The last time I was in budgies, I noticed that down appeared to be important in producing large birds. A friend had given me a wonderful Dark Green cock, he was five years old but fertile and he bred a brilliant Opaline Cinnamon Cobalt cock. Both birds had very thick down, trimming their vents ready for breeding produced a mini-snow fall. Looking at my other birds showed a range of down from fairly thick to almost none, the bigger birds were almost all with thick down.

This time around, I've been lucky to get quite a few birds with thick down - not as thick as the two cocks though - and have deliberately paired up birds with thick down to see if it can get thicker. Even some of the finer feathered youngsters bred from these pairs are looking quite large with thick down. I haven't done a comparison yet of the parents with their youngsters, but I'm happy that I've bred enough birds of a good size and that they do have thick down but I've not seen anything as thick as the two cocks...yet.