Everybody knows the reports of breeder-visits with the history of the breeder, a description of his breeding-installation, how he started his line...
That's why I wanted to make an alternative report of our visit; I'm not going to give al the facts that everybody already knows but just the things that happen and the things you see during such a visit.
Hereby our story:
Every budgie-lover who surfs through the many budgie-sites, surely has already visited
the site of Daniel Lütolf. On his site right now are 2 really big headed budgies that really catch the eye, there are a greygreen cock and a cinnamon lightgreen hen. When you look a little further you will see that those are no exceptions, there are many more.
Certainly many breeders have been talking to their fellow-breeders about this site...
That's what my father and me were thinking : "what if we would visit this guy to look for ourselves if his budgies are as good in real life as on the photo's". Summer 2004 we went to see this famous breeder. Just to get to know him and nothing more ... but we bought a few young birds and the first youngsters of this ones are already flying in our flights. Soon our friends knew we visited Mr Lütolf and their curiosity was big to see and judge our new birds. The first contact with this breeder was very apart, but his passion for budgies was one with a very big enthusiasm, this made us keep contact with him. Already at our first visit it was sure that his stud was one of the best we had ever seen; and believe me we have seen a lot of them. A more extensive visit would be worthwhile. We told our plans to 2 of our best budgie-friends and asked if they would be interested to join us. They sure were. They also had seen the birds on the site and they didn't believe the birds looked like that in real life. After a lot of mails we found a few possible weekends for the visit. We just had to find one that was ok for everyone. That did not work out and someone had to drop out. He was very sorry!
Now that we found a date we had to arrange transportation, accommodation and all the logistic stuff that comes with such a visit. We proposed to drive with our car and Mr Lütolf booked us a hotel. A time-schedule was made and it seemed we would have a little spare time on Sunday morning. We made 2 mails and 2 phone-calls and by this a visit was arranged to Marcel Bühler at Hagendorn. Spare time, if we only knew....
The day of the visit. Instructions were given to the budgie-babysit for the weekend. We left at 2 am for a 670km drive. Seven hours later we arrived at Würenlos, exactly on the scheduled time. Our host opened the door with a face that looked like if he drove the 670km himself. Everybody was introduced and a first conversation was started. First question: what do you want to do? Go see the birds or have breakfast? We already brought our sandwiches but who was thinking about food? We came for the birds, that was what it was all about or not? We got a short moment to look at his breeding-unit and to admire the youngsters in the flight. Meanwhile Daniel cleaned a bit and fed the birds. About 2 hours later it was our turn. After a very good breakfast we could start the second half (we did not know then we would have to play some extra times). Between 12u00 and 17u00 every breeding-couple was showed and discussed. Daniel did not spare his efforts. There was no secrecy, everything was shown, the food was prepared in front of us. We really learned a lot. Then we got the chance to study the birds that we noticed in the morning and wanted to have a good look at. You don't have to believe me but I do not find the words to describe the quality we saw. This was heaven for every real budgie-lover. No matter if you are a beginner (like us) or a champion-breeder (our companions), you will surely be impressed. Every couple had it's own history. Man or hen or both were placed in a cage and was talked about history, parents. This was done so extensively that we sometimes asked Daniel if he did not had to put the parents back with their youngsters. You can imagine... At 17u00 there was a pause because our host had to play football. We went to our hotel and had a cop of coffee, then we visited some shops. We saw him again in a restaurant and after a very good meal with Daniel and his girlfriend our host asked if we wanted to talk some more in his birdroom. It was already 23u30. We used this opportunity to ask Daniel whatbirds were for sale to see if we could improve our own stud. This was much easier for us beginners than for our companions. After an extensive study everybody found some birds that fulfilled their severe criteria (lol). Every selected bird was discussed again, and Daniel showed us all all the relatives to that specific bird, father, mother, sister, brothers ... This was to give us an idea of the pedigree for that bird. After a while everybody found what they were looking for and then it was surely time for us to go to bed (2u00am). But Daniel was not tired yet and another aspect was discussed and again other birds were shown to illustrate this or that. Finally at 2u30 we decided to end the visit because 6 hours later we had to get up for our visit to Marcel Bühler. Next morning at the breakfast table everybody was tired and we talked about all that happened the day before. At Marcel Bühlers place we got a warm welcome, it was all a bit more formal but he too showed us his complete set-up. What struck us were his big birds with excellent feathering. Just the bi-directional feathering above the cere was a bit missing. He told us he was working on that. He really has a beautiful installation. Everything was well thought about and worked out into detail. Maybe a bit small in total but certainly an example of how a birdroom should look like. Meanwhile it was 12u30 and it was time to pick up the birds at Daniels place. It started snowing and we lost our way, it took us a long time to get back to Würenlos. The birds were resting in the early afternoon, this is one of Daniels typical ideas of how to treat birds. We had to wait a little bit but finally we could start our journey home. After about 7u30 we arrived home. A quick check on the youngsters if the babysitters did their job well, and then of to bed because next day as a working day.