At the age of 14 years, I received my first budgie from my parents - that was how the things started. Soon I wanted to get some offspring, which is why I bought a cock for my hen and asked for the veterinarians licence to breed budgies. Of course, in these days my parents supported my hobby a lot! With that help, I was able to start bird breeding and keeping already at an early age. During the following years, I made my first breeding experiences of budgies with normal cage birds, as well as with show budgies. In 1999 I started working as translator and journalist for the German budgie magazine “Wellensittich-Magazin”. The very positive relationship with Theo Vins (who is currently AZ-President) - as well as my visits in several studs of top-breeders as part of the work for the magazine - convinced me once more and gave me some useful inside views on different aspects of the hobby. One of my first interviews in 1999 was with the then German-Champion Fritz Büttner in Nürnberg. He gave me some excellent advice regarding the breeding. Equally, his enthusiasm towards the hobby influenced my future attitude for the hobby. In addition, I purchased some very good birds of his winner-lines, which constituted the beginning of my show budgie breeding. Subsequently, based on the Büttner bloodline, I practiced outcrosses only with top-birds of almost all famous studs in Europe (for example: Jo Mannes, Daniel Lütolf, Richard Kuhr, Ralf Jenne, Bernd Stegemann, Felix Gorgosilich, Georg Helm and Franz-Josef Stenglein). Nowadays, I am breeding Normals in all varieties, Spangles, Australian Pieds, Yellow Faces, Inos, Lacewings, Anthrazites and Texas-Clearbodies. In addition to the show birds, I am still breeding cage birds in a variety of colours.