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 ISSN 1492-8132 Issue 111, © 2005 No reprints without permission Our 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, "Received the CD! Man can they sing! Hope our American Singer will sound half as good! Thank you." Another says, "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. There's even a wrought iron cage that's just perfect for pet canaries or other small cagebirds such as finches, budgies, or lovebirds! Check it out along with the other items listed on the new Best Sellers webpage! A recent customer comments, "I received the cages and they are beautiful...they look just like the picture on your web site. I was pleased to see them shipped so promptly, especially at Christmas time when mails are usually slower. Thank you so much..." For a full selection of cages and cage accessories, visit BirdandCage.com. This is an interesting site, with some excellent pictures, some great samples of Waterslager song, and some informative breed-specific articles. If you're interested in learning more about Waterslager camaries, this is a good place to start! - Products - Flock Talk - Birds Board - Articles - Basic Care - Breeding - Photographs - Canary Cam - Canary Book - Birdsong CD - Bird Cages - Accessories - Canary FAQs - Questions - Ask Robirda - Bird Links - Privacy Policy - Sponsorships - Site Map
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 Jan 16th. We hope you and your birds stay safe, well and happy in the meantime, and we look forward to seeing you all then!
Robirda
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 For breeder or pet bird owners who care. Hello! Welcome to 2005, and Flock Talk's 111th issue. We hope you all enjoyed a wonderful holiday season, and we wish you and your birds all the best in 2005. Subscribe and unsubscribe information for the email version of this ezine is at the bottom of this webpage.
Lately you have been finding what looks at first glance to be iron shavings, as if somebody had been dropping tiny iron filings around the ends of the perches in your bird cage. But on closer inspection, these little 'shavings' can be seen to be moving, trying to get away from the light. You went out and bought one of those little 'mite protectors' sold in pet stores and attached it to your cage, only to discover that it made no difference at all. Your treasured pet bird has been acting very lethargic lately, and you're at a loss as to how best to proceed to get rid of these pests, most often known as...
by R C McDonald The above description is similar to comments commonly heard from those whose cages have become infested with the pest known as the 'Northern Fowl Mite', 'Black Mite', or 'Red Mite'. These mites are actually a semi-translucent greyish black, but appear red when they are full of blood. They are among the most difficult of all bird pests to get rid of, as they do not live on the bird, but in the environment. They do not like light, and will shelter during the day in any nook and cranny they can find - under the paper lining the bottom of the cage, in the little niches at the ends of the perches, under the cage tray, or in the corners around it. Sometimes they will leave the cage entirely and take shelter nearby. They have been found hiding in electronic equipment, under rugs, and on occasion, have even been found hiding in or around electrical sockets or in the walls! They are members of the spider family, and as such are quite resistent to many anti-mite preparations. Luckily, pyrethrin-based preparations do discourage them. Other products such as Scatt or Ivermectin can't get rid of them for you - but can help deter them. Treating your birds with Scatt will not end an infestation of northern fowl mites, but will kill any mites who actually suck your bird's blood. This is a good place to start, but you will still need to take steps to get rid of the mites living in or near the cage itself and in the surrounding environment. Depending on where and how you keep your bird(s), this may or may not be all that easy to do - if your birds are kept outside, it may prove very difficult, even next to impossible. Sadly, in many areas these days it is just not safe to keep pet birds living outside, thanks to all the diseases and pests in the outdoor environments. Often an infestation of these mites in pet birds is due to exposure to wild birds - and it could well be a rather indirect exposure. For example, during the spring breeding season, if you have wild birds nesting on the outside of your house, the black mites, who locate their prey with heat sensors, may leave their hosts and discover a way into the house (say, through a window), where they will hide during the day, then come out at night to feast on your pet bird's blood. The first step to take is to administer a tiny drop of Scatt to your bird. Don't use the dropper that comes with the bottle, it will produce too big a drop, which could be deadly for your canary - Scatt is powerful stuff. If possible, get a small syringe or dental syringe from your druggist. If it has a steel needle at the tip, I will blunt it with a rasp so I can be sure not to hurt anybody by accidentally poking them with it. Then use the smallest drop you can get it to produce. Get a friend to hold your bird, and use a damp sponge to wipe away the feathers at the back of his neck, until you can see the small patch of bare skin that all canaries have at the base of the neck. Get a little Scatt into the syringe, then gently squeeze until a small drop forms at the tip. Touch the drop to the canary's skin, rather than squeezing until the drop actually breaks free. This will allow you to be sure you have used a small enough drop so as to not harm your bird. Scatt will not get rid of the mites themselves, but it will see that they will not stay on your bird, and if any do bite him, they will die. However, if there is enough mites living in the area near his cage, they will still continue to bite him, and the loss of blood will not be good for him. Especially if it goes on for too long, loss of blood can be dangerous for a canary - being so tiny, they don't exactly have a lot of blood to spare, after all! So the next chore is to get rid of the mites in and around the bird cage, and anywhere else where they might be lurking. Start by giving the cage a thorough cleaning, paying special attention to any nooks and crannys that may have been providing shelter. You don't need to use anything special to do this, just plenty of soap, some warm water, and attention to thoroughness and detail. Make very sure that you clean and scrape and soap every corner, nook, cranny, and niche. If you are in doubt as to how effective your cleaning is, go ahead and throw the item in question out - better safe than sorry, with these little beasts! This should clean out all living mites, but won't affect the eggs, which are incredibly hardy - even exposure to a hard vacuum (no air) won't kill the eggs of these nasty little bugs! So, the next task is to prevent re-infestation, and to kill any mites which happen to hatch from eggs that may still be present. The best way I've found to do that, is to use a preparation used in gardens and fish ponds, known as 'diatomaceous earth'. You don't want to use the stuff made for fish ponds, as it is ground too finely and can cause damage to both you and your birds, if you should happen to inhale it, or if a little gets into your eyes. It is only safe for use in water, which you don't need. There is, however, a grade of diatomaceous earth which is not ground so finely, made for use in gardens. Several brands of pesticides on the market include diatomaceous earth - some include other (toxic) ingredients, while some have only diatomaceous earth. Since you definitely don't want the kind that includes other toxic materials which might affect your canaries, you will need to be very careful to read labels and get the right product when buying. You want plain diatomaceous earth, made for use in gardens, and without any added ingredients. I usually have to get the staff at a gardening center to help out, in order to make sure that I get the right stuff. They've always been very good about this! Diatomaceous earth comes from fossilized sea snails, which when ground consist of thousands of tiny but very sharp particles. In the garden it is used by sprinkling it on the ground, or in a thick ring about plants. It kills bugs when they crawl over it by piercing their chitin and causing them to dehydrate. Because it is not ground too finely, it will settle quite quickly to the ground, and, once it has settled, it is not dangerous to people or pets - including birds. BUT until it has settled, make absolutely sure that neither you nor your canary breathe any in. This stuff can damage eyes and lungs, thanks to those same tiny sharp particles. So I recommend removing your birds while applying it, and wear a face mask to be on the safe side. Then give it plenty of time to settle before replacing the birds. I find an hour or so is about right. You want to dust the diatomaceous earth anywhere the mites might try to hide. This means all nooks and crannies in the birdcage, including under the tray and under or between any papers used for lining the tray, in all corners and such, and especially including the ends of the perches and other such hiding places. If you use a cage cover, don't forget to clean and treat that as well! Wash it three or four times with lots of soap and bleach, then dust with diatomaceous earth, let it sit for a week or so, then wash it again. In the meantime, use a different cage cover, or better, no cover at all, to reduce mite hideouts. Its a good idea to remove and wash any seed or treat cups, as these can also provide shelter for the little monsters! I had to deal with a huge infestation of Northern Fowl Mites, and tried all sorts of ways to get rid of them, before I happened on the combination of using a pyrethrin-based spray, then treating the birds with Scatt while using Diatomaceous Earth throughout the birdroom. I found that, while no single product was 100% effective when used alone, in combination they worked well. The pests finally stopped reappearing a few days or weeks later. There is nothing so disheartening as thinking that you have gotten rid of a pest, only to find that its come back again some time later! For awhile, I was afraid that I would never be able to get completely rid of the northern fowl mite in my birdroom. But I have used and recommended this combination several times now, in my own and in others' aviaries, and it has always done the trick. The main thing to remember is that in order for it to work properly, you need to be extremely thorough. I then found that these mites tend to put in a reappearance every year or so, but finally happened upon a method which works as a preventative against reinfestation. It seems almost too simple, but since I've implemented it, I have not had any re-infestations of these nasty little bugs in almost a decade. All I did was place all my bird cages on stands - then I got some of the sticky stuff used by farmers to protect their orchards from certain pests. It's often called 'tanglefoot', and is painted in a band about the trunk, making it impossible for bugs to climb up the tree from the ground - they get to the sticky part, get stuck, and die. There's different brands on the market, but if you go to a gardening center and ask them if they have anything that works that way, they will probably know just what to give you. Just make sure there's no toxins in it that can harm your canaries. All I did was 'paint' a wide band of tanglefoot about each leg of each stand. I have to be careful when moving the stands not to grab the part that has the tanglefoot on it, of course, but for me it's well worth the trouble, as I have not seen a single nothern foul mite in my birdroom since! This is what worked for me, to get rid of those nasty fowl mites, and I hope this approach will work as well for you!
Resource List by R C McDonald
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