Everyone has to start somewhere. I started as a nobody.

I entered the exhibition world in 1996 at the age of 25. I didn't have a famous aviary name behind me or decades of experience to lean on. What I did have was a passion for Gouldian finches, an ability to observe them closely, and an almost obsessive desire to understand what separated a good bird from a great one.

That very first year, I won my first award: Best Adult Gouldian, with a yellow-back. It was one trophy, but it changed the direction of my life.

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Building My Own Line

​After that first win, I knew I wanted to build a competitive line of my own.

My first priority was top line. I studied the birds in front of me, studied the birds that were winning and, most importantly, watched what happened on the show bench. Before long, my birds were winning against Gouldians considerably larger than they were.

People started noticing. 

Other breeders began asking what I was doing differently. More specifically, they wanted my “recipes.” What was I feeding? How was I conditioning my birds? What was I doing that was producing these results?

Those questions planted a seed.

I realized that one of the nutritional formulas I had developed for my own birds could become something useful to other breeders.

 

Protein Complete was born.

At first, I sold it to only a handful of fellow show breeders. They used it. They came back. Word spread, and demand began to grow.

The products that exist at LGFC today didn't begin in a marketing meeting. They began in my bird room. 

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R & T Aviaries Goes Online

In 1997, I opened my first website under the name R & T Aviaries. I sold Dr. Rob Marshall products alongside my own Protein Complete.

About 16 months later, another observation led me in a new direction.

At the time, virtually nobody around me was using sprouted seed as an important part of raising young Gouldians. That didn't make sense to me. Young Gouldians in nature weren't growing up eating nothing but bowls of dry seed. I believed germinating seed could provide something developing youngsters were missing.

So I experimented.

I sprouted seed myself and dehydrated it using one of those little $60 plastic food dehydrators.

Actually, I used a lot of them. 

I worked those poor machines so hard that I would go through two or three of them a year.

Crude? Absolutely.

But it worked.

That experimentation eventually led to Protein Complete Plus, and it established a philosophy I still follow today: observe the birds, identify a need, develop a solution, and let the results tell you whether you're right.

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Becoming Lady Gouldian Finch Canada

I attended many shows for 2-3 years talking to all the top breeders before I actually started showing.  The first show I attended was the B. F. B. S. before  it became the home of the Canadian Nationals way back in 1994.  I soon gained a reputation as a very fierce competitor but a lot of my successes were going to smaller "type"  birds and seasoned breeders started to take notice.   My show bird's feathers were vibrant and glass smooth.  These smaller dynamos were beating out some behemoths and no wonder understood why. Soon they were asking me for my secrets and recipes.   At that moment R & T Aviaries became Lady Gouldian Finch Canada 

By 2003, R & T Aviaries had outgrown its identity. I wanted a name that immediately connected me with the bird I had devoted myself to.

There was one problem.

Every URL variation of “Lady Gouldian Finch” I could think of seemed to be taken.

So I went short.

LGFC.com.

Four letters. Easy to remember. Easy to type into an address bar.

There was just one little flaw in my brilliant plan: people couldn't find me.

So I changed direction again and adopted the longer, much more descriptive name Lady Gouldian Finch Canada.

That name stuck.

I also created a Lady Gouldian Finch Canada Yahoo group, which was one of  the earliest and longest-running Gouldian communities on the platform. 

 

Only Through Sharing Can We Experience Growth

As my reputation grew, I began noticing something about the show world that bothered me.

When I was starting out, very few established show breeders were willing to help me. Competition could be intense, and knowledge was often guarded just as carefully as bloodlines. If you were the new person trying to understand how to breed a better Gouldian, condition a bird for the bench or simply figure out what you were doing wrong, getting a straight answer wasn't always easy.

I knew what it felt like to have to figure things out for myself.

And I didn't think it had to be that way.

So I created the Lady Gouldian Finch Canada Yahoo group as a place where people could bring their questions, exchange ideas and learn from one another. I wanted experienced breeders and newcomers in the same room, figuratively speaking, sharing what they had observed rather than protecting every bit of knowledge as a competitive advantage.

My motto for the group became:

“Only through sharing can we experience growth.”

By growth, I didn't simply mean growing the group. I meant growing as breeders and, ultimately, bettering the Gouldian finch itself. If we compared observations, challenged ideas, shared successes and admitted our failures, all of us had the opportunity to become better breeders.

By then I had earned some credibility in the show world, and I felt that came with a responsibility. If I had knowledge that could help someone avoid a mistake or produce healthier, better-quality birds, why wouldn't I share it?

Especially when so few people had done that for me.

I genuinely wanted to help.

I was also young enough that I didn't always know the most mature way to go about it.

I was outspoken, extremely confident and very proud of what I had accomplished. Sometimes confidence became gloating. Sometimes passion came across as arrogance. I openly challenged what I called “Gouldian factories” and commercial breeding practices I believed placed production ahead of the birds. Inevitably, I made enemies.

I wasn't always right in how I handled those conflicts, either. The group was intended to be non-commercial, yet as moderator I permitted myself one advertisement a week in exchange for the considerable time I spent running it. At the time I thought that was fair. Looking back, I can understand why someone on the other side might have considered it hypocritical.

Age gives you perspective that enthusiasm sometimes doesn't.

What hasn't changed is the reason I started that group.

I believed then, as I believe now, that knowledge should be shared.

A breeder shouldn't have to struggle simply because someone with the answer considers that knowledge a competitive advantage. And having a few trophies or letters after your name shouldn't put you above the person who has just purchased their first pair of Gouldians.

More than two decades later, that old Yahoo group motto still describes one of the principles behind Lady Gouldian Finch Canada:

"Only through sharing can we experience growth."

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Becoming an Ambassador for the Hobby

Somewhere along that journey, I came across something written by a breeder who ran a budgie group. I can't remember her exact words anymore, but I have never forgotten the lesson behind them:

We are ambassadors for this great hobby. We may be someone's first contact with our breed or with aviculture itself, so we must conduct ourselves accordingly. Otherwise, the worst behaviour they encounter may become their lasting impression of all of us.

That made me take a good, hard look at myself.

I was passionate. I was proud. I had strong opinions, and by then I had enough success behind me that I wasn't afraid to express them. But being knowledgeable didn't give me permission to be rude, belittle someone or win an argument by insulting the person on the other side.

I began thinking about the person quietly reading a discussion who had just bought their first pair of birds.

What were they seeing?

Were they seeing knowledgeable people disagree respectfully, exchange ideas and perhaps learn something from one another? Or were they seeing established breeders attacking each other and thinking, Why would I ever want to become part of this?

That realization changed the way I conducted myself publicly.

I can disagree with you. I can challenge your reasoning. I can defend my position very strongly. But I don't need to insult you to do it.

Because there is always someone watching.

Someone may be encountering Gouldian breeders, bird clubs or organized aviculture for the very first time through one of our conversations. I want that person to come away thinking:

These are knowledgeable, fair and decent people. Maybe I'd like to be part of this.

In a way, that breeder's words brought me right back to my own motto:

“Only through sharing can we experience growth.”

I had originally thought mostly about sharing knowledge so that we could grow as breeders.

Eventually I realized the person doing the sharing had to be willing to grow, too.

I was.

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I Wasn't Ready to Judge​

​I said no.

I was still green.

Having successful birds didn't automatically mean I was qualified to stand in front of somebody else's exhibits and make decisions about years of their breeding work. Exhibitors deserved better than somebody accepting a judging assignment simply because he had been asked.

So instead of becoming a judge, I became a student again.

I approached judges I respected and asked them to teach me.

The usual apprenticeship could have been completed much sooner. I apprenticed for three years, deliberately learning under three very different kinds of judges: a type judge, a size judge and a mutation judge.

Each saw a Gouldian differently.

I learned from all three.

And eventually I learned to trust my own eye.

In 2004, eight years after first entering exhibition, I officially became an A.A.C.C. panel judge.

I was one of the younger judges of that era, but by then I knew I had done the work necessary to stand on the other side of the show bench.

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From Student to Top Breeder

Becoming a judge didn't end my journey as an exhibitor. I kept breeding, observing, refining line and showing my birds.

Then came 2014.

It became the biggest competitive year of my career. I accumulated more than 14 titles in a single year, firmly establishing Lady Gouldian Finch Canada among the country's serious competitive aviaries.

There is a particular satisfaction in eventually surpassing people who once taught you.

Not because your mentors failed.

Quite the opposite.

A good mentor gives you enough knowledge to eventually stop copying them.

You take what they taught you, combine it with your own observations and experiences, and develop your own eye.

That's what happened to me.

I had gone from the unknown 25-year-old with a yellow-back Gouldian to an established breeder and judge with a philosophy of my own.

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My First Big Test

In 2018, I received what I considered my first truly major judging test at the Nationals in Windsor.

There were approximately 120 finches before me.

This was different.

It wasn't my own bird standing on the bench anymore. Now breeders were trusting me to evaluate the results of their work.

Judging opportunities had taken time to develop. There were still many respected senior judges active, and I was the younger person waiting behind them.

But Windsor gave me the opportunity to demonstrate what those years of apprenticeship, breeding and observation had taught me.

And I never forgot what it felt like to be the exhibitor waiting for the judge's decision.

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Back To The Bird Room 

In 2019, another chapter began.

I wanted to develop LGFC's proprietary nutritional line further, and once again the inspiration came from watching my own birds.

I had been observing breeding hens and became interested in improving digestive efficiency and reducing unnecessary time away from the nest.

That work became G.I.F.T.

Then another very simple question occurred to me:

Why are we giving our birds spray millet as little more than junk food?

Birds love it. Breeders love giving it to them.

So why couldn't I make it better?

That question led to SM Twists in late 2020.

And I kept going.

Protein Complete and Protein Complete Plus were joined over time by products such as G.I.F.T., Germinated Gems, NextGen Seed Blend, Broccoli Punch, Avian Mineral Geo Mix and SM Twists.

What began decades ago with recipes developed for my own show birds had grown into an LGFC nutritional system of roughly eight products.

But the method behind them hasn't really changed.

Watch. Question. Experiment. Refine. Observe the results.

The birds have always been my most important teachers.

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What Legacy Means to Me

Today I can look back at more than three decades in this hobby with considerable pride.

I've been an exhibitor, breeder, mentor, product developer and A.A.C.C. panel judge. I've accumulated more than 60 trophies and awards, including success at the Canadian National level. I've developed nutritional products from ideas that began in my own aviary and watched other breeders incorporate them into theirs.

But I'm equally proud of what I've tried to give back.

I have financially supported the Finch Division and Gouldian class at the Nationals because I believe you cannot complain that a hobby is disappearing while doing nothing to help preserve it.

I've volunteered as a steward even after becoming a judge, because earning a title never made me too important to carry cages and help another judge do their job.

And I've deliberately remained approachable.

Novice or champion. Customer or competitor. Friend or foe.

If you have a genuine question about your birds and I can help, ask me.

Knowledge doesn't become more valuable by guarding it.

When I look back at that 25-year-old entering his first show in 1996, I couldn't possibly have imagined where one yellow-back Gouldian would eventually take me.

I didn't inherit a famous aviary.

I didn't start out to build a brand.

I didn't enter this hobby with a name people recognized.

I built one.

Along the way, I stumbled. I made mistakes. But I learned from those mistakes, grew from them, and kept moving forward.

I became a better breeder, a better judge and a better mentor.

But more importantly, this hobby made me a better person.

And perhaps that is the legacy I'm proudest of.

Lady Gouldian Finch Canada was never built through marketing. It was shaped by observation, proven at the show bench, refined through experience and shared with a community of breeders who love these remarkable little birds as much as I do.

That journey isn't over yet.