Lutolf's Birds

At the end of my recent business trip to Europe I made my way to Daniel Lutolf’s, just outside Zurich in Switzerland. Daniel was a well-educated, astute and smart person, which I believe is the background to his brilliance as a breeder. In Australia we would say he is no “dill”.

The collection of quality birds was amazing; he had super quality in all colours and varieties. As with McGovern’s birds in the UK the size of Daniels birds was unbelievable. To handle his birds was interesting also because they had true bulk not just a large amount of feathers. The feather structure and distribution has to be seen to be appreciated.  I doubt if there would be a stud of budgies in the world that has anything like his depth of quality. He showed me many birds that had what he called extreme feather, these birds were hard to comprehend and believe to exist to be honest.

Daniel’s attention to detail is remarkable; his management is different and well thought through. His explanations for his process make a lot of sense. The proof of how well thought through the processes are, is in the quality of the birds and he gets them to breed.. His feeding is remarkable with many products used that all play their part and care documented in a number of articles.

I took away a stack of information, not all of it, I have the time nor the inclination to do. However, a few small changes in my feeding regime and some major changes in management, housing and husbandry of my birds has changed the birds tremendously.

How lucky was I to spend the day at Daniels’ and a couple of days with the McGoverns. I came away from the trip with renewed enthusiasm for the Budgies, as a result of the inspirational time I spent with them.

A few of Daniels birds below taken on my phone,