February/March in the Roller Canary bird room is busy and enjoyable time for the ardent fancier.  Why is this?  We know the breeders have spirited themselves away somewhere, as all activities outside bird room seem to have died down.  Inside the bird room there are miracles happening, babies are being born.  This is finally happening after many months and years of planning and preparation, which ensured that you get the results you sought.  The fancier is once again sitting in his favorite bird room chair, enjoying what he sees, robust hens feeding their babies. 

There are many important things to think about when planning and preparing for the breeding season ahead.  One of the most important ones is the system you choose to follow.  You will have made your decision based on other's recommendations, and on your own personal experience.  There is no doubt that your system incorporates Inbreeding of some sort; however, which line are you going to follow?  Let us see what breeders are doing.

First, let us identify just what Inbreeding is.  It is defined as, the inter-breeding of closely related individuals, in order to preserve and fix desirable characteristics, and to eliminate the unfavorable characteristics of a stock.

Over the years, famous breeders have demonstrated the various ways in which it should be done, each expounding the success on his method.  I believe that much success can be attained by all of the inbreeding methods.  However, you must take into account your prowess in the selection of your breeders, and culling.  To do this well, you must learn the song.  The rolls and tours must be memorized, and the quality and value of each must always be kept in mind.  When making your breeding selections, be alert to selecting those with high-scoring Hollow Roll and/or Bass Roll.  The other tours will be at their best when these two are kept in balance.

The first inbreeding method that comes to mind is line-breeding, which is compromised of breeding father to daughter, and mother to son, with some breeding back to the grandparents.  This system along with detailed breeding charts has been discussed well in the past articles.  Some say you can loose tone with this method.  Let us look at a different Inbreeding system.  It comprises to brother to half-sister, and the sister to half brother.  Many half-related birds can be obtained by breeding several of your best males (3 is ideal) with 10 to 12 hens.  The youngsters from these breedings will supply you with some marvelous pairings for years.  Finally, ensure you start out with quality stock.