Contents:
- HOW TO HAVE A HEALTHY CANARY
- BASIC CARE OF EXOTIC BIRDS – CANARIES
- CANARY CARE
HOW TO HAVE A HEALTHY CANARY
by Dunstan Browne, President AACC
Follow these proven pointers and you will have a happy, healthy
singing canary!
FEEDING
Fresh WATER daily: never let a
canary go without water, if he has no water for 24 hours, he will not
survive.
Master or Deluxe CANARY SEED daily: includes canary (beige
colour), rape (black round seed), flax (brown)seed, and niger
(black). Most good pet shops carry a good mixed canary seed.
Vacuum packed seed is the best. (Hagen or other brand names)
GREENS daily: these are a must especially during spring, summer
and fall. Give a variety of vegetables such as broccoli, cabbage,
spinach, and brussel sprouts. Weeds such as dandelion leaves and
chickweed are excellent food for a canary. Greens can be kept fresh
after washing, in a bag in refrigerator. Always replace greens
after one day. Avoid lettuce and celery --- too watery. Once a week,
give your canary one quarter of a hard boiled egg, mixed with bread
crumbs as a treat.
Sliced apple is excellent for your
bird.
Canary gravel and oyster shell: a canary needs gravel for his
digestion and oyster shell for the calcium. These can be mixed together.
Put this mixture in a small cup off the bottom of the floor of cage. It
is essential to have gravel in the cage at all times. Most pet
shops can supply. Cuttle bone and mineral blocks are recommended.
Be careful with "store bought food" made for canaries such as song,
moulting, condition foods, candied bell, millet, etc. They
can often be stale. Fresh foods are the best. Ce-De soft
food once or twice a week especially during the moult is excellent for
your bird. A tablespoon with a drop or two of water to make it crumbly
is best but you can give it dry.
CLEANING
Keep your canary clean! Change paper on floor daily and a major
clean of entire cage and perches once a week. By keeping cage and
perches clean, you will avoid diseases, and mites.
Avoid sandpaper perches and bottom sandpaper -- not good for the
bird's feet. Use wooden or plastic perches.
Bathing: a canary loves to bath daily in spring and summer if
possible and about once a week in the winter when it is cooler.
You can get good plastic hook on baths from the pet shops or just place
a container of water on the cage floor.
Summer: may be outside in a warm area but avoid direct sunlight
where there is no shade. Never place the cage in direct sunlight
without some shade. Don't move the cage
too often when the bird is in the moult. Avoid cool drafts also when in
the house.
MOULTING
A canary moults once a year usually from July through until
September. Your bird may stop singing during this time but this is
normal.
Feed him a heavy diet of greens, cucumber and egg during this time as
it improves your bird's colour and health.
If you have a red factor canary there is a special colouring
supplement available to enhance the birds colour. Ask at the pet
shop.
REMEMBER
If you care for your bird you will be rewarded with many years of his
wonderful song.
Your little bird is an animal. He cannot stay healthy unless he
gets more than just seed and water. There are many vitamin and
mineral additives but fresh food is always the best.
BASIC CARE OF EXOTIC BIRDS – CANARIES
by Rado Pagac
(2000, Vol. 23 #1)
The basic care of canary birds require the following: proper
housing, balanced diet, drinking and bathing water. In the following
paragraphs you will find out what is needed to properly accommodate,
feed and keep your canary healthy.
Considering that canaries have been domesticated for quite some
time, they will live and reproduce in almost any size of cage, in an
indoor flight, or an outdoor aviary with shelter attached to it. They
have no great demand when it comes to cages. A large cage, preferably a
long one, is better than a small or high round cage, because the bird
will have more freedom of movement and exercise. The cage, size adequate
for one canary, is 60 x 50 x 60 centimetres. Such a cage placed near a
window, where it will get a bit of direct sun, will keep the canary
happy, and encourage the bird to sing. The best place for the cage is at
eye level as this will help the bird feel more comfortable. Of course,
always beware of drafts and do not place the cage in a drafty area. If
the window near the cage needs to be open, move the cage to an area
where is not a full effect of a draft.
Perches in the cages, preferably natural branches, should be
from a hardwood or a fruit tree ( oak, apple, cherry, for example ). it
is a good idea to have perches of varying thicknesses, about one-to-two
centimetres thick, so that the muscles of the birds' feet and legs get a
lot of exercise. The perches should be placed within easy reach of the
food and water vessels. They should be placed apart, so that the bird is
forced to fly from perch to perch, not just jump from perch to perch.
Canaries are natural seed eaters, with short, wide, and strong
beaks, which are designed to pick up and dehusk seeds. Canaries have a
specially designed digestive system that allow them to obtain all of
their essential dietary nutrients (protein, carbohydrates, fats,
vitamins and minerals ) from a mixture Of seed, green food, fruit, plus
a little bit of animal food and a grit. There is no single kind of seed
in which all these nutrients occur in a sufficient amount, so a seed
mixture is necessary to make the diet of your bird as varied as
possible. Using the basic canary mixture, consisting of rape seed,
canary grass seed and groats in a ratio of 30:50:10, will mean success
with your birds. On alternate days, a teaspoonful of either
universal-conditioning food or egg food should be given to your birds
for a good health. All of the above mentioned food mixtures are
available in a pet supply stores.
Another very essential addition to the bird diet is green food.
Green food should be offered to your bird at least once, preferably
twice a week. A small, thoroughly washed and dried up, fresh piece of
lettuce, spinach, cress or dandelion should be given to the bird, which
the bird can eat in an hour. Any left over pieces should be removed and
discarded before bedtime. Only one kind of the above mentioned greens
should be given at once. As most canaries will take fruit, a piece of
sweet apple, pear, pineapple, kiwi, orange etc., could be also offered.
Drinking water, of course, is a very important item. Canaries
should have fresh, clean water available at all times. Water should be
renewed every day, because the unclean water can be a source of disease.
The drinking water is best offered in an automatic fountain drinker made
especially for this purpose. The vessel should be positioned in the
cage, in a way so that the chance of pollution is minimal.
Canaries also like to take a bath at least once a day. Bathing
water can be supplied in a popular birdbath, available in the pet store,
which fits over the cage door opening. The bathhouse should be filled
with lukewarm water, and after the canary's first bath it is best to
remove it. If the water is left in the cage for a long period of time,
there is a possibility that canary will drink the soiled water, which is
unhealthy.
There is a lot more about the care for canaries and other
exotic birds that I could write, but I wrote these paragraphs having the
beginner of canary fancy on my mind. I believe that these basic steps
will be helpful to any newcomer in the care of healthy and happy birds.
CANARY CARE
by Anthony B. Olszewski (199, Vol. 22, #1)
The goal of every canary breeder is to improve his stock.
Unfortunately, so much time and energy is invested in simply keeping the
birds alive that improvement is impossible. Miserable breeding results,
too often accepted as the norm, also stop the fancier from upgrading his
birds.
Numbers are important in aviculture. The frequently recommended small
but high quality stud is impractical. Even the long established breeder
produces only a small percentage of top quality birds. Thus to get a
quantity of high quality young, it is necessary to breed a much greater
number of mediocre birds. Darwin, in his monumental work, noted that
evolution proceeds most rapidly in large populations. Also the small
stud quickly becomes too highly inbred, forcing the fancier to
constantly seek outcrosses or to suffer a decline in vigor.
In this article I will give the method by which I maintain and breed
my birds. Though mainly intended for the canary fancier, these rules may
easily be modified to include all seed eating birds. Aviculture requires
a great deal of time and effort and a little information which is
absolutely necessary. This information I can provide but each fancier
must provide his own labor.
Nutrition is the most important aspect of aviculture. Every canary
must be provided with a fortified blend of canary seed, rape seed,
golden German millet, oat groats, thistle, steel cut oats, flax, sesame,
and hemp. This mix may be more costly than the usual "black and white",
but, in the long run, pays dividends. Birds fed a vitamin, mineral, and
protein enriched blend produce more fertile eggs, better feed the
chicks, are less likely to pluck the feathers of the young, and are more
resistant to disease. The extra young produced more than pay back the
few cents a day it costs to feed a top quality mix.
The seed mixes of all birds should be vitamin fortified.
Aviculturists should take vitamins seriously. Vitamins are essential for
the metabolic functions of all living things. When seed is not vitamin
fortified birds are not able to reap the full benefit from the nutrition
present in the feed. Vitamin enriched feed is a must for optimum growth,
maintenance, reproduction, and health.
Some counter that vitamin enriched seed is not "natural." The natural
diet of seed eating birds is very rarely dry seed. For the better part
of the year, all seed eating birds consume the milky seed directly from
the plant. This seed is at its nutritional best. The vitamin content of
even the best processed seed is nether consistent or adequate enough to
assure optimal nutrition. Natural factors, such as drought, insects,
excessive moisture, disease, and molds, make the vitamin levels of seed
uncertain. Man made variables, the storage, transportation, and
processing of feed, conspire to rob the seed of the vitamins needed by
birds. Research has proven that the vitamin supplementation of seed is a
must to achieve peak production.
Pelleted feeds, seemingly an answer, fall short of the mark. Pellets
have a place as supplements and in commercial production. If by a
"complete diet", the manufacturers mean that birds are able to survive
and raise young on their products, then they are correct. If by complete
is meant being able to rear vigorous show winners, without the addition
of vitamins, fruits, vegetables, or eggs to the ration, then pellets
fail miserably. No one knows all the elements that are required in any
cage bird diet. Only the cockatiel has been the subject of recent
university research. Human diet, intensively studied for millennia, is
constantly being revised and updated. Canaries fed on pellets alone,
particularly red factors, show rough plumage. The droppings of canaries
on pellets are often loose.
The seed should be given to the birds in a deep dish. Fountain style
feeders encourage the birds to pick out their favorite seeds. This is
wasteful and leads to an unbalanced diet. The mix should only be changed
when all the seed is consumed. The hulls should be blown off the top
daily.
The birds should also get a small amount of fruits, vegetables, and
greens. I use apples, oranges, bananas, green peppers, canned corn,
fresh corn on the cob, cooked broccoli, raw spinach, raw dandelions, raw
collard greens, raw Swiss chard, pears, peaches, strawberries, and
cherries. The various berries are very good, especially for red factor
birds, but these fruits are very expensive. Lettuce is useless and
should not be fed.
Ideally, all produce should be home grown. Organically grown fruits
and vegetables are free of dangerous pesticides, Any insects add an
extra touch of protein; the birds relish them. Rinse store bought fruits
and vegetables in an effort, albeit most often in vain, to remove all
chemicals.
Soaked seeds are an absolute necessity for the feeding hen and for
the newly weaned young. They are a treat for all birds. Cracked corn,
wheat, buckwheat, and safflower, normally too large and hard, are made
acceptable to canaries by soaking. Soaking breaks down complex
carbohydrates rendering the seed more palatable and more highly
digestible. This is done by taking a special soak seed mix and adding
two parts, or more, of water and refrigerating. Soak for at least
twenty-four hours. Rinse well and strain before feeding.
Sprouts are not the same thing as soaked seed. Not all seeds can be
sprouted. Most bird seeds are treated with preservatives and vitamins
and will not germinate. Seeds for sprouting should be kept separate for
various species of plants have different germinating times and
requirements. In addition to the regular bird seeds, many seeds for
sprouting are available in health food stores. My favorite is the
Chinese mung bean which is very easy to sprout and possesses a high
degree of palatability for the birds. I have also used soy beans for
sprouting. My birds do not like alfalfa sprouts.
Sprouting seed is the simplest way to provide your birds with fresh
greens. For a few birds only a quarter cup of seeds should be sprouted
at a time. Seeds increase in volume tremendously when sprouted. Place
the seeds in a clean glass jar. Fill with tap water and let stand at
room temperature for twenty-four hours. Rinse and drain completely.
Repeat the rinsing and draining completely daily until the seed has
sprouted. If a foul odor or mold develops, discard. Preparations are
available to prevent spoilage. Rinsing and draining well is very
important. Any surplus sprouts may be refrigerated up to two weeks.
A proper nestling food is very important. The best bet for the
beginner is to purchase a good quality dry nestling food with which many
local fanciers are experiencing good results. I have found it
economically unfeasible, as well as time consuming to mix my own. A
treat dish of dry nestling food should be before the birds at all times.
This serves as a treat and protein supplement out of the breeding
season. In this way the birds are also trained to eat the nestling mix.
Whenever given a new food, birds will ignore it for a few days. If you
wait until the nestlings hatch before giving the rearing food, the
babies will starve by the time the parents sample it. When the birds
have young, give them as much dry nestling food as they want.
Nestling food can also be mixed with egg. To four cups of dry
nestling food, add one pound grated carrots, and one dozen grated hard
boiled eggs. Chop the eggs in a food processor shells and all. This is
for about fifty feeding hens. Boil the eggs for twelve to fourteen
minutes to ensure that no fowl diseases are transmitted to the canaries.
This mixture is given in an amount that the birds will eat in one
hour. All birds get one treat cup per day of this egg mix. The supply
for birds with feeding young is constantly renewed during the day. The
nestling food with egg spoils very rapidly, particularly during the
Summer. It would be best to prepare the egg mix fresh every day. If this
is not possible, refrigerate the excess immediately.
It has been stated that birds will die from overeating soft foods.
This is nonsense. That birds will be killed by fresh, nutritious foods
is the height of absurdity. It is true that birds will die from eating
rotten nestling food. Just like tropical fish, birds die not from
overeating but from overfeeding.
Grit and cuttlebone are before the birds at all times.
I must emphasize that there is not one diet for the adult bird, one
for the nesting hen, one for the young bird, and yet another for the
moulting bird. Each and every bird must get a balanced diet each and
every day of the year. It is foolish to think that birds may be bred on
a diet of seed and water. Try living on bread and water yourself. It is
ridiculous to keep a bird on a plain seed and water diet for nine months
and then to "gear up" for the breeding season. This misplaced economy is
responsible for the majority of breeding failures: hens not coming into
breeding condition, eggbound hens, dead in the shell young, and
nonfeeding hens. The percentage of protein in the diet will increase
during moulting and nesting, but the list of items in the diet should
not vary.
I do not feed any milk to my birds but do add small amounts of yogurt
to the nesting egg food. Bread soaked in milk is a very primitive
nesting food. I question that birds can completely digest milk.
The original staple of the captive canary was freshly gathered milky
seeds and seed heads. Plaintain, Chickweed, Shepherd's Purse, Anne's
Lace, Charlock, Smartweed, Dandelion, and Thistle have all been
recommended as canary foods. The old time poverty stricken British miner
or farmer, our ancestors in the Fancy, maintained their beloved pets in
perfect health solely on such a diet. Only by gathering these foods were
they able to afford to feed the birds.
Today we are not allowed such a luxury. Plants in both rural and
urban areas are fouled by engine exhausts, factory fumes and by the
spraying of pesticides and herbicides. Feeding roadside plants can cause
lead poisoning. The only safe way to feed milky seeds is to grow them
yourself. I raise the small sunflower seed for this purpose. This plant
can be found growing wild. Seeds may be collected and cultivated in an
area that is known to be safe. This food is very rich and should only be
offered in small quantities. This will help to bring about a most
beautiful feather sheen.
The most practical housing for canaries is the commercially available
wire cages with metal trays. The seed and water dishes should fit into
the cage-front. This sort of cage is easily serviced without bothering
the birds. There should be a provision for two dividers, one solid and
one of screen. Since it is all metal, this cage is easily sterilized.
The box style cage may also be used but to no real advantage. Only in
a location subject to drafts will the cage with solid wood sides be
superior. Box cages are no longer a bargain. The material to construct
these cages might easily cost more than the conventional metal cages.
The construction of the box cage is time consuming and laborious. They
are also impossible to sterilize and require more maintenance, at the
very least a yearly painting.
I have found flight cages to be unnecessary. Supposedly birds in a
flight a healthier for they are thought to get more exercise. This is
not the case. In the flights birds tend to sit in one spot all day. It
is difficult for them to move about, for each tends to maintain a
territory. In a cage they will keep active jumping from perch to perch
all day long. Canaries do best in a cage around 24 inches in length by
10 inches square, one bird to the cage, except during the breeding
season.
Young birds and hens may be put into a flight. Cocks over a year old
should not. They may attack and kill each other. The hens and young may
also be harassed and mutilated. In any event, flights must be constantly
inspected for birds failing or going light. Large populations bring
unbearable pecking order pressures on individual birds. These low men on
the totem pole will rapidly fail. Placed in individual cages they will
often recover. Despite all precautions, occasional unexplainable
mortalities will occur in any flight.
I must here mention the revolutionary system of Doctor Travnicek,
budgerigar and grass parakeet breeder. He uses all wire cages
constructed of one-half inch by one inch welded wire and fastened with
crimped clamps. Water is provided by means of automatic valves, a device
long used in labs for rodents. It is important to stress that the whole
cage is wire, including the base. Soiled food and droppings fall below
to a sheet of disposable plastic film. Since the waterers are automatic,
the birds are not able to soil their drinking water.
Every breeding season attaching the nest liner to the nest is a
disagreeable chore. Sewing. is very troublesome. I have used ELMERS
glue. That works, but it is difficult to change the pad-the whole nest
has to be soaked to remove the old glue. A local breeder has come up
with a better idea. A small hole is drilled in the bottom of the canary
nest. A hole is cut in the bottom of the felt nest liner. The nest pad
is then attached to the nest with a brass fastener, the kind with the
two "legs" that are used to hold papers together. This way the pads can
be efficiently and quickly changed.
Wooden finch nest boxes are time consuming to construct and to clean.
It is very easy to make small boxes out of 1/2" x 1" welded wire. Cover
the wire boxes with cardboard using twist ties to fasten the cardboard
onto the wire. When cleaning, simply discard the soiled cardboard and
sterilize the wire basket. A wide range of sizes and styles are easily
fabricated using these materials.
The birdroom itself should be a peaceful and relatively dry
environment. Optimally, it should be located above ground and away from
flashing lights and noises at night. Unfortunately, most of us are
forced to locate our aviaries within earshot of screaming babies and
rock music. That the birds survive and reproduce under these conditions
is a miracle! It is certainly not to be recommended.
The temperature of the bird room should regularly be between sixty
and sixty-five degrees. This should be raised, gradually, to seventy-two
degrees during the breeding season. Canaries will live and breed under
colder conditions, but this is minimum survival, not the best conditions
that we should strive to provide.
Artificial light for the bird room must be wide-spectrum fluorescent
bulbs. The fixtures are to be controlled by an automatic timer a
regularly set for eight hours of light per day. This will be slowly
increased, for the breeding season, to seventeen hours of light for each
twenty-four hour period. The birds will start to show a desire to breed
from about fourteen hours of light for each day, but at this point are
not really ready to breed. If the cocks and hens are united too soon,
the entire first round of eggs may be infertile. The pairs should be set
up at sixteen hours of light. The slight wait is required to insure
fertility. Seventeen hours of light gives the hen that much extra time
to feed the young. Birds must have proper rest. Turning the lights on
and off can be a death sentence.
It is usually recommended to increase the light only a few minutes
each day. With the mechanical timers this is not possible in practice,
since these devices are accurate only to the half hour. The old
fashioned timers must be periodically checked, set, reset, and
lubricated. Eventually they wear out. New computerized, remote-control
timers are available. These space age instruments are accurate to the
minute and can independently control many fixtures. They can also dim
incandescent bulbs. This allows dusk and dawn schemes to be implemented.
Sanitation can not be overlooked. The paper in the trays must be
changed at least once a week. More often is better yet. All water and
soft food dishes must be washed out every day and frequently sterilized.
A dish washing machine is best. The floor of the bird room is to be kept
swept and mopped clean.
Hand in hand with sanitation goes disease prevention and control. I
write prevention and control because treatment is only to be done under
a veterinarian's supervision. All sick birds are to be isolated and
professional assistance sought. The shotgun approach of antibiotics,
sulfa drugs, vitamins, and god only knows what else has killed as many
birds as germs.
All new stock must be quarantined. The cage and fixtures of a sick
bird have to be well scrubbed and disinfected. All wooden items, like
perches must be discarded. Mites, feather lice, and flies may be
controlled by spraying a .05% solution of pyrethrum. This may be
dispensed by means of a hand held mister. This pesticide concentration
can be sprayed as a mist directly on the birds and cages from a distance
of eighteen inches. A stronger mixture,. 1% may be used on the floors
and walls of the room, but not on the birds. Ivermectin, through a
veterinarian, is used to cure mites and lice.
The aviculturist should endeavour to make the birds' quarters
mosquito free. These pests are at the very least a source of irritation.
These insect bites are unsightly and perhaps permanently mutilating.
Mosquitoes are a very serious source of infection. Through them our
birds may be infected with Pox, Newcastle, or Ornithosis.
By following this outline anyone can experience success. It is now up
to the fancier to implement the rules.
This material may be reprinted by any non-commercial entities.
Full credit must be given to the author. The authors name, address,
e-mail address, phone numbers, web site, AND THIS NOTICE must appear
with any distributions. The document may not be edited, condensed,
annotated, or modified in any way. Any translations must state that fact
and the translators name must be listed. COPYRIGHT 1996
Anthony Olszewski
470 Grand St.
Jersey City, NJ 07302
201-795-0909
201-946-1178
Reproduced from the The Budgerigar & Foreign Bird Society
of Canada bulletin with thanks.
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