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ISSN 1492-8132
Issue 139, © 2006
No reprints without permission
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The folks at Bird & Cage aim to provide bird keepers with a great selection of good quality birdcages and accessories for great prices, along with some of the best customer service you will find anywhere. The newest cage might just be one of the best up-and-down small flight cage combos you'll ever see!
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For a full selection of cages and cage accessories, visit BirdandCage.com.
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Robirda's customers find her answers to be detailed, reliable, caring and supportive. When you need help with housing, feeding, care or behavioral questions, Robirda can help you learn to understand your birds better!
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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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We'd like to thank everybody who added their thoughts to our survey on reissuing the 'Brats' book. Thanks to your feedback, we've decided to adopt a new format; 'Brats in Feathers, Keeping Canaries' will soon be available in a less costly coil-bound black-and-white edition, for those who prefer a lower price - but we haven't forgotten that many of you treasure the colour photos!
We will be including the option to add a 26 page full-colour glossy insert, with 52 full colour photos. The total cost with the colour insert included will be similar to that of the first edition. We think the first copies look absolutely stunning! They will be available for sale through the website within a week or less, but readers who are interested in reserving a copy in advance can send an email here.
Feature Article
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Sometimes it happens that, even though you had planned to breed your canaries, a situation arises that makes it clear that you won't be able to devote the time and attention you'd planned on to increasing your flock, for one breeding season at least. The inevitable decision follows; should you go ahead and breed your canaries, trying to keep up with everything that needs doing, or should you instead try to delay breeding and perhaps even prevent it for the year?
To Breed or Not?
by R C McDonald
www.robirda.com
Copyright © Feb 2006
If not done carefully, deliberate changes to the canary breeding cycle could affect the moult, which in turn can affect canary health. This means that a clear understanding of the canary life and breeding cycle is necessary before you begin trying to apply any changes. Whether you decide to proceed with breeding but not allow any youngsters to hatch, or choose instead to try to prevent any attempts to breed, each method has its advantages and drawbacks.
Each approach requires some work to achieve the desired results, and both work better beginning well before breeding season starts, so it's a good idea to consider your options carefully.
Lots has been written about what's necessary to be successful with breeding canaries, and if you decide to proceed with breeding but not to allow any hatching, then the procedure is quite simple - you'll keep to a normal breeding schedule. All that's necessary is to switch any eggs produced with fake eggs, then let the hens 'incubate' them as long as they wish to.
They will usually incubate fake eggs longer than they would infertile eggs, because infertile eggs slowly lose moisture as the incubation period advances, becoming lighter in weight and alerting the hen that there is no growing chick inside. When this happens she is apt to turf the egg and begin laying all over again.
The fake eggs, however, have no moisture to lose and so will not lose weight. The hen's instincts will tell her that this egg is fertile, and so she will tend to sett it for longer than she otherwise might. Eventually she should abandon her nest, at which time you can give her a week or two in a flight cage, then decide whether you will have to allow her to repeat a nesting cycle, or, if the season is at midsummer or later, let her remain in the flight and encourage her to advance into a moult.
Some hens, instead of abandoning their nests, will simply lay more eggs and continue incubating them, so a close eye needs to be kept on the nests to ensure that all eggs are replaced soon after being laid, particularly if they could be fertile.
But what if you would prefer not allow breeding at all?
This is trickier, since it goes against the instinct for species survival. It can cause more potential problems, too, because if you adversely affect the moult, you will also be adversely affecting your canary's health. Canaries NEED to be able to achieve a successful moult, in order to stay healthy.
There's other problems that can arise, too. If you prevent young canaries from breeding in their first year, it's possible that they may never learn properly how to breed successfully. Young, newly-adult canaries learn with everything they do, and if they decide that all breeding season is about is 'playing house', they may never learn how to properly produce and raise chicks.
Older canaries, who have successfully raised chicks in the past, will know better, and even if they aren't allowed to produce chicks during the current year, will often prove to be reliable in a following year - although they are also more likely to resent being prevented from breeding in the first place.
Older birds with positive experience can help to teach younger, inexperienced birds the finer points of successful mating and hatching, so if you decide you will need to put off breeding for a year, but plan to keep breeding canaries in the long run, you will want to be sure to keep as many experienced breeding birds as you can manage. When the time to breed finally does roll around, they will prove to be worth their weight in gold, for their ability to teach the less experienced birds 'the ropes'.
Alternatively, if you plan to never breed at all, you might be better off starting out with stock that has never been bred, so they will have less of an idea just what spring is all about. This way they may be less likely to become frustrated and upset with you over your lack of cooperation in producing babies.
I personally find it easier to let them go through the motions, whether I plan to let them raise babies or not. This allows me to keep them in pairs, rather than having to cage them singly, and seems to help lower the frustration levels, by allowing them to 'play house'. Of course, you need to be sure that your pairs all get along well!
They don't seem to experience much (if any) frustration over the eggs not hatching, but they do experience frustration if they are caged singly throughout the whole season, and can see and hear other birds of the opposite gender who want mating.
Keeping canaries in pairs gives you less cages to clean, which is always nice, especially if you are busy. If you are trying to discourage breeding activity, you can try housing the canary hens together in a large flight cage, but watch for arguements - even the usually more peaceable canary hens can get quite territorial during the spring.
I don't recommend ever keeping male canaries grouped in flight cages during the spring, because there is apt to be some serious fighting, even if the birds are not in full breeding condition.
An important factor to preventing attempts to breed involves maintaining the nutritional levels high enough for good health, but not so high as to encourage breeding. This means being careful not to offer protein and oil-rich supplements, and keeping all soft foods down to a scant minimum.
It also means not offering water-rich greens such as lettuces and endives, instead offering only denser greens such as kale or collards, and only in amounts that will be completely cleaned up within a few hours. If you offer vitamin supplements in a mix such as soaked seed with nestling food, increase the amount of vitamins included so you can reduce the amount of mixture offered to a small amount given no more than once weekly.
Lighting is important too. Part of the preparation for breeding involves spending some time during the winter with reduced hours of lighting. If you know that you will not be able to breed the following spring and wish to try to prevent breeding, then don't reduce your winter lights as much as usual; instead of reducing the winter hours to 10 1/2 hours, reduce them only to 12 hours, then leave the lights set at 12 hours on and 12 hours off throughout the entire winter and spring.
The decreasing winter lighting pattern tells the birds that now is the time to fly and get strong and healthy, so as to be in good shape when the days again start to get longer. The fact that the lights don't decrease so much means that there will be less competition for food during the winter daylight hours, and will allow all the birds to eat their fill before lights out. Plus, they will have less time to wait before the next day, all of which helps keep them healthy without alerting their bodies to the fact that it is actually midwinter.
Generally, breeding behaviour begins as soon as the days begin to lengthen, and becomes stronger until the days are long enough for the birds to achieve full breeding condition. But since you won't be advancing the lights until close to time for the moult, there will be no signal for breeding behaviour to start, nor will the birds be primed by the short winter days to jump into spring as soon as the days begin to lengthen.
This should keep them relatively healthy, without encouraging the almost frantic preparations for breeding that you would more normally see. As long as they are unaware that the season is advancing towards spring outdoors, your canaries should remain fairly healthy and happy.
Of course, you can't allow this to go on for the entire year, or the birds will never move properly into their moult! So instead, you can resort to offering them a shorter, belated spring, which does not include the time or nutrition to breed.
Close to midsummer, in or around the first or second week in June, suddenly jump your lights from 12 hours a day up to 16 hours a day. Be sure to keep a close watch on the diet you are offering, and be certain that it doesn't offer any extra nutrition to encourage breeding activity!
The idea here is to see that the birds get approximately two to three weeks of the longer days before you begin to gradually reducing the day lengths again, by about a half an hour every week or so. So, near the end of June you will reduce the day lengths to 15 1/2 hours, then throughout July, you'll gradually reduce the day lengths by a 1/2 hour per week, until by early August, the birds are getting 13 hours of daylight, and have started to moult.
This is when you have to make your decision - do you continue to reduce your lights to the normal winter low of 10 1/2 hours, or will you instead leave them at 12 hours? It all depends on if you think you will want to breed your canaries during the following spring or not.
This method is trickier to follow than the simpler 'replace the eggs with fakes' method...but if done properly, it can mean less frustration for your birds, and overall, less work for you.
Hopefully the need to skip a breeding season will not happen to many of us very often, but as with everything in life, it's always a good idea to be prepared for any possibility. And besides, if you're ready for the worst, anything else is a pleasant surprise. And who doesn't like getting one of those?
by R C McDonald
www.robirda.com
Copyright © Feb 2006
"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
Food Fact
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Recent nutritional studies in Germany and Britain on the absorption and dietary balance of poly-unsaturated fatty acids (PUFA), especially the related linoleic (n-6) and alpha-linoleic(n-3) acids, showed interesting changes in body tissues and fertility rates depending on the diet fed.
It seems that the alpha-linoleic acids, which are found mostly in green leaves, grass, seaweed and fish, need to be in higher porportion in the body than linoleic acids, which are primarily found in vegetable and seed oils, nuts, seeds and meat.
The researchers commented, "...insufficiency and impalance of n-6 and n-3 fatty acids leads to various clinical and sub-clinical problems including growth retardation, reproductive failure, hair loss and skin lesions, haematological disorders, impaired immune response and vascular dysfunction.
They went on to say, "A low n-3 supply might contribute to vascular disease, to skin or moulting problems and aggravate cases of enterotoxemia. It might also influence fertility. Essential fatty acid deficiency has been shown to impair sperm development, egg hatchability, and fetus and newborn survival.
"...avian sperm contains large proportions of PUFA, which is influenced by the dietary PUFA supply. While sperm of low fertility is often characterized by a high n-6:n-3 ratio, sperm of higher quality has higher PUFA levels and especially lowered n-6:n-3 ratios, i.e. contains more n-3 PUFA. It has been shown that the feeding of a n-3 PUFA rich diet can improve sperm quality and fertility in fowl and man."
These studies prove that feeding dark leafy greens contributes more benfits to our birds' health than we ever before realized!
For full details read article four, here.
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 readers? Send us tales of how you cope, or 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.
Song CD
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Do you like to keep your canaries singing? Our CD of Robirda's canaries in full song stimulates pet canaries to sing more, and is a popular choice for many canary owners. But it can also be used to bring more wild birds to your feeders, or to make your pet parrots more comfortable with their surroundings; and some folks even use it to entertain their cats!
We have received a great deal of positive comments from many of our customers. Here's just one:
"My 'baby' and I are 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!"
Find out more about our Canary Song CD!
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