A Little History of the Gloster:

The origins of the present day Gloster canary dates back to 1925, when Mrs. Robertson of

Cheltenham exhibited some miniature crested at the Crystal Palace National Show in England.

These little birds were bred from crested rollers and ultra small borders. Mrs. Robertson named

these birds Glosters after her home country Glouchester.

 

Our Methods With Light:

We control our Glosters with artificial light. We control when the Glosters go into

breeding and when they molt. Our bird room has florescent lights with a dimmer that

simulates day and night. The dimmer which has red lights, comes on in the morning about

fifteen minutes before the main lights. After the main lights come on, the dimmer goes off until

evening. When the dimmer comes on in the evening about seven minutes into the time, the main

lights go off. Eight minutes later, the dimmer goes off for the night. This dimming process with

red light simulates sunrise and sunset for the birds. The Glosters will copulate the most at the

beginning of the day and the evening hours just before bedding down for the night. Leaving the

red light on constantly does not simulate night and day. At this time we extend the lights an hour

per week adjusting the dimmer accordingly -until we reach fourteen hours. We also start to give

them richer foods as we bring them into condition for breeding. Since we have been bringing the

birds into condition this way, our fertile eggs have increased five to six eggs per nest on the first

round and six to seven fertile eggs per nest for the second round.

We set the eggs back after the fifth egg is laid. The sixth to seventh day of incubation, we check the

eggs for fertility by holding them up to a light. If the yolk rises, it is infertile. By the sixth day, the

egg should be solid dark inside.

We make our breeding season enjoyable for us by not complicating our food. We use a

good commercial nestling food, but we do add fresh hard boiled egg to the mixture to add extra

protein. The birds have fresh water daily. We do not feed greens or add any other supplements

to the mixture except for the hard boiled egg. There is always a good seed mix in their hopper.

We do give them a little grit about once a month. We will give them cornbread which is on the

Quaker Oats cornmeal package( easy to make).

Some of the Glosters born in 2000 and before are healthy and still breeding nests of five

and six fertile eggs the first round, along with our young Glosters like this hen (picture 1) who is

sitting on five fertile eggs. We always pair our birds light to dark watching the feather quality

and we keep the cock and hen together for the complete breeding season.

We only pair Corona to Consort keeping as close to the standard as possible. We are also

very critical of feather quality. Not every bird will have all of the qualities on the standard.

Then we look for the least amount of flaws. We do not keep a youngster just because it is out

of a particular family. It must come close to the standard.

We feel it does not matter whether the Gloster is light, dark, blue/white, yellow (hard feather),

cinnamon, fawn, it must have feather quality and type.

The best way to pair the birds is to put them in show cages so any faults can be seen easily.

As we inbreed, we cull out any faults in the birds.

We have created three families in our room since 1990 (which was the last time we brought any

birds into our room). We never have to go outside of the bird room, we can take what is needed

from one of the families.

 

Our Molting Method:

Our Glosters go into the molt when we are ready. Now the dimmer light is changed to

yellow, as we lower the lights one hour a week, until they are down to ten hours. Dropping

the Glosters down one hour a week makes them go into a hard molt, which is what we want.

By having them go into a hard mo1t, any weak birds will usually not make it through the molt_

And this does keep your families strong.

We have experimented with lights since we first had our first Glosters in 1978 with our

first few pairs. Since 1990 we have not brought any more birds into our room. Every Gloster is

home bred. Our bird room is organized, (as you can see in the second and third pictures), with the egg

drawers (far right on the third picture) numbered to match the cages.

This light cock bird, generations go back to 1990 (fourth picture), the last time we brought

birds into our room. This youngster (2005) took Best Corona and Best in Division against other

type birds. His sister, also light, (fifth picture) nest mate took, second Corona and third in

division in the same show. His other sister, nest mate (sixth picture) the 3/4 dark and his two

consort brothers were never shown.

We show four to five teams (each team is 10 Glosters) a show season. The more teams

you can show the less chance of having a bird get burnt out for the next breeding season.

We believe in supporting the clubs by joining and showing our Glosters. We show our Glosters

as much as possible. Keeping Glosters at home does not keep the shows going. Without the clubs,

we have no shows, and without the shows, we have no competition.

 

We hope to see all of you at the National in 2006 held in Schaumburg, IL (near Chicago).

We would also like to congratulate, our friend, Jan Davie (St. Charles, IL) for having the

Best Gloster in the National 2005.

 

Yours in the fancy,

Len and Reggie Buchino

1113 W. Schaumburg Road

Schaumburg, IL 60 I 94-4149

e-mail: reggieleondard@netzero.net

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