ISSN 1492-8132
Issue 105, © 2004
No reprints without permission

Our latest CD of Robirda's canaries singing consists of 12 16-bit true-stereo tracks, each averaging almost 5 minutes long, for a total of 58 minutes and 48 seconds of canary songs.

You can hear a 10 second mp3 sample here. Listen carefully, and you will be able to hear the different positions of each bird!

One customer told us, "Even after I made all sorts of changes, my canary still hardly sang. But after I ordered your CD, he sings and sings! Thanks for such a nice CD."

Another says, "I just received my 'New Songs from the Birdroom' CD last night. I got up this morning and popped it in-- You should have seen my baby perk up! Your CD sure did start him singing. He was hanging from his swing looking out the way of the CD player and singing right along with it. Thanks again from a very contented canary and his owner!"

Learn more here!

The folks at Bird & Cage aim to provide birdkeepers with a great selection of good quality cages and birdcage accessories for great prices, and their customers agree.

A recent customer comments, "Thank you so much for your speedy response. I really appreciate doing business with an honest company that takes care of problems...I will recommend you to my friends!"

Find out for yourself by visiting BirdandCage.com

If you like super-clean seed and warm friendly service along with the ability to provide a wide variety of seed and seed mixes, or even if you prefer to get custom mixes made to order, you will want to bookmark this website. This company is awesome - in the several years I have known of them, I have not heard any of their many customers say one bad thing about them! That's not something I can say about very many companies, these days.

Shipping does sometimes cost a fair bit, but many consider the seed quality to be worth it. And buying from a company that takes care to provide warm, friendly customer service is sheer joy. Drop in sometime, have a look around, and tell 'em Robirda sent you. You - and your birds! - will be happy you did!

Read testimonials or find more details on sponsorships. If you're looking for something different, check our home page for links to all our great products and services!

Our next issue is due Oct 24th. We hope you and your birds stay safe, well and happy in the meantime, we look forward to seeing you all then! 

Robirda
Kelowna, BC
Oct 10, 2004

Welcome to Robirda's Companion Birds eZine

For breeder or pet bird owners who care.

Hello! Welcome to Flock Talk's 105th issue. Subscribe and unsubscribe information for the email version of this ezine is at the bottom of this webpage.

Table of Contents

Website News

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Feature Article

Sooner or later every birdkeeper has to deal with the dilemma of how to proceed with the care of a bird that doesn't seem to be quite as healthy and as vibrant as it should be, but which shows no reliable symptoms of illness to act as a guideline for treatment. The decision of what to try next with such a bird can and often does lead to...

by R C McDonald
www.robirda.com
Copyright © 2004

Your canary has a very good appetite, but is not as peppy as he used to be, and you are beginning to catch him looking a bit fluffed more often that you like. Along with this, you have found him snoozing a bit more than usual during the daytimes.

You checked for all the usual signs of illness, and found that his droppings appear normal, his vent is clean and not swollen, the breast bone is okay, showing that he hasn't lost any weight, and there is no nasal discharge, or any wheezing or clicking.

Just to be sure, you've had a fecal test done, along with a gram stain, and all it came up with was a common bacteria that often show up in finch fecal tests. Your avian vet recommended trying Baytril for 14 days, just to be sure, but you only saw a bit of an improvement.

You resumed giving him probiotics once the antibiotics ended, but your bird is still not his usual vigorous self. Your vet is as puzzled as you are, and wants to do some more involved tests on your bird's blood. These tests require a largish sample, and you've been told that this will require drawing blood from the jugular vein, in the neck.

Your bird still 'chats' with you and looks for his food, but you know he is not himself. You want to help, but you are afraid that the measures your vet wishes to take will prove to be the death of your beloved little feathered pal. You want to do the right thing, but you'd prefer to make an educated decision, and you feel as if you don't have the whole story. On top of it all, you are worried that there may be other, perhaps less invasive, approaches that you don't know about.

The first thing you need to check is the time of year. Why? Because if your canary is undergoing his annual moult, which usually occurs in the mid-to-late summer, this could well be the cause of his diminished energy.

As a bird ages, each successive moult can seem to take just a little more 'pep' out of a canary, until the annual feather-fall is over. If you see any feathers scattered about, then it is possible that this could be at the root of the problem.

It's important to check that the moult is a normal one, and it is also important to offer your canary a bit of a dietary boost during the moult. These questions can be fairly involved; for more information on moulting canaries, please refer to the feature articles in Flock Talk 89 and Flock Talk 97.

But what if his problem is not related to a moult?

Blood can be taken this way from a canary, and in fact in some cases it may be the only method possible to allow enough blood to be taken to perform certain tests. But doing this safely can be quite tricky, and losing that much blood can be hard on a canary. It's not like they have much to spare, after all!

I would have to be 100% convinced of the need for such a drastic measure before proceeding, and on top of that, I'd want written assurance from the vet that in his best estimation the bird would be in no danger. Then, before attempting such a drastic measure, I would first exhaust all other possible approaches.

First among these would be an attempt to boost the immune system. Not all products on the market will work the same way on birds as they will for humans, though, and that's why I prefer to stick to the basics of food, nutrients, and micro-nutrients, or else with avian-tested supplements.

Perhaps the best all-round avian immune-system booster I know of is the product called 'Guardian Angel', manufactured by the Bird Care Co in Britain and sold by a multitude of dealers in the world, both online and off.

I have used this product myself, and liked the results. I also know of all sorts of other people who have had good results with it, so you might want to give it a try if you decide to go this route.

I am admittedly biased towards the naturalistic approach - I have seen it do so much good over the years. But, I also know of cases where if a blood test had not been done, the cause of the problem would never have been found.

In one case, the problem turned out to be in the house itself - there was a toxic chemical being slowly released in the basement (it's called 'off-gassing' when buildings do this, and apparently it is more common than most of us think), and the entre family was exposed.

The chemical being released on this occasion was building up fairly slowly in the bloodstream of those exposed, and did not start to make even their canary sick until it reached a certain level in his liver. By the time the tests were run, it was too late to save their canary - but there was still enough time to see that the rest of the family survived.

But here's the clincher - if they had waited until symptoms showed up in themselves, there would have been irreversable side-effects involved at the very least, and maybe even death. So in the case of that family, those tests - and their canary - saved their lives.

In another case I know of, the vet was able to determine that the culprit was metal toxicity. After some false attempts to find the source of the toxin, it was determined that the problem had arisen from the coating on the cage! Again, in this case, without the tests having been done, the real source of the problem may never have been found.

As you can see, the decision to test or not can be a difficult one - there are pros and cons on both sides, and either way, the decision will still have to be yours, should it ever arise.

While you are thinking, though, another thing you might want to have a look at is the source of greens and other such fresh foods - if they are commercially raised, your birds might be getting a borderline exposure to some chemical that is toxic to them. A bit too much fertilizer on a greens crop can cause a slight excess of nitrate content, to which canaries are quite sensitive...the same thing goes for several of the pesticides and such in common use.

I have even heard of cases where people were feeding their birds foods from their own garden, believing that no spray had touched them - not realizing that their neighbours had sprayed heavily with pesticides, and that some had drifted over onto their lot.

In yet another case I know of, all the usual tests were done, but every single one was inconclusive, until the bird owner happened to hear that a neighbour was tearing her hair out trying to figure out why she kept having problems with her youngster getting sick every time he drank the tap water.

Between them, they decided to have tests done on their water supply, and it turned out that there was contamination in the neighbourhood's well water - not enough to bother most adults, but more than adequate to bother an extra-sensitive youngster, and easily enough to make a bird quite ill. Toxicity can build up slowly in a well, and in that case, if it had gone unnoticed for much longer, it could have wound up making the entire neighbourhood sick.

In the last two cases, it was tests on the soil and water that turned up the culprits that were making the canaries ill - so if your have a bird whose problem is due to some such cause, having its blood tested may not be any help.

On the other hand, many chemicals can gradually build up in the bloodstream, and in time, could cause some rather severe illnesses. A blood test could show this, where fecal tests might not. So there's a fairly equal set of chances that having a blood test done could help - or, it might prove useless. And you may not know which, until you try.

As with so many things these days, there are no guarantees, in some situations. I don't envy anybody having to make such a decision.

Hopefully none of you will ever be in such a position! But if such a problem should ever happen to arise in your life, perhaps you will remember this article. If so, I hope it manages to help you come to the correct decision for both you and your birds.

by R C McDonald
www.robirda.com
Copyright © 2004

Product Review

This article - and product - can be found in several places on the web, but this particular one is easier to access than many. Whichever source you choose to obtain your Guardian Angel from, this is one of those so-useful products no first-rate birdkeeper ever wants to be caught without!

* * *Do you know of a great bird product? Why not review it for Flock Talk readers? We will be reviewing foods, cages & cage accessories, toys, and other bird items, in upcoming issues. To arrange for a review, send us your inquiry and a brief description of the product(s) here, with the subject line 'Product Reviews'

Canary Book

Our special autographed edition of Robirda's book Brats in Feathers, Keeping Canaries has been getting a great response from readers. Here's just a few of the comments we've received;

"It's everything I imagined it would be and I'm just thrilled with my copy! - so great to have and to hold!!! It's a very attractive book, and a nice size as well - one that I can easily tuck and have on hand to refer to and read whenever and wherever."

"I ordered 'Canary Tales' by Linda Hogan last year... Although I fully recommend buying her book, I find Robirda's book much more complete, easier to read with less difficulty finding information."

"You have given us excellent assistance in keeping our canary alive! The advice of other 'experts' nearly killed him, including two vets who did NOT know about canaries, and gave us dangerously wrong advice."

"You have a way of making things easy to understand, and I love the look and feel of your book - not to mention that it is so easy to find the information I am looking for. THANK YOU!!!"

"It's SO beautiful, and the photos and illustrations are wonderful, I love it!!!!!! Thanks so much!!!"

"Received your book today, and was surprised how great it is! It's well worth the cost and then some, thank you!"

Learn more about Robirda's books amd ebooks here.