ISSN 1492-8132
Issue 93, © 2004
No reprints without permission

Our special hand-numbered-and-signed edition of Robirda's book Brats in Feathers, Keeping Canaries has been getting a great response from readers. Here's just a few of the comments we've received;

"You have a way of making things easy to understand, and I love the look and feel of your book - not to mention that it is so easy to find the information I am looking for. THANK YOU!!!"

"It's SO beautiful, and the photos and illustrations are wonderful, I love it!!!!!! Thanks so much!!!"

"Received your book today, and was surprised how great it is! It's well worth the cost and then some, thank you!"

Learn more here.

The folks at Bird & Cage Co have made it their goal to provide birdkeepers with a great selection of good quality cages and birdcage accessories for great prices. The newest cage might just be one of the best pet canary cages you will ever see!

There are some great cage deals available to bird owners, from small and large pet cages, to breeding cages, stands, and some of the best flight cages anywhere. There's even free shipping for orders over $25 in the continental US! See Robirda's cage reviews for more.

For a full selection of cages and cage accessories, visit BirdandCage.com.

Get an insider's look into careers and businesses involving pet birds. The Companion Bird Lover's Guide to Careers will give you insights into a selection of avian-related careers and businesses, including avian rescue founder and director, avian veterinarian, veterinarian technician, freelance writer, marketing manager, bird boarding entrepreneur, as well as selling wares to the companion bird market.

This informative booklet provides profiles of people who have careers and businesses involving pet birds; dozens of helpful resources to help put you firmly on your chosen career track; and vital information to help you make an informed decision on necessary qualifications and other considerations.

The Companion Bird Lover's Guide to Careers is a perfect tool if you have always wanted to base your work on pet birds, but don't know how or where to start. It is ideal for high school and college students, as well as anybody looking for a change in venue.

For more infomation (including how to order on or offline), and to read free articles, please visit us at P J Publications.

Remember, we rely on you to help keep this publication and its associated websites alive. If you find help you need in this ezine or on our websites, please consider joining our sponsors.

For all those who continue to help out in so many ways, thank you for your warmth and caring! We particularly appreciate your help during these last few trying months, while Robirda has been so slow in recovering.

Our next issue is due April 25th. We hope you and your birds stay safe, well and happy in the meantime, and we look forward to seeing you all then! 

Robirda
Apr 11, 2004

Welcome to Robirda's Companion Birds eZine

For breeder or pet bird owners who care.

Hello! Welcome to Flock Talk's 93rd issue. Subscribe and unsubscribe information for the email version of this ezine is at the bottom of this webpage.

Table of Contents

Website News

Those who use Hotmail or autoresponders may have some problems receiving Flock Talk by email. Hotmail will 'bounce' emails back to the sender if not enough inbox room is available, while auto-responders send an acknowledgment; but the list server sees both these responses as equivalent to an 'undeliverable' notice, and queues them as 'possibly invalid'.

After three such 'errors' are received in a row, these issues can cause the listserver to automatically delete your email address from the delivery list. If you received a notice that "the list administer has unsubscribed you from the mailing list", this is probably what happened.

The solution is simple; make sure there's plenty of room in your inbox, and don't use an auto-responder for the email address you've subscribed to Flock Talk.

Bird Food Fact

Soaked and slightly sprouted seeds are a natural food to many small-birds species, particularly those native to grasslands. Many grass-loving species that are normally considered quite difficult to breed, such as owl finches, gouldians, splendid parrakeets, turquoisines, and rosellas, to name but a few, still prove to be quite reliable with certain breeders.

Upon looking into just what kinds of secrets these breeders use, one element tends to turn up time and again; they offer their breeding birds plenty of soaked-and-barely-sprouting seeds, often dusted with a good nestling food.

This diet mimics very closely the natural diet available in the wild, which these birds evolved to expect to eat. Being so close to their wild ancestors, they tend to exhibit more finicky tastes, and may eschew the kinds of foods more commonly fed to breeding birds.

But no matter what they will or will not accept, many breeders have discovered that a great many birds, even from the more 'delicate' or 'difficult' species, will prove to be reliable parents if soak seed and nestling food is included in their breeding diet.

Learn more about using soak seed and nestling food at www.robirda.com/soakseed.html

Get recipes for making your own mixes in the Soak Seed Care Sheet, at www.robirda.com/care.html

Feature Story

This issue we are very pleased to be able to share with you this heart-warming story by a Flock Talk reader, of a very special relationship with her canary hen...

by Lynn M. Ake
Akron, Ohio, USA
Copyright © 2004

Spring is coming, and the daffodil and tulip bulbs are beginning to sprout around a flattish rock in my garden that bears the legend, "Junior, 1991-2003", and the picture of a bird.

The bulbs were flowering back in the spring of 1991 when Wiliiam Byrd and Curley set about the business of building a nest and raising youngsters. Curley promptly laid four little blue-speckled jelly-bean sized eggs, and two weeks later I came home from church to hear the "pip-pip-pip" of a hungry chick coming from the nest.

It seemed almost impossible that something that tiny, resembling a plucked chicken in extreme miniature, could survive; but Number One was soon joined by two more tiny chicklets. I had nearly given up hope that the fourth egg would hatch, when it too resulted in an even tinier baby.

Bill and Curley proved to be good parents though, and all four babies survived. Number One was the largest and most adventuresome, followed by the 'runt', Number Four, while Two and Three proved more content to let the world (and their parents) come to them.

Since Bill was green, but Curley had the gene known as the 'red factor', I was eager to see how their chicks would turn out. (Editor's note; this is not a recommended pairing, being rather like crossing a whippet with a basset; the resulting pups might be cute, but are mutts nonetheless)

Their baby fluff was black, and as it gave way to real feathers, I watched with fascination as Number One became a handsome mostly-brown bird, with patches of deep gold and white, while Numbers Two and Three became brown and gold, with no white. Number Four, on the other hand, was all brown and seemed plain as a barn door in comparison.

Number Four also had another distinguishing characteristic, which sealed its fate; both little black toes were bent - instead of curling down as they should, they twisted in, causing the tiny claws to face each other. This seemed a cosmetic defect, since this little one could grip a perch as well as its siblings, but I decided at that point to keep this one as my pet.

Since One and Four were more aggressive than their siblings, I guessed that they would both be males, and named the little tag-along "Junior". Junior turned out to be a hen, but the name stuck.

I have many wonderful memories of their "childhood": learning to fly on supervised outings around the apartment where I lived, followed by unsupervised outings once they learned to become escape artists; landings resembling pontoon planes as they slid to a stop on the kitchen's slippery linoleum floor; Junior looking down at me from one of the vanes of the ceiling fan as she surveyed her domain - a sign of things to come.

Number One did turn out to be male, and once he started singing, left for his new home with one of my friends, who had been waiting for a young male canary.

Numbers Two and Three, named Ingrid and Tess by their new owner, lived long and happy lives with one of my co-workers. Junior, however, became Queen of the flight cage. Of all my birds, only the young Junior would come and eat out of my hand - but only after she had checked out the offering and made sure it was worth her bother.

The others would watch enviously as she chowed down on the proffered delicacy, but if they got too close, she would scold them like a fish-wife.

Junior demanded her own food dish as well, choosing a small treat cup in the corner as her own property, and never lowering herself to eat out of any of the large feeders.

She was sociable enough in any matter that didn't involve food, though. Junior loved to bathe and would plop right in, splashing for all she was worth. In the process she would soak the window, the floor, the cage, and any other bird within range. She would stay in until she was soaked to the skin and too wet to fly, then she'd hop out and shake until she was sure she'd sprinkled anybody she'd managed to miss previously.

Junior made the move with me, from the apartment to the house where I live now. When people came to visit and asked what I was doing with a sparrow in with the canaries, I knew they had spotted Junior.

Junior certainly made up in personality what she lacked in looks, and would always respond to my "Good morning, Junior," with an interrogative "Sque-eek?"

As she passed the 10 year mark, white feathers began to come in on the back of Junior's head and under her chin - a mark of old age, like a dog with a grizzled muzzle. She was developing the avian equivalent of arthritis, and it became difficult for her poor twisted back toes to grip the perch.

Seeing this, I moved her into the "handicapped cage" with the female member of the "Hard Luck Twins", where the wide flat perches permitted her to continue living a normal life.

She spent the last two years of her life there, mellowing in personality, but never losing her taste for goodies.

She slowed down and began napping more, as an old lady will, at twelve-and-a-half, and finally one October morning, I came downstairs to find that she'd died peacefully in her sleep.

She was special, this homely little brown bird, and so she was not just buried in the garden as her parents were; she was commemorated with a rock, a piece of sandstone, painted with the picture of a little brown bird and inscribed "Junior, 1991-2003". It is surrounded by crocus, daffodil, and tulip bulbs.

It's spring now, and the bulbs are beginning to come up, and it's time to begin pairing the canaries. There will never be another Junior, but as I consider who to match with Jack, a green who reminds me quite a lot of Bill, Junior's father, I consider that sweet little bronze-red hen...

by Lynn M. Ake
Akron, Ohio, USA
Copyright © 2004

Tips 'N Tricks

It's important for nestlings to have a nice thick nest, with plenty of cushion and give to the nesting material. This helps to prevent problems with the bones from developing as the chicks grow, and is one of the biggest reasons why burlap makes such good nesting material.

As with any natural fibre though, it is important that the material be thoroughly pre-shrunk before being offered to the birds. This is because heat causes natural, unshrunken fibres, to shrink and curl. When in a nest, this can cause thin strands of fibre to shrink and curl around legs or toes when exposed to the naturally warm body-heat of a small bird.

Prevention is easily accomplished by cutting the fabric into two inch squares or so, and shredding them. Boiling water is then poured over the heap of loose fibres. Because the fibres are relatively short, they are free to react completely to the heat, and shrink as much as they can.

When the water has cooled enough that the material may be handled, the wet mass can be piled onto a heap of paper, which will help to spead drying by absorbing excess moisture. When the paper becomes wet, move the material to more dry paper, and within a day or so at most, you will have a lovely heap of beautiful fibres that will encourage your birds to build a thick, soft, safe nest.

Behaviors & Personalities

I think every flock probably has one; the 'alarm' bird. It can be a hen, but more often will be a male. This is the bird who calls out if a suspected predator should happen to wander by, and in a home with multiple birds, it will usually be the one to call their owner(s).

For whatever reason, rarely does the whole flock call out; instead, the "appointed alarm" bird will call out a strident reminder that breakfast is overdue, or the lights are on a little late, or the cage cover needs to come off (or be put on)...

In our house the 'alarm' bird, a 5 year old male by the name of 'Bilbo', has another game (besides the usual ones) that he likes to play with us; from the way he acts, I suspect he thinks of it as "mimicking humans in order to get them to sing back at you."

It started when we discovered that he had begun to reply to our arrival home with a call that sounded very like a musical version of our usual greeting of, "Hi guys!" He had the tones and timing of the phrase exact, and it took very little imagination to realize what he was imitating.

Needless to say, we encouraged each other to continue, and now he has a wide range of whistles, calls, and tones, that he uses to 'talk' to us, and he has taught us to sing or whistle much more than we ever used to. Not quite the kind of attitude that a canary might be traditionally expected to have, maybe - but as cheery and entertaining as any game I've ever encountered, and better than many, at that!

*** 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.