ISSN 1492-8132
Issue 99, © 2004
No reprints without permission

Our CD of Robirda's canaries singing consists of 12 16-bit true-stereo tracks, each averaging almost 5 minutes long, for a total of 58 minutes and 48 seconds of canary songs.

You can hear a 10 second mp3 sample here. Listen carefully, and you will be able to hear the different positions of each bird!

We are now offering New Songs From The Birdroom for only $12.00, plus $2.99 shipping and handling. Order yours today!

Due to popular demand, Bird and Cage Co is continuing their Big Summer Blow-Out Sale until July 31st! Prices have been slashed, so drop by today for BIG savings on a wide variety of wrought iron cages!

Take a tour of the new Bird & Cage website, while you're there. The aim is to provide birdkeepers with a wide selection of good quality cages and cage accessories for great prices, and the new site shows it.

The annual moult will start soon, so this is a great time to be sure you have the cages and accessories you need on hand. You'll even get free shipping in the continental US on orders over $25!

See some cage accessories.

See Robirda's cage reviews.

Our special autographed edition of Robirda's book Brats in Feathers, Keeping Canaries has been getting a great response from readers. Don't miss your chance to get one of these unique books! Here's just a few of the comments we've received;

"I ordered 'Canary Tales' by Linda Hogan last year... Although I fully recommend buying her book, I find Robirda's book much more complete, easier to read with less difficulty finding information."

"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!!!"

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

Learn more about Robirda's book at robirda.com/brats.html.

Try Robirda's ebooks for all the quality at a fraction of the price! See full ebook details here.

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.

Click here to read testimonials or for more details on sponsorships. If you're looking for something different, don't forget to check our home page for links to all our great products!

Our next issue is due July 18th. We hope you and your birds stay safe, well and happy in the meantime, and we look forward to seeing you all then! 

Robirda
Kelowna, BC
July 4, 2004

Welcome to Robirda's Companion Birds eZine

For breeder or pet bird owners who care.

Hello! Welcome to Flock Talk's 99th issue. Subscribe and unsubscribe information for the email version of this ezine is at the bottom of this webpage.

Table of Contents

Website News

We have finally finished moving, and the birds seem very pleased with their new digs. A series of comedic/tragic errors during the move saw us unable to access the web for several days, so if you tried to contact us recently and couldn't, now you know why. The problem is finally resolved, so do please try again, we will do our best to help! We still need to do a lot of sorting, etc., but the worst is over, whew!

We're hoping to to give away some great prize packages beginning with the next issue of Flock Talk. We have prize packages ranging in value from $65 to $140.00 to give away, but we need your help to do it.

We are looking for your stories of living with and keeping your birds; beginning on July 18th, each issue will feature a winning story, and the author will be awarded a prize package. Another will be awarded with each following issue until all prizes have been won. Check them out, then send in your stories while there's still time!

Send your stories to (sorry, the contest has ended now)

Feature Article

You think your pet canary may have a problem; although he is acting normally, you've observed that his droppings have suddenly become greenish. You blamed it on excessive greens and cut out all fruits and vegetables.

Yet days later, your canary's droppings are still green. He has been active the entire time, although lately he's seemed a bit subdued. His appetite has been normal, but little by little he is eating less each day, and has begun to eat mostly treats and soft foods, rather than seed. His eyes are still shiny and clear, his wings don't droop, his feathers aren't ruffled, and he preens as usual. What could be happening? Perhaps he has...

by R C McDonald
www.robirda.com
Copyright © 2004

Greenish droppings do show up sometimes, and may result only from eating a lot of vegetable matter. But if that is not the case, then green droppings can indicate that there is liver stress. A good look at food sources is indicated - were his veggies or fruits treated with pesticides, or grown with fertilizers? Sometimes traces of these will remain in the plant, and can't be washed off - and it doesn't take much to stress a canary's liver.

But there is another possibility that can cause greenish droppings - a megabacterial infection. Once established, such an infection is often unresponsive to many more common treatments, but will usually respond to treatment with a drug known as 'Amphorecticin B', available only to vets.

Before things get that far, there are steps you can take to help discourage this bacteria from thriving in your bird's home. Megabacteria may be found in many environments, but often won't seem to bother many birds - it seems they developed a resistance to infection, thanks to their diet and/or environment.

Megabacteria thrives in moist conditions, so if you have a bath constantly present, that could give bacteria someplace to grow. You can also reduce or even eliminate moist fruit and high-water-content greens, except perhaps an occasional small wedge of apple or a similar hard fruit, and plenty of the denser, more nutrient-rich greens.

Canaries will do fine without any fruit at all - and besides, unless they are organically grown, apples, oranges, and lettuces in particular tend to have high amounts of pesticides used on them.

It's the darker leafy greens that many birds don't get enough of; kale, collards, leafy endives, and brocolli raba (rapini) are just a few. Those, and similar greens, can be offered daily, as much as the bird will eat. I've yet to see a problem caused by too many greens of this kind - in every case where that was thought to be the problem, it always turned out that the actual cause was something else.

Chemically grown greens, though, particularly those with higher moisture content, can sometimes tend to encourage the growth of megabacteria, more so than in organically grown foods. This is because the salt-based fertilizers and any pesticide sprays used on them act to kill off, not just pest bugs, but the benign bacteria that thrive in more naturally grown foods.

If you suspect a potential for megabacterial infection, offer only the dark, mineral-rich lower-moisture greens such as kale, and try to see that your bird's cage remains dry. Make sure, for example, that bath water isn't getting splashed into a seed cup, or some such - because if the seed is getting wet, moisture at the bottom of the seed cup could be helping to breed bacteria - and megabacteria thrive under such conditions.

Another excellent way to build up resistance to megabacteria and other such problems, is to add a good probiotic to your bird's diet for a while. These are the body's natural control for such bacterial infections - they tend to suppress bacterial growth, because they foster a slightly acidic system, while megabacteria and other less benign bacteria tend to prefer more alkaline conditions.

For the same reason, add a little raw apple cider vinegar to the water - up to about a tablespoonful or so, to a cup of water. Taste it, to check that you've got it right - it should taste very slightly tart, not unpleasant. It will help encourage the probiotics to thrive, and this in turn will help discourage megabacteria.

It's really rather impressive how beneficial probiotics and raw (unpasteurized) apple cider vinegar can be, especially when used together. I've seen birds who looked to be practically on death's door make a sudden turn-around and begin looking like a whole new bird in just a few days, once cider-vinegar-water and probiotics were added to their diet!

One of the greatest benefits of both of these 'tricks', is that they are beneficial whether the bird is sick or not. No matter what, they won't hurt him, and there's a very good chance that they might help.

Please note that just how much vinegar to use depends on the PH of your water. In the Pacific Northwest, the water is already quite acid, so less is needed than in most areas of the North American continent, which have fairly alkaline water.

Having fairly alkaline water means you'd have to add a little more vinegar. That's why it's a good idea to check the taste, because the amount needed to get the water 'a little tart' can actually vary quite a lot.

The probiotics act to replace the essential digestive enzymes and beneficial bacteria that a system requires in order to properly digest food. Normally these are manufactured within the gut, but stress, poor diet, or the use of antibiotics can deplete the body's supplies to the point where they can no longer reproduce themselves. In order to get the gut functioning normally again, it is necessary to replace them.

There is a variety of good avian probiotic formulas available, alone or in combination with other ingredients. Vetafarm produces several good products that include avian-specific probiotics, and one of the best on the market is produced right here in North America; it is known as 'Prime', by Hagen.

'Prime' came about as a result of research conducted at the Hagen Avicultural Research Institute (HARI), and is especially made to complement the diet of a seed-eating bird through supplying not only necessary nutrients, but avian-specific probiotics as well.

If you do buy some Prime be sure to open the box and check the expiry date on the bottom of the bottle - many stores don't know to check this, and so sometimes you will find an expired bottle still on a shelf. Hagen will replace such bottles with fresh, so don't let the store tell you no - they CAN return them and get you a fresh one instead.

Many probiotics (including Prime) come with instructions to offer them in water, but I find this method inefficient with canaries - the birds do not drink enough water to be very effective before the mixture begins to age and lose its potency.

I prefer to serve Prime and other similar supplements in dry form; I put a little into a salt shaker with a few grains of rice (to prevent clumping), then sprinkle a bit on some apple or greens. 'Salt' things fairly heavily the first few days, then cut back to just a dash for a couple of weeks or so. Once his system is back in balance, you won't need to provide probiotics all the time - in fact, it's better not to - but it's very handy to keep some around, as you never know when you might need it!

An alternative method is to mix some into nestling food, to be served on soak seed (see robirda.com/soakseed.html ) Here again, offer a good sized dose for several days, then cut back until after a while you are offering little to none.

It should be mentioned that sometimes a bird who is drastically short on digestive enzymes and bacteria will get looser droppings for awhile, when first given probiotics - but that's quite normal. The cause is due to the 'flushing' of accumulated unwanted systemic toxins. Such changes almost always cease after a few days - if they do not, an experienced avian veterinarian should be consulted as soon as possible.

by R C McDonald
www.robirda.com
Copyright © 2004

Ask Robirda

This issue's question:

"My hen was plucking the feathers from one of her two chicks, so I put him with his father and left the other sibling with mom. The father has fed him some, I haven't seen him eating on his own, but he seems chipper and flies and enjoys sitting on the swing. Is it too soon to seperate the chicks from the parents?"

Robirda's answer:

"You can probably quite successfully put both chicks in with their father, and allow him to help to wean them. You can also try putting a wire divider between the hen and chicks, so she can’t pluck their feathers to try to make a new nest. The wire divider allows her to continue to feed them through the wire, without being able to pluck them as much.

"However - hens are not always great parents, when focused on building another nest. So if the father will feed, I would let him feed both youngsters, while meanwhile she can build another nest and amuse herself.

"Be careful not to offer too much high-protein food to the weanlings, such as you gave the parents when the chicks were still in the nest and growing rapidly - instead offer only a little. Supplement that with plenty of dark leafy greens daily, such as kale, leafy endives and mustards and such - this is very important for young canaries!

"Other useful weanling foods are rolled oats, couscous, and soak seed. Having a variety of soft foods around until they have finished their baby moult - which usually starts at around 6-8 weeks old, and last for another 6-8 weeks - is a very good idea.

"You want to offer foods with a higher starch content and less protein than was used while they were in the nest, but with good vitamin and mineral content. Since many youngsters may not crack enough dry seed to fully support themselves until they are 3 months old or more, it’s important to offer plenty of softer foods along with the drier supplies.

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

"The more the youngsters have to walk on the food you have offered them, the sooner they will be tempted to try it. Many people don’t realize that young birds learn what is edible and what is not partly by walking on it.

"Soft footing stimulates the pecking instinct - the chick pecks, and learns that 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 in a cup or dish, instead just tending to dry out.

"Hopefully all this will help you to make the transition from weanlings to beautiful young birds smoothly!" When you need advice on housing, feeding, care or behavioral questions, Robirda can help you learn to understand your birds better. Learn more here.