Holding Back Breeder Stock

So as i gaze into my crystal ball to decide what amazons i want to breed 10yrs down the road,how to pick what i want in a baby as a future breeder? I feel that i have some insight into a bird's personality at about the time it starts to fledge and is yet unweaned.I think i can tell which babies would be better pets and which seem "wilder".Wilder birds is what i've held back in the past but those birds are just now becoming old enough(5yrs)to think about pairing up and breeding.Wilder birds would make better parents and be more productive than tame birds ,but should i be doing what Deb said and bred for tameness ?Tame birds would be less productive and poorer parents(more work/less money).And can we breed for tameness?Playing God is really not as much fun as you might think.What about size?I'd like to preserve the true bird species in which size is variable, but the pet industry prefers larger (bigger is better),Broker asked yesterday are your YNs big or small, What? they're napes for christ sake.IMO all breeders must have morals and ethical standards which must base their decisions on,that and we have an obligation to preserve the true bird so endangered wild stock is not needed in the pet industry. What do you do and how do you make those decisions ?

In my opinion, breeding for tameness is nothing more than guesswork at this point. I've yet to find any study saying that breeding pet quality parents produce pet quality offspring. I'm assuming that the wilder of the birds you're breeding now are producing pet quality birds, so I find it hard to imagine breeding pet quality birds would produce any better results.

I don't breed birds (or any other animals), so this is really just me thinking outloud. If I ever were to breed birds, I would personally probably breed birds that weren't able to be tamed. My personal opinion is that birds who are introduced to people as good things early are better able to adjust to becoming a pet.

I hold back the ones that seem the "healthiest" most "vigorous" and most "even tempered". I mean, they're all "healthy", but it's a certain je ne sais quoi that I think would be qualities in a good pet. I have not had the experience in the "smaller" parrots that "tame" qualities equate to less productivity and poor parenting. My personal jenday that was, to me, a "perfect" pet - independent, friendly, easy going - is still to this day the best hen and parent I've ever had. This may be different for the "larger" parrots. I have yet to experience that.

Exception - Xavier my 5 yo IRN. I set him up for breeding last year and he had ZERO inclination to breed. But that could be any number of factors and not necessarily his tameness. I like him as a pet, so I haven't tried different things to get him breeding.

I personally think that parents do play a role in how babies turn out, birds or humans.

Jean Pattison wrote an article about her observations on her breeding Greys, how certain pairs produced babies with certain traits that stood out. I thought it was interesting

henpecked wrote:

(...)IMO all breeders must have morals and ethical standards which must base their decisions on,that and we have an obligation to preserve the true bird so endangered wild stock is not needed in the pet industry. What do you do and how do you make those decisions ?

Seriously reading you Henpecked, I wouldn't like to have a similar dilemma in my life.
It looks like people pressure breeders to "make" a perfect bird: small enough(but not to small), quiet and in the same time the best talker. It's just impossible.

^ Margaret, that actually sounds like a Cape parrot