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ISSN 1492-8132
Issue 151, © 2006
No reprints without permission
Sponsor's Space
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The folks at Bird & Cage aim to provide bird keepers with a wide selection of great quality birdcages and accessories for very good prices,accompanied with some of the best customer service you will find anywhere.
They offer a lovely wrought-iron small flight cage that may just be the best small pet bird cage you'll ever find!
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For a full selection of cages and cage accessories, visit BirdandCage.com.
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 them in 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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Well, we finished a little behind schedule, but it's done! Our new video on basic canary handling, The Canary Whisperer, is now available on our website, in your choice of DVD or VHS. It's over 50 minutes long, and full of valuable info and handling tips for any newcomer to keeping canaries.
One of our first customers tells us, "...your film project was just great and I can understand how you took months to film it. It is a lot of work, I can see that. Your cameraman was quite good and did some innovative shots that helped show details which are always important. Your bird cages were interesting and different from any I have seen...and the size of the flight cages is just wonderful. I am inspired to make my own flight cage as yours is attractive and serves many purposes. I enjoyed meeting you and find you to be just a great, down to earth human being. All in all, the film is a good one for anyone just starting out who wants some help understanding the basics."
For more info, see robirda.com/canarydvd.html
On another note, you'll notice that this issue arrived a day later than usual; that's because we've decided to change our delivery day from Sunday to Monday, for a variety of reasons. We hope this doesn't cause a problem for you, but if it does, do please feel free to and let us know what day you'd prefer to receive Flock Talk!
Feature Article
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One old saying claims that if you scratch a canary keeper,you'll find a gardener underneath. I'm happy to say that in my case, it's true; and it also seems to be true of a great many canary keepers around the world. While not all canary people garden, my experience has been that the majority do. Perhaps there's just something about both pastimes that appeals to the us, I don't know. But many of us do know that our canaries appreciate the garden bounty equally as much as we do, particularly those...
by R C McDonald
www.robirda.com
Copyright © July 2006
Most canaries adore eating greens, and there's a good reason for this; a great many of those greens contain nutrients that canaries (and for that matter, many other bird species) need in fairly hefty quantities.
Vitamin A, for example, is plentiful in a great many dark leafy greens, and most avian species, including canaries, require a fair bit more of this essential nutrient, for their size and weight, than do we humans.
Other commonly found ingredients include other vitamins and minerals, especially easily-lost water-based nutrients such as vitamin C and some of the B's. Many dark leafy greens also offer plentiful trace elements or minerals, along with roughage and moisture, a particular necessity for birds on an fairly dry seed or pellet-based diet. Even a bird can't always drink as much as it needs, so a little extra moisture included with the food taken in, helps the body to stay vigorous and strong.
One caution you need to be aware of, if you plan to feed greens to your canaries, and that's chemical content. Foods that have been grown with the assistance of fertilizers or pesticides, can sometimes turn out to be toxic for canaries, even though the levels used are considered safe for use on food for humans.
That's because humans tend to be more resistant to negative effects from these substances than canaries; and besides, our canaries are simply so much smaller. The same quantity of a chemical that won't harm a human child, may very well kill a canary!
Organically grown greens are getting easier to find, in many areas of the county, but tend to be a little more expensive than commercially grown greens. They are generally safer to use, for feeding greens to your canaries or other small birds.
A lot of people enjoy growing their own foods, when the seasons permit it, and this is an excellent way to produce your own bird greens, too. After all, if you grow it yourself, you can be much more certain of just what went into that produce!
The ideal plants for such purposes are hardy, undemanding, and disease and pest resistant, as well as being attractive, tasty, and nutritious. Some plants will self-sow, if given the chance, and will produce plentiful quantities of greens over a period of months or sometimes even years, with minimal care and attention.
Sounds like a pipe dream, you say? There actually is plants out there that fit that description, and we're going to discuss a few of them here.
Broccoli Raba or Rapini
A bit like a leafy broccoli, this relative of the widespread cole family does best in cooler weather. It tastes different than broccoli, offering more 'tang' to the bite than its blander relative. It is easy to grow, being bug and disease resistant, and will do quite well even in quite poor soil. It is frost-resistent, and will easily overwinter in many areas of the country, if given a little protection. The spring shoots are very tasty, and dense with nutrients.
Rapini offers good amounts of omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids, and a fairly balanced and rich group of proteins and amino acids. It is a rich source of vitamin K, A and beta carotene, and offers a fair bit of vitamin C and simple plant sugars.
Carrots;
Carrots are well known for the nutrition they offer. They are one of the best vegetable sources for vitamin A and beta carotenes, and they also offer a wide variety of amino acids.
But what many don't know, is that carrot leaves can be every bit as edible as the carrots themselves! The greens from commercially grown carrots are not to be trusted; since most people don't eat the greens, there is often a fair bit of pesticides used on them.
But if you are growing your own, or using organically grown carrots, you can be fairly sure that they are safe. And as long as they have not been sprayed with pesticides, there's every reason to use these nutritious, peppery-tasting greens. Birds love them, and humans enjoy them added to salads (you don't need much!) or dried and used like parsley in soups, stews, and such.
If you've never tried these spicy greens, you are in for a treat! Try leaving a carrot in the ground over the winter, and the next spring it will put up tall stalks with large, white-flowered dill-like heads. The seeds are spicy and very tasty, resembling their close relative, caraway.
Chickweed;
Chickweed is a low-growing, cool-loving plant that starts growth as soon as the ground thaws in the spring. It loves rich, loamy soil, and is commonly found in gardens, as an uninvited weed. Gardeners who know it better welcome it's presence, because chickweed leaves have a texture similar to lettuce, and even when flowering, it never becomes bitter, maintaining its crispy, juicy texture and delicate, mild flavour until frost.
Chickweed easily self-sows, and is very tasty in sandwiches, salads, or rolls. Most birds, of whatever species, adore chickweed and will gobble down large quantities, if given the opportunity.
Chickweed has a number of field and woodland relatives, all similar in appearance and growth habits, and all with the same wonderful flavour, texture, and resistence to bitterness. Several of these plants are also known as chickweed, while other varieties are termed 'miner's lettuce', 'siberian miner's lettuce' or something similar.
Chickweed and its relatives are very high in Vitamins A and C. Even better, more recently they have been shown to contain more Omega-3 fatty acids than any other leafy vegetable known.
Chicory (Italian Dandelion);
Chicory is also sometimes called the 'Italian Dandelion', due to a resemblance to its yellow-flowered relative. Like the dandelion, chicory leaves are nutritious but have a bitter edge to the taste, even when young; eating them can be an acquired habit, but can be very beneficial to your health!
Like the dandelion, chicory is very high in vitamins and minerals, containing essential trace elements that can be difficult to acquire elsewhere in a vegetable-based diet. The greens as well as the blue flowers and the green seed-heads are all greatly appreciated by canaries, and if you dig it up and slice it down the middle before offering it to them, they will even eat the roots!
Chicory is very easy to grow; in fact, you could say it grows like, well, a weed! It self-sows reliably, and will show up early in the spring, even after the hardest winters. Although it prefers cooler weather, it is fairly tolerant of heat, though as soon as the days get warm it will insist on flowering and setting seed. But this is no problem if you're feeding canaries, as they enjoy the flowers and seeds as much as the greens!
Besides, the flowers are good to bring beneficial insects and butterflies to your garden - and who wouldn't want those?
Daylily;
Daylilies are often used in perennial landscaping; they are a grassy-looking plant that puts up lily-like flowers during the summer, dying down in the winter only to return each year. I wasn't able to find out what kind of nutrition daylily buds have; this tasty food isn't yet recognized as such yet, in most databases! It wouldn't surprise me to find that it is every bit as nutritious as, say, chickweed, or some of the other wild foods that have been eaten traditionally by several cultures for so many generations.
If harvested when hewly opened, each daylily flower can be found to contain a tiny pool of nectar at the base of the blossom. The taste of the flower itself is mild and bland, slightly sweet. In some cultures, the unopened buds are battered and deep-fried, and are considered a delicacy. The roots are also edible, and can be roasted whole, or used to produce a high-grade starch.
Canaries adore daylilies in any form, and will readily eat any part of the plant they are presented with, and look for more. Be careful, though; if you try them, you may find you'd rather eat them yourself!
Endive (leafy)
Leafy endive looks a little like a head of loose-leaf lettuce, until you look a little more closely, when you will note that the leaves are long and thin, although they tend to be curly around the edges. The taste is slightly bitter; like chicory, leafy endive (also known as 'endivio') is another relative of the dandelion. Like it's weedy relative, this plant is loaded with nutrition, and is beloved by canaries everywhere. It is more tender than broccoli raab or chicory, and (like a lettuce) will require a bit more tending to grow, (being particular about it's water requirements especially) but the results will be worth it!
Leafy endive offers good amounts of omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids, compared to most greens, and a fairly balanced and rich group of proteins and amino acids. It is a rich source of vitamin K and A, and offers a fair bit of vitamin C and simple plant sugars.
* Be sure to catch the second half of this article, in the next issue of Flock Talk, which you will find along with a link to a new (coming soon!) photo area where you'll find pictures and information on some of the more beneficial and useful greens you can offer your pet or breeding birds.
by R C McDonald
www.robirda.com
Copyright © July 2006
Song CD
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Do you like to keep your canaries singing? Help encourage your canaries to sing more with our CD, featuring Robirda's canaries in full song. Or, use it to help call more wild birds to your feeders, or to help make your pet parrots more comfortable.
You'll get 12 16-bit true-stereo tracks, each averaging almost 5 minutes long, for a total of over 58 minutes of canary songs, with no distracting background music. We've even posted a short sample for you to listen to!
"My 'baby' Jingles 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 was in subsong before, but is singing his little heart out now ! The CD has attracted the wild birds outside his little garden sanctuary, so my canary has lots of vocal competition now, which makes him sing even more."
Find out more about our Canary Song CD, here!
For You
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Our next issue is due Monday, Aug 14th. We hope you and your birds stay safe, well and happy in the meantime, and we look forward to seeing you then!
"Hi Robirda! Thanks for your thoughts. My little one is singing as loudly as ever. He looks much better today. Your advice was most welcome; I'm particularly grateful about the recipes! I sent you the same amount the vet charged me; you have done no less than he did. You are a real blessing to all of us canary lovers the world over."
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