The Balancing Act

My paper is titled "The Balancing Act" and, contrary to popular conception, I am not here to demonstrate a collection of budgies sitting perched on the end of a judging stick. "The balancing act" is the toughest test facing our hobby at this time. I am referring to the loss of new members after having them raise birds and then exhibit those birds. Suddenly they quit the hobby! Why? I feel that they simply lose track of why they joined us in the first place. We put too much pressure on all exhibitors to win, place, and show and it is at the expense of their families and employers. We need to assist them to get their priorities in order and, in so doing, balance the needs of their families, their careers and, of course, our hobby. We are always attracting newcomers to the hobby but we are not always keeping them interested and with the loss of these people and natural erosion we are experiencing a decline in the numbers of three- and four-year members. I feel once we have an individual passed five years in exhibiting then we usually have a sincere hobbyist who will survive a few bad seasons. My goal is to offer a rather simplified method of looking after all of one's priorities and in doing so I hope to save one or two of the members we may otherwise lose. I am as good an example of the type of person we attract, get, and subsequently lose, as you will find. I was able to purchase my first budgie at age eight and my family always had a pet in the house. When I was old enough to have my own place I met an avid aviculturist and shortly thereafter I was breeding birds for exhibition. I was soon building cages, making nests, mixing foods, adding vitamins, selling pets, attending every show, buying new stock, culling old stock, visiting other breeders and driving myself crazy trying to get others to catch the wave. After all, didn't-everyone want to raise birds? Now if any of this sounds familiar, don't be surprised. I'm sure everyone has felt that way at some time in their life. Does any of this sound familiar? I ask you, were you not like this at one time and, if not, then I'll guess that you are just starting out. My work started to suffer; it's hard to concentrate when the hen in nest number four is about to hatch her first chick ever and you don't have a spare feeder set up and you may have to hand feed and why does the boss want to see you and why does he think you don't have your mind on your work and why are the kids making comments like, "I wish I were a bird, too!" The best moment of all comes when you sit down to a plate of soft food, water, and canary seed. Suddenly you realize that this is your hobby and not your employer's or your family's. The day that this sinks in is the day you should set out to put your perspectives on the perch. This day seems to arrive all too soon for many of our people. For some the day arrives the day that the bird they paid a fortune for just took the head off her only chick or how about the day the judge placed your best bird last in a class of ten all of whom you beat the week previous except this time it's the big show of the year and you can't get out of novice and nobody will sell you anything but junk or sixyear-old virgin hens and cocks that eat eggs. This seems to be the same day that we start to lose members. Let's hope that this little talk will take some of the mystery out of making it to Champion and keep you in the hobby once you get there and find out it's tougher to stay on top than to get there. There are four steps to take and I hope to be able to walk you through all four easily. You have to take the first step realizing that it was those little birds that got you there in the first place and it will be your love of those little birds that will make an aviculturist out of you.