pigment determine the five colours, and how mutations affecting melanin define the various varieties.

How long have you been in the hobby?

Exhibition budgerigars have been an interest, some might say a passion, for more than 30 years. The exhibition aspect started for me at the end of 1992 when a breeder in Adelaide had a sell-out, which I accidentally found out about from an advert in the weekend newspaper before I even knew there were show budgies and budgie clubs.

The beauty of the massive clear-headed Opalines with their opalescence and clear mantles amazed me. I attended the auction and bought two Opaline cock birds for $20 each because that was all the cash I had in my pocket. I named the light green Garfield and the sky blue Odie.

Soon after that, at my first club meeting, a member entertained us with his Clearwings. They were tiny compared with the Opalines, and the Clearwings of today, but what hooked me was the purity of their yellow and white wings against their contrasting body colour. So, I started with Clearwings virtually from day one of my club journey.

The way I started with Black Eyed Selfs not long after was accidental. I assembled nine pairs to begin with from all over the place (not recommended) to fill my nine cages. After eight pairings I was left with a Normal Light Green and a beautiful Normal Double Factor Golden Faced Violet, so believe it or not I put them together. Of the chicks that popped out, two of them looked a lot like Black Eyed Yellows.

Describe your setup and how many breeding cages you have and use during your breeding season.

The setup evolved very slowly, and without air conditioning the breeding season revolves around climate and the ring issue dates. Family always came first, and the job demanded long hours, so the budgies came third. Ultimately, I have ended up with 50 breeding cages used during the second half of each year.

After December it’s too hot and dry and the birds go into their autumn moult from late March through April until early May, much to our frustration because the national show is held a month too early for us. I now need to start cutting back on the number of cages, but the challenge is deciding which varieties to stop breeding.

What is your current exhibiting status and which club do you represent?

I have been an Open breeder for about 25 years and exhibit for the North East Budgerigar Society. I bred my way into Open, rather than buying it, which gave me valuable experience managing budgies before moving on to the better ones.

I was also a founding member of another club in those early years, aiming to lure new members into the hobby and provide them with access to cheap birds. That club morphed into dissuading members from making birds available for selection for the national show, so naturally we then parted company.

Recently I also joined the Port Pirie Budgerigar Society, being old enough now to have been invited to act as their club Patron. Both the North East Budgerigar Society and the Port Pirie Budgerigar Society structure their shows according to the ANBC Matrix.

What do you like about your club?

The North East Budgerigar Society has always strongly supported the state body, and South Australia’s participation at the nationals, as does the Port Pirie Budgerigar Society. We all benefit socially from face-to-face contact with people from a cross section of the community, and that is what the club provides.

Prior to that, cricket and fishing clubs gave me the same exposure to interesting characters, as did my two years in the army.

What varieties do you keep and what is your favourite?

As a judge it’s mandatory to have had a go at breeding as many varieties as practical to gain a fuller appreciation of their nuances. And I have had fun doing that. Conversely, to do well with a particular variety I know it’s necessary to breed numbers, so that has been my undoing. Over the years as a SA bird carer, I tended to take on varieties where we struggled as a state to fill the SA team.

I don’t have a single favourite variety but confess that Clearwings and Black Eyed Selfs have been bred more seriously than the others, and Crested were taken on as the ultimate challenge. I also like Normals, especially the Yellow Faced, Golden Faced and White Capped colour variations.

Despite the handicap of breeding too many varieties, I have had a few Grand Champions at club shows, but not lately. Others have improved faster than I have.

What are your recommendations for anyone wanting to progress in the hobby?

I would say get involved with the club, volunteer to steward at shows, latch on to a few experienced breeders to visit their aviaries, talk to anyone and don’t take sides or throw rocks, and don’t chase instant success by throwing money around until knowing how to manage the expensive birds.

Take time to develop skills as a “stockman”, an old-fashioned term to describe skills in animal breeding, and in my mind “stockman” was never a term reserved for men. Using all of that as a basis, gradually improve your birds each year by bringing in missing bits of the puzzle according to your budget.

What is your favourite moment or time in the hobby?

When the national show was held in Adelaide in 2000 at the Morphettville racecourse, I was on the registration desk some distance from the judging but could watch proceedings with one eye on a nearby monitor. An impressive Opaline Cinnamonwing Light Green in the Opaline AOSV class sat in first place for most of the time. I had one of those in the class and wished mine could have been up there somewhere near him.

When judging concluded I was suddenly approached with congratulatory tidings because that first bird turned out to be mine!

Another highlight was my first national judging appointment, having taken the plunge to seek national accreditation late in life. I took the plunge when nominations were called at a BCSA meeting while still on a high from the administration of a general anaesthetic a few hours earlier for extraction of wisdom teeth.

Seriously, it was a great honour judging the Covid-restricted nationals at Victor Harbor alongside Stephen Mow, Peter Thurn and Scott Eriksen.

Which birdroom would you like to visit, either in Australia or overseas, or both?

It’s good to see other aviaries because you never know when you might see something useful that you hadn’t thought of and could use yourself. I have mostly only visited local aviaries, apart from the occasional aviary visit associated with national shows.

I have travelled a lot, both professionally and privately, and have a life outside of budgerigars so when travelling have always been more interested as a tourist in seeing scenery and the people, with budgies further from my mind.

However, I couldn’t resist seeing birds of all types at the amazing Jurong Bird Park in Singapore, the incredible Bird Life Park in Queenstown in New Zealand and partaking of the unbelievable bird-watching experience at Vigur Island in Iceland where I took a brilliant photo of a puffin feeding its chicks.

What bird do you think was the best you have bred, and why?

Neither were national winners. I bred an outstanding Black Eyed Yellow about 15 years ago that I had high hopes for, but it only came third at the nationals, for a very good reason. It went straight to the lead until the judges noticed a red eye on the other side of the head. Nothing gets past Alan Rowe.

It had travelled to the show in the same compartment as one of my Clearwing hens. They had a disagreement somewhere between Adelaide and Canberra and the Black Eye ended up being a red-eye half-sider.

Another was the best Clearwing I have ever bred but, with a red 2024 ring, could not be considered for the nationals because I was invited to officiate in Cairns.

How have you developed your bloodlines?

I don’t buy a lot of birds, though I bought a few this year as I had neglected the Normals and realised that I no longer had enough to outcross to the lesser varieties to keep them competitive.

To maintain wing clarity in Clearwings I bred mainly Clearwing to Clearwing over the years. To avoid green suffusion and keep the yellow in Black Eyed Yellows I bred mainly Black Eye to Black Eye over the years.

Two problems emerged from that. I didn’t develop depth of mask and feather as much as I should have by not using superior outcrosses, and I lost fertility by inbreeding for too long without outcrossing. So, I am now part way through rescue mode for these two varieties and am now having to live with some green suffusion in the Black Eyed Yellows and some wing markings in the Clearwings as the downside of outcrossing. A lot of my birds in all varieties are related.

What is your aviary setup and how has it evolved over the years?

Nothing fancy here, but ultimately functional. The outside aviary is large, giving access to natural sunlight and the external wire extensions allow exposure to rain if the birds want it, and most of them do.

The breeding room is not as large as I’d like. I began with a couple of wire cages hung on the wire near Bugsy the rabbit, then expanded into a garden shed, then a larger garden shed, then a shed bigger than a garden shed, then I extended into the area between the “bigger shed” and the aviaries. I am handy enough to build what is necessary myself. A recent visitor from South Queensland described the breeding room setup as compact.

I use wire breeding cages to simulate a flock environment. To clean them at the end of the breeding season, I wait for a storm, and then they are spread across the back lawn which might even require a hosing down after the storm passes.

If I was starting again tomorrow it would be a lot different knowing what I now know, but that would involve a bigger block and moving further away from the CBD. Therein lies the problem as I see it for recruiting new members within the CBD, with so much so-called urban infill now happening all around us, even in my street.

What is your feeding regime?

Nothing fancy here either. The basic seed mix is 50% canary, 25% white millet and 25% Jap millet, sometimes with a dish of hulled oats or sunflower seed, and silver beet when it’s not too hot to grow it, corn on the cob stuck on a nail when in season, and branches of old man saltbush that I grow for them to chew on. I have plenty of chickweed growing wild in the winter.

It’s a different story in the breeding room. With chicks in the nest, one needs to feed their feather, and it doesn’t matter how each of us does that, so long as we do it. I soak overnight in tap water equal parts of triticale, feed oats, large parrot mix and a dash of mung bean, with a dash of Multiclens overnight. I soak for a shorter period in summer. The timing is important; we want the sprouts to be just a few millimetres long at a stage where they have maximum nutritional value.

Additives are not put into the water, to avoid toxic degradation. I put them into the sprouted seed mix. Additives are Soluvite D, a dash of iodised salt, and probiotic. After mixing I then add The Good Oil and Liquid Gold. After standing for a few hours to soak up the oil and Liquid Gold I then add a generous amount of Budgie Starter.

That is given to the breeding cages every second day, the amount depending on the number of chicks in the nest. Silver beet is given to all cages every other day. If you have a system that works, then stick to it and if you change anything aiming to improve, just change one thing at a time.

Do you feed soft food – what is your recipe?

Yes, as above. The soft food must be sprouted. Excess after feeding the breeding cages is given to chicks in the nursery cage and the aviary. The nursery cage also contains dishes with fine shell grit and budgie crumbles for them to pick at.

Do you feed greens and/or any additives?

Just as outlined above, with branches of old man saltbush put into the aviary especially leading up to the breeding season. Moxydectin is given once a year when rounding up the stock to work out what I’m keeping for shows and what I’m keeping for breeding.

Prior to the breeding and show seasons the Moxydectin guards against worms and scaly face that immigrants may have brought in from other aviaries. Scaly face is the major risk. I don’t otherwise see the need to treat birds that are not sick.

How do you treat sick birds?

If a bird goes light, they are history. I don’t over-breed a pair or overcrowd the birds, giving them access to space, sunlight and the elements while housed in the aviary. We are fortunate in Adelaide with our dry heat; we don’t have diseases associated with humidity unless we buy it in.

As another countermeasure, water is supplied to the aviary by pipes from a tank that I periodically fill with tap water. Inside the aviary I have nipples glued into the plastic pipes that the birds push to get clean water. Remarkably they know how to find the water themselves, even new birds brought in – they must be able to smell water.

What I am getting at is that sick birds are rare because they always have access to clean water, a noticeable improvement after I installed the above watering system many years ago. If a bird looks a bit off, I put them into a hospital cage with heat and Spark in the water. Apart from that, I can leave home for extended periods without troubling anyone to come in each day to change the water. I just need someone to come in occasionally to top up the mega seed hoppers.

Do you have a medication regime?

No, not apart from Moxydectin as described above. Maybe I have been fortunate in never having had a disease outbreak. I have had birds selected in the SA team every year for about 30 years, except the twice when I judged at the nationals, so I have no reason to blame travelling to the nationals for any illness.

I did have a bit of Trichomoniasis in the nursery cage when I first started years ago because of overcrowding and open water dishes. Now I use cage drinkers with some low near the floor.

How do you maintain fertility and good health in your aviary?

I think that has been covered above. Like I think everyone else does, I get a lot of clear eggs, so if anyone has an answer to that other than to stick to breeding little budgies, then I would be grateful.

To summarise, fresh air, fresh water and good food are the key.

What issue in the hobby concerns you and why?

There are a few issues, or maybe they are merely observations about how the hobby is transforming in the 21st century.

We hear that our budgies are behind the budgies being bred in Europe and the UK. How are we behind? Is it that we don’t have that exaggerated head feathering and the untidy body feathers on our birds? If that is why birds in Europe and the UK are ahead of us, then we should be careful what we wish for.

The public in this country do not view such birds favourably and this is the same public, with an eye on bird welfare, who we rely on for the recruitment of new members to keep the exhibition side of the hobby alive. We need to arrive at a pictorial that is aesthetically pleasing, then judge to it, not beyond it.

An issue, and perhaps we just need to accept this as being normal for modern times, is that the way we go about improving our birds is changing. Once upon a time the goal was to create a stud by slowly improving through mating related birds to bring out exhibition features that have an underlying recessive genetic architecture. The occasional outcross was used to counter inbreeding depression and to bring in a feature deficient in the stud. In other words, skill as a breeder was being tested and the flock, being related, fitted the definition of a stud.

Now, there is a tendency to buy, sometimes at ridiculous cost, one bird from here and another from there, based on photographs to overcome the vast distances between some of the top aviaries. Then, they can be put together to breed a winner in one generation. That represents another skill, but a different skill.

Attracting members to face-to-face club meetings and club shows has been increasingly challenging since Covid. Maybe they have unlimited access to information elsewhere, such as excellent websites, the quarterly Chatter magazine and weekly Budgie Bulletin in SA, and the ANBC Gazette nationally. Maybe this is a problem unique to our club and if we can figure out how else to serve our members then it would not be a problem. There are probably other clubs where members are scattered over a large area that rarely have meetings other than to issue rings and hold shows.

Filling committee positions in the club can be challenging as well, and I hear that is not unique to budgie clubs. Thirty years ago, there was fierce competition at our club’s AGM to serve on our club committee. Now it’s a struggle to interest enough members to fill all management roles. Participation in shows has also dropped off, even though a lot of members still purchase rings, so they obviously love breeding budgerigars to watch them fly around in aviaries.

Maintaining varietal features in some varieties I see as a problem. There are many Black Eyed Selfs with outstanding type but are heavily suffused when they should be buttercup yellow as described in The Standard. There are some big Clearwings, but their wings are not as clear as described in The Standard. Single Factor Golden Faced are of superior type are beating Double Factors when the Double Factor is the only form with body colour as described in The Standard. These are beautiful varieties provided their ideal phenotypes can be preserved; they, and ones like them, are the ones that attract new members.

Finally, I will say something about AI (Artificial Insemination, not Artificial Intelligence) which is more correctly described as Assisted Reproduction. I don’t do it. If I mate my best two birds together and they only ever give me clear eggs, then I don’t pass that trait on or sell those birds. That is an example of Charles Darwin’s natural selection.

If I had used Assisted Reproduction, and got fertile eggs that developed into chicks, then I am passing the propensity for infertility on, bypassing natural selection. Someone who buys that chick, possibly at great cost, may get disgruntled if they can’t get success, and they are lost to the hobby. The big picture: we could be creating budgies that are less likely to breed if we use AI, but outlawing AI can’t be enforced.

Who do you respect in the hobby and why?

Apart from breeders who consistently achieve success on the show bench at the highest level, members who volunteer for senior management roles in the hobby have my utmost respect. South Australia has been fortunate over the years to have had Nigel Tonkin, Peter Glassenbury and Troy Holmes at the pointy end.

Having been part of the support group working with them throughout that period, I am in awe at just how much time, energy and thought they have devoted to the betterment of the hobby at club, state and national level. Just as important are members who regularly turn up early to set up the staging and staff the kitchen, and who hang around until the end of the day to take down the staging and clean up.

As a breeder, Kelwyn Kakoschke is an undisputed master breeder in my mind. Not long ago he almost lost his Clearwings but, after recently seeing his Clearwings, I am in awe at how he has resurrected them with quality and numbers in such a short time.

What other hobbies do you have?

I have gone through phases of stamp collecting, coin collecting, cricket and fishing, and some of those are still ongoing to a limited extent. Breeding budgies ultimately became dominant and has lasted the longest.

Your favourite food, movies and sporting team?

I like seafood (and once enjoyed catching it just as much), chocolate, action movies, and I take an interest in the national rugby league and rugby union test matches, but mainly the cricket test matches.

Having moved to SA from NSW I inevitably hear a bit about the Crows and Port Power. Although I prefer the Crows, unlike just about everyone else in SA I’m happy to support either the Crows or Port Power when either of them makes the finals because, after nearly 50 years in Adelaide, I’m now a South Australian.

Three more things you would love to do in life.

I am close to running out of time but satisfied that I have been very fortunate in life, and like it has been for most people, life has had its challenges at various times. I do have a life outside of budgies, so passing Cape Horn with Ann on the way to Antarctica through the Drake Passage is next on the list.

Then there will be a cruise around the Baltic that was previously planned until it became a Covid casualty. I can’t think of a third thing, other than perhaps a third national winner, but it’s been a long time since the last one and, running an eye over the nursery cage, I can’t see another national winner happening any time soon.