There is an easy remedy, and if you are consistent, you will find even the most nervous of birds gradually losing their fear. Even without specific efforts being made to train or handle them, this technique will help.

What is it, you ask? It's very simple. Talk to your birds when you are working with them. It doesn't matter what you say, as long as your tone is mild and steady.

This simple action tells the bird a couple of reassuring facts at once. The most important, is that you have no predatory intentions. This is of utmost importance to any bird! A stalking predator will never willingly make noise, so deliberately making non-threatening sounds will speak directly to the roots of this instinct, and help calm and prevent panic reactions.

The second, through the tone you use, says that you have affectionate feelings towards this bird, and would like to be friends. Although a bird's idea of friendship is based on his own notions, nothing much like our human ones, they do understand and respond to this level of communication.

If you consistently approach your bird(s) in this manner, it won't be long before you find yourself reaping the rewards. You may even get more than you expect - why not give it a try, and see?

Our next issue is due out July 22th - until then, may you and your birds enjoy all the best of everything!

Robirda
July 8, 2001
Vancouver, BC, Canada

Welcome to the Companion Birds eZine

For bird people who care.

Hello! Welcome to the twenty-third issue of Flock Talk! If this e-zine is helpful to you, please visit www.robirda.com/useful.html Send any comments, ideas, tips, tricks, stories or feedback to Robirda

Feature Article

One of the commonest questions heard from new owners of of a colour-bred canary is, "How can I be sure he keeps his colour?" Many become confused at the variety of conflicting opinions and advice they receive on venturing into owning one or more of the beautiful shades of colour canaries available today. I guess it is inevitable, then, that the next question usually is, "Should my canary be..."

by R C McDonald
Vancouver, BC, Canada

Any breeder of these brilliant gems of the Canary Fancy soon grows familiar with this question. Although it arrives in many guises, it usually boils down to the same thing; either people are convinced that colour-feeding is unnatural, useful only to disguise a poorly-bred canary, or they think that the terms colour-bred and colour-fed each refers to a different kind of canary.

In actual fact, the two terms describe two different aspects of breeding the group of canaries known collectively as red ground canaries, or (erroneously), as 'red factor' canaries. Note that these canaries show or carry the red factor, which is a genetic code. These are the canaries which have the ability to show red as well as yellow in their feathers. There are a multitude of variations of colour in this group of canaries, but they all share at least two things in common.

All of these canaries should always be colour-bred; that is, be the offspring of a similar bird, which was bred to another bird also of similar genetic heritage. But if a breeder wishes to know the true genetic potential for colour that each youngster actually carries, then he must also colour-feed his stock.

Anyone who thinks colour-feeding is unnatural has missed a few basic facts about canaries whose genetic makeup includes the red factor. Their background is unique amongst canaries; they are the only breed documented to descend from hybrids of the Canary and the South American finch most often known as 'the Black-Capped Red Siskin', or sometimes as 'the Red Hooded Siskin'.

Achieving a fertile bird capable of throwing young with a cross of this type is a rather rare happenstance, as more usually such crosses will be sterile. This is why hybrid crosses between songbird species are often called 'mules'.

History has recorded, however, that approximately twenty-five percent of the young males do indeed prove to be fertile in matings of these two species. It is from these males, through carefully selective breeding programs, that all of our red-ground canaries of today are descended.

From the Red Siskin they have inherited the ability to concentrate red carotenoids in their feathers, as long as sufficient quantities are present in their blood while their feathers are growing in, while their hardiness and free-breeding style comes from the ever-adaptable canary. Most breeders pay little or no attention to the quality of their song, but like canaries of all breeds, they can and do sing.

Sometimes you will hear someone say that a red canary is nothing more than a yellow canary given food dyes while it is moulting, and that the breed of canary has nothing to do with its eventual colour. These people have just enough information to mislead them. While it is true that many red canaries will wind up looking rather more yellow than red if they are not colour-fed through their moult, it is not true that a canary with no siskin ancestry can be coloured similarly to a true red-factor carrying canary through colour-feeding.

The first thing to understand is that all canaries derive their colour from the natural pigments in their food. Deprive a normal yellow Canary of all yellow luteins and carotenes in its diet while it is moulting, and the end result will be a visually white bird. Deprive a red canary of dietary carotenoids during its moult, and the resulting feathers will appear yellow or white.

The Red Siskin in its native habitat is able to easily forage for much higher concentrations of carotenoids than is available to a bird from more northern climes. A Red Siskin fed only on foods easily available in a temperate climate will have much duller plumage than his tropical relatives. This is because most tropical vegetation contains higher concentrations of carotenoids and related substances than is found in temperate-climate vegetation.

Since importing tropical vegetation to feed your birds would amount to a great deal of cost, time, and trouble (if possible at all), a compromise was agreed upon amongst canary breeders to use a compound which offers the strength and intensity of these tropical vegetable dyes. Using this compound, known as 'canthaxanthin' is no more unnatural, in my opinion, than is a human using vitamin tablets to supplement those available in foods.

In fact, this compound allows breeders, after years of trial and error, to finally see the physical expression of the true genetic potential of their carefully bred red canaries' natural colours.

A simple experiment is sufficient to prove the difference between various types of canaries and the effects of colour-feeding on their plumage. This experiment is very easy to perform, and I recommend it to anybody who thinks red colour-bred canaries should be colour-bred but not colour-fed.

All you need is two regular yellow canaries of any breed, and two colour-bred red canaries. The experiment starts when the birds begin their annual moult.

Colour-feed one of the red canaries and one of the yellow canaries. Provide the other two canaries with a normal moulting diet, but without any colour-feeding. Make sure that all the birds receive a diet rich in vegetation, providing vegetables such as broccoli, kale, grated carrot, chopped leafy endives, mustards, crinkle-leafed cabbages (of any colour) and other such foods. At the end of the moult assemble the birds in one cage and compare them.

The colour-bred but not colour-fed red canary should be a good healthy orange, and it should look quite orange indeed when compared to either of the yellow birds. But you may be surprised to notice that it looks rather pale when compared to the rich flaming vermillion of the colour-fed red canary. The colour-fed yellow bird will have pale orange in its feathers, but it will only look orange if you compare it to the non colour-fed yellow bird - against either of the red factors it will still look distinctly yellow.

It was the act of performing this experiment and witnessing the results for myself, in fact, that finally allowed me to decide for myself just where I stood on this issue. I had heard so many conflicting opinions on the subject that I was quite throughly confused. But the incontrovertible visual evidence provided by the birds themselves proved impossible for me to deny.

Therefore, although all my birds are bred first for their song and personality, I frequently allow them to also show me their true genetic potential by colour-feeding my red canaries. Their vivid, jewel-like colour combinations are a decidedly distinctive bonus in any aviary or birdroom.

That way, if I'm asked, I can proudly say, "Yes, my canaries are colour-bred and colour-fed!"

by R C McDonald
copyright © July 2001
www.robirda.com

"My young canaries are no longer being fed by their parents, what is the best way to go about seeing that they learn successfully to eat on their own?"

My answer;

"I prefer to use soaked seed rather than eggfood when weaning youngsters, I find it makes the process far easier, and is less dangerous, too, as eggfood can go bad before it smells or tastes off, especially in the heat. Sour foods can cause e-coli infections, or worse.

"To learn exactly how to do soakseed, check my article, posted here.

"When weaning, you want to offer foods with less protein and fats than they got when in the nest, and more starches. Since many can't easily crack enough dry seed to live on til they are around three months old, you need to offer plenty of softer foods too.

"I use lots of dark leafy greens, like kale, leafy mustard, leafy endives, etcetera - not much spinach or chard though, as it interferes with proper digestion of calcium, and they need that for their still-growing bones. I also see that the youngsters always have dry rolled oats on hand.

"Cous-cous is useful too. Use the plain unflavoured kind. You can even make it using juices instead of water! Most birds will peck at it, and it can to help get some weight onto them. Just be aware that too much, too long, will see you wind up with a 'perch potato'.

"Offer this variety of foods on a wide flat paper plate, and lower all the perches so that they are close to the floor and the plate - that way it will be very obvious exactly where the food is.

"The more they have to walk on it, the sooner they will be tempted to eat it - young birds learn what is edible and what is not partly by walking on it, among other means. Soft footing stimulates the pecking instinct - the chick pecks, and learns that is is standing on food. A plain paper plate is ideal for this, and as a bonus, the soft foods will not sour as fast as they do in a cup or dish, instead just tending to dry out."

Eric Vallet and his colleagues first described the canary hen's taste for and response to these trills in 1995, and ever since have been trying to figure out just what it is about this sound which proves so thrilling to the hens.

In the February '98 issue of "Animal Behaviour", the group described experiments which compared the number of mating displays elicited by edited recordings of the trills. They found that repetitions of the two notes appealed to the hens more than strings of a single note, and that they seemed to prefer the more swiftly-voiced notes. Males can repeat this two-note call up to twenty times a second!

Vallet believes that the hens' collective preference for the faster, more complex songs is due to the fact that such singing requires the male to be in top physical condition. It therefore serves as evidence to the hens that such a male is strong, likely to be fertile, and would be a good choice for a mate. "We think this type of syllable might be a good index for the females," he said.
References
- Vallet, E., I. Beme, and M. Kreutzer. 1998. Two-note syllables in canary songs elicit high levels of display. 'Animal Behaviour' 55(February 1998):291.
- Vallet, E., and M. Kreutzer. 1995. Female canaries respond to special song phrases. 'Animal Behaviour' 49:1603.

Finally, the website so many canary lovers have been awaiting, is here! Despite the name of 'National', the NCA is an international club for lovers and breeders of the Colourbred Canary. You can join, order closed bands or find show cages, post a question or read an article. Be sure you don't miss a look at the 'Classic Colour Plates' pictures or the Calendar of Events!

This site can take awhile to come up in your browser - but the results are well worth the wait. I expect it to be growing steadily, too, so don't forget to check back now and again for new content!