Breeding Almonds And Andulasian Jacobins

By Tom Flamino.

This past year was my first attempt at breeding almonds and andulasian Jacobins.  I got my start from Harry Alexander, who has been working with them for quite some time now.  I must say that they are quite interesting once you get the ball rolling.  I started with an almond cock and an almond hen, three andulasian cocks and one andulasian hen.  So I had six pairs working last breeding season.  I had the almond cock mated to a kite hen and the almond cock mated to a kite cock.  Two andulasian cocks mated to  blue hens and one mated to a black hen, and the andulasian hen mated to a blue cock.

Once they got going I got reds, kites and blacks from the almonds, which was quite disappointing but towards mid season the almonds started coming.  I then mated the almonds together to see what would come about.  Well I got two almonds and than an albino with a case of "pop-eye" or "bladder-eye".  I tried my best to keep it alive, but it didn't work.  This little fellow would have been a cock, and would have given all almond babies.  To the best of my knowledge, he was the first albino bred almond to be a Jacobin.  It was quite a delight to see him grow, he had pink eyes, but after about two weeks he couldn't make it any longer.  Hopefully this year I will be able to produce another albino almond.  I'm still pleased to the fact that I did raise four almonds.  To me this was a step in the right direction.

In the andulasians, they did very well for me.  I raised twelve of them with some very promising youngsters coming on now.  To my delight I produced a dilute indigo, this bird looked much like a yellow but with blue high lights throughout its feathers.  It was one of the prettiest Jacobins I raised all year.  But to my misfortune I lost him too.  I do hope to breed another one of these goodies this year.  This was one colour and bird I will never forget.  I did raise some andulasians with very good colour and I did show one who placed fourth twice in two different young bird shows as an AOC.  I do plan to spread them out over the East Coast to interested club members to try and promote these fantastic new colours.  Hopefully some day they will rate getting their own colour class, but I'm sure it won't come for a long time.  But it all has to start some place doesn't it???