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ISSN 1492-8132
Issue 133, © 2005
No reprints without permission
Sponsor's Space
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Treat Seed Fact
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Canaries love treat seeds the way children love chocolate cake. Most would love to convince us that these foods are good to have daily, or even instead of regular foods, too! But just like a child who eats a big chunk of chocolate cake daily, a canary who gets to eat even a teaspoon or so of fatty treat seeds daily, will soon become overweight and unhealthy.
Treats are wonderful things - but remember, no treat seeds should ever be fed regularly or in quantity - a teaspoon or so per serving is about right, and normally, once a week or so of ALL TREAT SEEDS COMBINED is the most you should serve.
Every once in a while you can offer these treats a little more often, say twice a week, particularly if the bird has been moulting or under stress of some sort. But otherwise, it's wisest reserve treat seeds for, well, treats!
Help Needed
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Do you know of a great bird site which deserves a review? Maybe you have a favourite tip or trick that you like to use, or know of a product that has made your bird's life better or easier to manage in some way? Why not share them with other Flock readers? Just send an email here.
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Welcome to Robirda's Companion Bird eZine
For breeder or pet bird owners who care.
Website News
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It's been a hectic month around here! We're in the process of preparing a searchable database of all our articles, which will hopefully be available by the end of the year or so.
We've just learned that the new free Google Book Search service has gone live, and we're pleased to announce that 'Brats in Feathers, Keeping Canaries', is one of the books you can find on review here. Learn more about this new free online resource, here.
Our Canary Cam slideshows on DVD are here, and are popular with teachers and those who want to share with their families how canaries live and breed. Each DVD plays for almost an hour, and includes campics not in the online archives, featuring the same lovely canary songs found on our popular CD - it's almost like getting an enhanced CD, for less than the CD itself! We've kept our special 'early bird' pricing for now but it won't last, so order yours soon! www.robirda.com/camshow.html
Feature Article
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Gender-Specific Behaviour
by R C McDonald
www.robirda.com
Copyright © Nov 2005
Canaries are among those interesting creatures whose gender is difficult for humans to determine, especially when they are young. They seem to be able to easily tell the difference between themselves, but for us it's another story!
Since with very few exceptions there's nothing obvious to go on unless the birds are in full breeding condition, many canary owners will be tempted to look for a set of actions or habits that they can use as gender indicators.
The problem with most such observations, is that they can't take individual personality into account; yet it can make a tremedous difference. I can't tell you how many times I've seen a mellow, non-agressive male mistaken as a hen, or how many aggressive hens I've seen judged to be a male.
For example, it's tempting to think that two canaries who consistently fight with each other whenever they have access to the same area are both male, based on their aggressive behaviour with each other.
But in actual fact, a canary hen is just as liable to be every bit as aggressive as a male, with regards to defending herself or an area she considers to be her personal territory, so using aggression - or lack of it - as a gender indicator can lead to mistaken identities as often as not.
These kinds of traits and actions can vary not only from individual to individual, depending on personality, but also from flock to flock, depending on genetic inheritance. In some flocks, all the males are quite aggressive, while all the hens are mellow and easy-going. In other flocks, the exact opposite conditions may prevail. Unless you know the history of the flock your canary came from, using such actions to indicate gender may not be too reliable.
There are, of course, a few actions that are gender-specific, especially during breeding season - but even these can fool you, especially if you're relatively new to keeping canaries.
A good example of this is nest-building. It's quite true that only a canary hen can build a proper nest. It can be quite tempting to take this to mean that only a canary hen will collect nesting material, and that only a canary hen will attempt to build a nest - but this is not the case.
Especially during the earlier days of spring, many canary males can be seen eagerly ripping paper, and picking up shreds of paper or other materials, trotting about with it in their beaks while twittering excitedly. Female behaviour? Not necessarily! Many male canaries will do this just as eagerly as any hen will!
Many males will sit in the nest, too. I've seen more than one male encourage his hen to begin nesting by sitting in the nest himself, occasionally lifting up a little to look down into the nest, twittering softly as if 'talking' to imaginary chicks. When the hen gets curious and comes over to see what's going on, these males would begin feeding her - and more often than not, in fairly short order they would have their hen sitting on the nest, then building it, while they eagerly fed and bred her.
So this kind of behaviour can be beneficial to the male, in that it shows the hen that he is eager to assist her, and makes her feel more comfortable with him, leading her to be more willing to rely on him to feed her and, eventually, her babies.
Some males will even go so far as to put nesting material they've collected into the nest, and attempt to pack it down; but if you watch carefully, here is where you will see a distinct difference between the genders. Although it's fairly rare for a male canary to want to build a nest, it can happen, so an even an attempt to build a nest is not neccessarily an indicator of gender!
Such a male will collect nesting material and drop it into a nestpan or other likely-looking receptable - and he may even have a pretty good idea how to go about actually building a nest, too! But he will be quite hopeless when it comes to knowing how to tamp all these bits of material together into a tidy nest. That knowledge seems to rest with the hens alone.
So if a singing canary builds a loose, sloppy-looking nest, he may be a male. On the other hand, some hens build fairly sloppy nests, too, and although in general the males sing much better than the hens, some hens can and do sing very much like a male. So song is not neccessarily a reliable gender indicator either.
Most singing hens will stop singing once they've come into full breeding condition, but a few will sing right through breeding season, even when incubating eggs! So a singing bird who builds a neat, tidy nest is almost certain to be a hen, irregardless of whether she sings or not.
Of course, once breeding season is under way, there is one way to tell the difference between genders, and it is indisputable; if it lays an egg, it's unquestionably a hen. I've heard people claim that their bird suddenly changed gender, that it used to be a male and suddenly became a hen; while that actually can happen with some of the more primitive bird species, it has never been found to occur in canaries. If she has laid an egg, then she was a hen all along - irregardless of how well she sang, or what gender her owners originally thought she was.
Indisputable proof of gender in a male occurs when it is seen that he has produced fertile eggs with a hen. While it is true that only a hen can lay eggs - it is also true that only a male canary can fill those eggs so that they will produce live young.
Some people believe that a canary's gender can be discerned at any time of the year, by looking at the vent. Many pet store people rely on this kind of 'gender identification' to sort any youngsters they've obtained, and it's quite common at bird marts to see people casually flipping a bird over to check its general condition and gender.
While the state of the vent can be a good indicator of a canary's general state of health, it is not a reliable method for separating youngsters by gender. As long as it is clean, not swollen, and has no traces of old droppings adhered nearby, the state of a canary's vent can verify that the bird is in general good health, but that is about all the vent area will tell you, outside of breeding season.
The problem is, unless a canary is in full breeding condition, his or her vent area is liable to look exactly like another canary's vent! Outside of breeding season, there simply is no obvious differences in appearance. People who tell you otherwise, are, quite simply, either sadly mistaken, or lying through their teeth - or they may have mistaken a different condition as an indicator of gender, when in reality there was another cause altogether.
The fact is, being in breeding condition is not the only time a canary can have a swollen vent; some diseases can cause exactly this same symptom as well. For example, a problem with an enlarged heart, liver, or kidneys can cause a swelling of the vent that can look remarkably like a bird in breeding condition, as can other medical conditions - but if you watch such a bird's actions, you will soon realize what is actually going on.
A bird with such a problem will not act at all like a bird preparing for breeding season, but will instead be much more lethargic, spending little to no time flying, or ripping paper and tearing at string toys. In such a case, observation of the bird's actions can give you the clues to its true state of health, if not its gender!
Observation will always play an essential role in for all canary owners; it lends invaluable assistance in learning to understand just what these small gems are all about. Just remember that it's best to use any such observations as indicators, rather than definitive facts. That way you will be able to continue to learn more about your canaries as you watch, look, and listen!
In my experience, the lessons these wonderful little songsters have to share with us will never end - the more you watch them and learn about them, the more you will realize there is left to learn about them. It can be quite a challenge - but after all, in the end, isn't that what life's all about?
by R C McDonald
www.robirda.com
Copyright © Nov 2005
Our great bird-lover's products, in recent order of popularity:
For a full list of all our products and services, visit the webpage at www.robirda.com/products.html
"Everyone always asks me why my birds are such beautiful singers and breed such magnificent babies...I tell them that I learned from Robirda! While they give their birds all kinds of 'magical' formulas, I just follow your guide to 'keep it simple.' My birds are now very healthy, and there has been no recurrence of the infection. Thank Goodness!" R.C., Florida
Song CD
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Do you like to keep your canaries singing? Our CD of Robirda's canaries in full song can stimulate pet canaries to sing more, and is a popular choice, either for themselves or as a gift. We have received a great deal of positive comments from many of our customers. Here's just a few we've received recently:
"My 'baby' and I are both thrilled with your CD! It arrived within days of my purchase and it's the best CD out there! I have purchased every CD available, and yours was the only one my canary responded to. He...is singing his little heart out now!"
"I just wanted to let you know, our cats find your Canary Song CD highly entertaining - every time I put it on, they start running around the house, looking for the new birds! It's hilarious, and it's encouraged our canary 'Caruso' to sing more, too; what a great CD, thanks so much!"
"I received the CD today... I put it on the player and our canary Mustard Seed began chirping and singing within a couple minutes. It is a beautiful recording, thanks so much!"
"Just a quick message to thank you for your prompt delivery of my CD. Your CD has done wonders for my canary, he hasn't sang for months and now he tries to out sing the CD, very fulfilling for me to watch! Thank you for a great product!"
Find out more about our Canary Song CD!
Tips 'n Tricks
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Flock Talk reader Jean writes; "Thank you for your interesting and important article on Air Quality (in issue 132). I keep 200 finches in the lower level of my home. I have found the air cleaners with the collection plates and ionizer system to be the best. I bought a Sears model 6 years ago and it never wears out, never needs replacement parts, only asks for a regular cleaning of the plates and the area around the unit.
"One additional hint for you is this: I buy a package of those little filters that you can put in your furnace vents, and I tape two side by side across the air intake at the front of the unit. These little filters gather large particles of dust and feathers that are drawn to the unit with the air flow, and capture them. This increases the number of days between cleaning the plates AND it prevents the sparking and snapping that can occur when a large particle, i.e. feather, crosses two wires in the unit. The vent filters can be washed out for repeat uses, or thrown away. I wash mine, a package lasts a LONG time!"
Stories Wanted
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Send us your stories of how your birds confuse and puzzle, interest and amuse you, and we will share them with the rest of our readers in a future issue. Just send an email here.
For you
& Your Birds,
With Love
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