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ISSN 1492-8132
Issue 159, © 2006
No reprints without permission
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The folks at Bird & Cage are pleased to announce that they have two new cages added to their lineup, just in time for breeding season! If you keep small, medium, or even larger parrots, and especially if you're a breeder, you'll want to check out these lovely new wrought-iron cages, that incorporate three roomy cages into one large stack. See it here.
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For a full selection of cages and cage accessories, visit BirdandCage.com.
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This is a small website, but don't let that fool you! They offer a small but select group of high-quality, useful bird-keeper's products, including the only drinker to so far earn the Wing-Up Seal of Birdie Approval! You'll also find a short but growing list of informational articles, with links to more information, should you need it. Even better, the owners focus on providing top notch customer service, and will practically bend over backwards in an effort to help you. There's too few companies who provide this level of service, so you'll definintely want to visit this site, and browse through their offerings regularly!
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Welcome to Robirda's Companion Bird eZine
For breeder or pet bird owners who care.
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We're sad to announce this issue that, due to time constraints, Flock Talk will no longer be issued every other week. Instead, rather than having a set delivery day, we'll be putting out each new issue as time allows. We're hoping to be able to get a new issue out every couple of weeks or so, but that period may stretch at times to three or even four weeks, depending on time availability, and of course, how many content submissions we receive.
Flock Talk is a great way for you to share your bird stories with other readers; why not write down your experiences with your birds and send them in? Each feature story should be in the neighbourhood of 1500 to 1800 words long, or you can write shorter (300 to 600 words or so) comments to be included on the side. Send your articles, comments, or stories to birds AT robirda.com, with the subject line, "Flock Talk feature"
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In theory, colourfeeding a red canary is simple; get a canary whose genetic inheritance includes the 'red factor' gene that allows it's body to take red colour from it's food during the moult, and put that colour into it's feathers. When the moult is done, you'll have a red canary.
In practice, colourfeeding is rather more complex. What kind of foods and colourfoods you're offering, along with how much you're offering and when, can all affect the end results.
The genetic inheritance of a canary you're considering colour-feeding is AT LEAST as important as the diet. If the canary being colourfed doesn't have the 'red factor' gene, you can colourfeed all you like, but you will never see the deep, rich red that true red canaries can achieve.
But the diet being offered during colourfeeding is equally important, otherwise a 'red' canary can come through his moult wearing feathers ranging from cream-coloured through yellows, into a range of oranges - almost anything other than red!
So what's the real story behind colourfeeding? Is it safe, how is it done, and what foods or food supplements are used?
Colourfeeding
by R C McDonald
www.robirda.com
Copyright © Nov 2006
There's a wide range of supplements on the market intended for use when colourfeeding canaries. They vary quite a bit and are usually chosen to fit the method of colourfeeding being used.
Most colourfeeding supplements contain canthaxanthin, a concentrated form of a naturally-occurring tropical carotenoid. A canary who has inherited the gene for red can use any carotenoid to gain some colour, but most carotenoids are not capable of allowing the bird to achieve the depth of colour that can be achieved using canthaxanthin.
This means that if you're planning on showing your red canaries, it's essential that whatever system you use includes some form of canthaxanthin. There are several products available on the market meant to be used for this purpose, many including a combination of betacarotenes and canthaxanthin.
Some are meant to be added to the water; this is one of the most effective methods to colourfeed, but it can be expensive and wasteful, since canaries don't drink much water. It's also messy, because after drinking canaries tend to flick any water remaining on their beak off, which means you'll be finding little red spots everywhere, much further away than you'd think!
Also, because the colouring agent begins to break down and rot once it's in the water, any water including it must be changed at least daily or oftener, depending on how hot the area where gets. Since most canaries moult during the heat of the summer, it's not unknown for colour-feeding canary keepers to have to change the coloured water two, three, or even four times a day!
Many canary keepers get around these problems by offering the colourfood mixed in with a soft food; this is easier and less messy, but can make it harder to achieve the desired smooth, even colouration over the entire body, because in order to do this sthe bird must ingest precisely the same amount daily.
This requires close attention; the amount offered must be adequate to achieve the desired colour, and it must be offered regularly throughout the moult, without being offered in excessive amounts. The goal is to achieve the maximum levels of colouring agent that can be carried by the blood, allowing the feathers to express the maxiumum amount of colour the bird is genetically capable of achieving.
This last is done by closely monitoring the colour of the droppings. This may sound a little odd, but it works well. The reason, is because once the bloodstream is carrying the maximum amounts of colour it is capable of, the bird's body will extract any excess, and get rid of it through the droppings.
So if you see red in the droppings, you can know you're feeding too much colourfood. Reducing the amount being offered will reduce the amount of excess colour being removed from the bird's body; again, it's necessary to monitor the droppings to be sure that the right balance has been achieved. The droppings should be normal, with perhaps a very slight tinge of pink at the most.
Some canary keepers will claim that their red canaries get red with no special attention to their diet. Generally in such cases, it will turn out that the bird's normal diet includes quite a few carotenoids, perhaps in the form of carrots or kale offered daily. Some believe that colourfeeding using an additive such as canthaxanthin is 'unnatural', and to them, using carrots or a carotenoid-rich green like kale isn't colour-feeding.
This in turn results in occasional tales of a 'canary that remains red without colourfeeding', but such a statement occurs because of a misunderstanding of the process the canary body uses to put colour into the feathers. In fact, all canaries get their colour from their food, according to their genes; withhold items including yellow food colouring from yellow canaries during the moult, and they too will end up with little to no colour in their feathers!
Other birdkeepers refuse to colourfeed at all, having heard that to do so can cause damage to the bird's liver. However, there seems to be little to no scientific evidence behind these fears, assuming, that is, that the colourfeeding is done correctly.
Canthaxanthin is a carotenoid, and like other carotenoids, can be converted into vitamin A in the body. While it's true that too much vitamin A can be toxic, it's also true that massive amounts must be ingested in order to cause problems. In actual fact, a great many substances are benign or even helpful in proper proportions, yet can cause terrible problems if overdone!
I believe it is more accurate to say, "Canthaxanthin CAN cause damage to the liver IF MISUSED..." - but it's necessary to remember, that can be said of almost any element. Our bodies, and those of our canaries, exist in a delicate state of balance, and if anything upsets that balance drastically, it can have lasting and sometimes damaging results, especially over the longer term.
At least some of the old stories about colourfeeding being able to cause liver damage may be true; I've heard many of them myself, from people who had a fair bit of direct experience with colour-feeding experiments in the early years of developing red canaries. This data was based on direct observation, rather than being collected scientifically, and there may have been genetic tendancies involved too, unbeknownst to the breeders.
But one thing is clear - if colour is showing in the droppings, then that colour is there because the body has absorbed all it is capable of, and the excess was passed to the feces by the liver. So, I suspect it's quite possible to damage the liver by force-feeding enough canthaxanthin to produce deep red or even black colour in the droppings (while black CAN mean blood in the droppings, it can also be a sign of too much canthaxanthin).
Seeing such a colour would mean that an excessive amount of canthaxanthin was being used, far more than the body could use and properly process. Given that circumstance, it would probably be quite easy to cause liver damage, if the situation continued over several months or longer.
Remember, the liver can be damaged quite easily, by forcing too much of any number of products through it! This can be achieved through using too much protein, too many fats, or even by forcing the drinking of too much water! Along with any number of other ways, too numerous to mention here.
There will always be some people who take any tale to the extreme; thus, we hear, "If canthaxanthin can cause liver damage when used incorrectly, we should not use any at all."
To me, that's very like saying, "If breathing too much oxygen can kill, we should try to be as safe as possible, and not breath any oxygen at all!"
Each is an utterly ridiculous statement; but each conclusion can be 'logically' arrived at, by somebody who's willing to take the idea to the extreme. (Some know this tactic as the "baby and the bathwater" syndrome.)
Much of what we know so far about canary colouration is experiential - there's not yet been enough research done to be truly scientific. In other words, our ideas about WHY something works is often conjecture based on experience, rather than actual scientific evidence.
Some pet owners (understandably enough) prefer not to go to all the trouble of colourfeeding, but still want their canary to look bright and colourful. Such owners are often heard to enquire as to the possibility of alternative, preferably easier methods of allowing their canaries to show good colour.
Amoug the few alternative sources for colouring, most breeders' experience will corroborate that the best results are achieved through use of carotenoids - and outside of some tropical twigs and such, the best source for carotenoids is the humble carrot. By offering carrots to your birds daily during their moult, it is often possible to achieve fairly good colouring.
Carrots have a higher concentration of carotenoids than most other veggies or greens (although kale comes close), and the birds take to them fairly easily. My lot usually get theirs coarse-grated, but I've known breeders who lightly steamed them, and served them in slices or even (if they were tiny) whole.
Keep in mind that a certain amount of yellow colouring is needed to produce a deep, brilliant red; without yellow you'll get brick red, often considered to be the result of bad genetics and/or overfeeding of canthaxanthin.
But in my own (admittedly small) home experiements, cutting all the yellow from the diet during moult while colourfeeding canthaxanthin, also produced this 'brick-coloured' result.
Another year I deliberately tried to 'thin' the red colour with plentiful use of yellow-containing substances in the diet. This is a practice some breeders say must be avoided, saying that too much yellow in the diet will 'thin' the depth of the colour, but I found that I simply couldn't do it.
In the end, the only means I could find to reduce the red, was to reduce all the carotenoids - vegetable as well as colourfood sources. But reducing the carotenoids didn't exactly 'thin' the colour, so much as remove it!
Another bit of 'red canary folklore' says to keep red canaries out of direct sunlight, because it will lighten their colour. So one year, I tried to 'bleach' my red canaries by allowing them access to an outdoor, sun-drenched aviary. By the end of the summer I found that all their playing in the sunshine hadn't made a bit of difference to the depth of their colour. It's possible that our Northern rays here aren't strong enough. But for this latitude at least, that too seems to be a myth!
Offering carrots during moult is a great way to tell the genetic inheritance of a given bird, because canaries without the red factor gene will not get any colour whatsoever from eating them.
If those same birds happen to have the red factor gene, though, it will be very obvious, because they can and will get quite a lot of colour from eating carrots. They will never achieve the depth of colour that is possible using a preparation including canthaxanthin, but they will often be only a few shades lighter than that achieved by feeding a canthaxanthin-based preparation.
So while colour-feeding with carrots alone is not appropriate if you want to show, it works beautifully for somebody who has a pet canary, and carrots also work well when included with canthaxanthin in a show-canary's diet, to help to keep the colour bright and rich.
However you colourfeed, and indeed whether you choose to colourfeed or not, it all comes down to the joy that comes from keeping, working with, and for some, showing, red canaries.
by R C McDonald
www.robirda.com
Copyright © Nov 2006
Song CD
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