Once he has recognized that it is always something good that shows up in this location, at this time of day - just offer some pellets as a treat one day! To make them more appealing, soften them with a little fruit juice beforehand.

After all - they know where the good stuff is!

Starlings are great imitators, mind you, and have been known to copy everything from chain-saws to ambulance sirens, and everything in between. A male starling is constantly looking to improve his repertoire, as a hen will choose a mate for his displayed talent in song.

As for the phone companies - some are now offering bird calls as ring tone options! Just who is mimicing who here?

CNet's news story

Avian Insect Liquidator is so safe it can be sprayed directly on newly hatched chicks, and yet so effective a single treatment normally eliminates mites in the indoor birdroom. Due to its non-hydrocarbon base A.I.L. will not damage sensitive tissue like eyes.

A.I.L. gives three way protection for all avian species. When used directly on the bird, it penetrates deep into feathers to kill mites and lice. When sprayed around the environment it kills insects on contact, and finally, the residual action guards against reinfestation for up to six weeks. It also kills ants on contact and prevents them from crossing the area sprayed. Use it on all your outdoor feeding trays for the wild birds, too!

For more information visit www.birds2grow.com

It is our hope that this ezine and its contents may be of use to those of you who are looking to learn more about keeping and breeding your pet birds. If you have found help you needed in this ezine or on its home site, Robirda.com, please consider joining our sponsors, and help keep Flock Talk and its web homes alive and well for years to come. Learn how here.

Welcome to the Companion Birds eZine

For bird people who care.

Hello! Welcome to the twenty-first issue of Flock Talk!. This e-zine is about the joys and trials of keeping or breeding companion birds. Please send any comments, ideas, tips, tricks, stories or feedback to Robirda

If this ezine is helpful to you, please visit www.robirda.com/useful.html

Feature Article

Over the years, breeding canaries has been many things to me. It is always challenging, often mysterious, continuously amusing and amazing, and constantly both confounding and enlightening. Out of all the projects which have grown out of my joint interests in canaries and genetic inheritance, none have been more challenging than the quest for breeding...

by R C McDonald
www.robirda.com

People demand many things of their pets. One of the more common conceptions of the canary involves a bird who sits in a tiny cage and sings his heart out all day. But these days many people are becoming aware that more possibilities exist for a pet canary, and accordingly are looking for different traits when they shop for a songster.

While no canary will ever learn to enjoy being petted - this is just not done if you are a canary - it is often possible to win their trust to the degree that they will willingly sit on your hand to accept treats, or ride about on your shoulder, 'snooper-vising'. A treat no bird lover should miss is having one of these beauties sitting on your shoulder singing 'sweet nothings' into your ear.

In order to achieve this it helps to have a calm, intelligent, observant and curious bird. While how the birds are treated during their weaning and baby moult seems to also have an influence on the eventual personalities they establish, it has been my experience that many of the most desirable traits for a pet canary are capable of being passed on from parent to chick.

Curiosity is a good example. My first canary was as curious as a cat. Everything in his environment was explored with a thoroughness which smacked of logical progression. You could give the little brat a maze to solve, with a treat for the reward, and sit back and watch him solve the puzzle.

This ability of his absolutely fascinated me. I'd had no idea that canaries were capable of exhibiting such intelligence. With a brain pan maybe the size of half a pea, there shouldn't be physical room for such frivolities, or so I thought!

I began reading everything I could lay my hands on about canaries, and soon discovered that everything I could find out about canaries seemed to indicate that I had a rather unusual bird - as far as the books were concerned, he seemed to be about as far from being a 'normal' canary as it would be possible to get!

A dozen birds later I was willing to admit that my little puzzle-solver was indeed quite an extraordinary canary. But the range and expression of the personalities all the birds were displaying had me hooked. I just had to find out what their babies would be like!

So I off I went to learn how to breed canaries.

My goal was to begin to breed them, find ways to offer all of the youngsters a stimulating environment to grow up in, and see which strains, if any, made consistently good pets.

Without once really realizing what I was getting myself into, I jumped headlong into what is turning out to be one of the most involved projects I have ever attempted.

Interestingly enough, my first canary's offspring proved to be as equally unusual as I had found my little prodigy to be, when compared with the youngsters I had gotten from my other canaries. To me, this meant that the possibility existed that I was correct that at least some of these traits could be genetically transmitted.

In the meantime, I was learning that the environment that the birds grew up in seemed to help 'set the tone', so to speak, which the birds would tend to follow for the rest of their lives.

I found that birds raised and kept only in the box-type breeding cages and the small flights used by many breeders resulted in birds who were fixed in their habits, who seemed to have very little adaptability or curiosity.

Four of the birds I had bought for breeding were about a year old when I purchased them. They had been bred and raised in a three foot long flight cage about two feet tall and sixteen inches deep. This cage contained two perches, a gravel dish, and a seed dish. A dish of soft food such as egg, greens, or a little fruit was added daily. This routine, unchanging, was the sum of their existence.

I quickly found, upon placing them in a larger cage, that their food and water must be placed within the bounds formerly covered by their older, smaller cage. Although they flew, they all flew in a tight loop which described perfectly the bounds of their previous cage.

It took all four of these birds a year and a half to begin to learn to use the space available to them. They never did, any of them, learn to use the swings and toys which the other canaries so enjoyed playing with. I found quickly, too, that once they were used to something I had better not change it, as it would take them a long time to adapt to the change, and in the meantime all of them would be constantly upset.

Youngsters raised in the home by myself or other hobbyists seemed to be much more interactive and aware. In every case, it turned out that they had been weaned in an environment which offered plenty of variety and change. In such a stimulating environment, the birds were constantly faced with new experiences, and grew used to seeing and exploring new and different additions to their lifestyle.

To these birds, change was not only not frightening, it was a reliable and necessary source of stimulation and amusement. When these birds were placed in a relatively sterile environment such as the one the four birds formerly discussed came from, they usually exhibited one of two reactions, shock and stress, or lassitude and 'the sulks'. If not removed from this non-stimulating environment, they began, every one of them, to display a lack of interest in living that struck me unmistakably as depression.

As I learned more about the habits and personalities of my canaries, I slowly learned the best ways to begin to achieve my goal.

Outside of the breeding season, most of my birds are kept in large interconnecting flight cages. Each cage has a plethora of differing types of swings, perches, and toys on which they bounce, tug, push, pull, poke, munch, and swing.

Most of these flights are inter-accessible through pop-holes, small 'doorways' between the cages through which the birds can 'pop'. This kind of set-up serves to helpreduce the arguments over territory so commonly engaged in by male canaries in particular. As long as there are at least two territories available, birds who don't get along will usually end up 'agreeing' to each play in different areas. The number of birds in each area at any given time constantly changes as the day progresses and the flock structure shifts.

Most of my flight cages have smaller pet-style cages attached here and there, hanging so that the smaller cage's door opens into a pop-hole into the larger flight. These 'play' cages are very popular with the birds, for reasons I am not sure of, and it is not unusual to see a dozen or so birds busily playing about in the same space which would be cramped for a single canary with nowhere else to go.

About once a month each bird is caught, examined for health, and has his or her toenails clipped as necessary. I try to see, too, that each bird spends about a week or so out of each month alone in varying sizes and styles of pet cages (except round ones, which should never be used for a canary), with differing perch and feeder set-ups.

With all these fun things to play with and do, I suppose it is not surprising that most of the birds I raise turn out to be healthy, adaptable pets. It has become absolutely unmistakeable over the generations, however, that certain personality traits such as curiosity, calmness, and willingness to interact with people are definitely handed down to a bird's descendants.

Every breeding season is a new series of adventures and discoveries with these birds. I hope to be able to continue learning from them for years yet in pursuit of my quest for the best possible pet canary.

After all, who knows what the future may bring? For me, as long as it contains canaries, it cannot help but be bright.

R C McDonald
copyright © June 2001
www.robirda.com

This site is a well-designed and entertaining tribute to a pet budgie. It does contain a little basic budgie care information, but the focus is more on entertainment - the chief entertainer being Gatesey, a totally tame, cheeky little blue budgie who flies about his domain and bosses the household. Anybody who hasn't seen a tame budgie in action might well find some of this a real eye-opener!

"Hi there, I have three baby chicks that are 3 weeks old and are eating soft foods. When do I take them away from their parents, and when should I separate the parents so I can give them a rest from child rearing?"

My answer; "Your birdie-parents will not want to take a rest from breeding until they begin to moult, which won't be for another several weeks yet. Do you have some fake plastic canary eggs? If not, you can order them online (they're cheap, too!) at Hornbecks.

"Then when she lays her next round of eggs, (which she will!) - you can just put the fake eggs in place of her real ones and let her sett til moulting season starts, and she abandons the idea of nesting. Meanwhile you will not have to worry about any more hatchings.

"This is one reason I believe it is important to not start breeding too early in the year - often they won't want to stop til midsummer, and too long a season can mean a rough moult, and a poor breeding season next year.

"As long as the youngsters are eating on their own, you can put them into a 'nurse' cage at any time. This is a plain, safe cage with lots of floor space and low perches. Generally the parents will keep feeding for awhile even after the youngsters start to experiment with eating on their own, so if they are still being fed part of the time, I usually leave them all together.

"Be careful not to offer too much high-protein food to the weanlings, instead offer only a little, and supplement with plenty of dark leafy greens daily, things like kale, leafy endives and mustards and such - this is very important to young canaries!

"Other useful weanling foods are rolled oats, cous-cous, and soak seed. Remember, they often can't crack enough dry seed to fully support themselves til they are around 3 months old, so having a variety of soft foods around til they have finished their baby moult - which will start at around 6 - 8 weeks old, and last for another 6 - 8 weeks - is a very good idea."  

Well, I guess that's it for this time - hope everybody has a safe and happy time over the next couple of weeks! The next issue is due out June 24th - until then, may you and your birds enjoy all the best of everything!

Robirda
June 10, 2001
Vancouver, BC