Dick Schroeder has kept and bred birds for about 40 years. Although Dick had kept a variety of native birds and other animals while growing up in Southern California, it wasn't until he had been married for a number of years and had a home of his own, that the collection changed from "keeping: to breeding. Beginning as many of us did with the prolific zebra finches, then soon turning to breeding lovebirds. The lovebirds evolved into other small hookbills which in turn evolved into breeding lories. Since lories are often referred to as "softbilled parrots" it was a natural progression into "real" softbills.