I went to purchase birds a couple weeks back for release. This was in attempt to repopulate an area that had birds 4-5 years ago but no longer does due to year after year WET springs. When I stopped through to pick my birds up they were way too tame for restocking purposes. I left them there.
On the other hand, I know a gentlemen who keeps his pens behind his barn and out-of-site from anyone or anything. I told him about the Manchurian crosses back there a few years ago so he gave them a try.
Seldom did these birds see humans, dogs, cars, etc. When I walked around the corner of his barn to take a look at his birds they when nuts. Almost wild like behavior. They busted all their wing tips off because they were so agitated and working so hard to get out of the pen and away from me. Such birds with such traits and minimal exposure to humans and such have a better chance of survival in the wild.
Those are the kind of birds I need to release. Macfarlane's "afghan whitewing"/bionchi should do the same when left alone (as much as possible) in a pen. I'm releasing some of those along with Manchurian in a few weeks. I'll let everyone interested know how "wild like" they act.
FC, yes! crossing your birds with wild blood make a huge difference in how birds act. There's a gentlemen from Wis. that tried the same thing and had great results. The difference between how his pen bred chicks acted vs. pen bred/crossed with wild bloodlines was night and day.
