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.
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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.
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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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