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home Back May 12, 2002, Issue 45 Next |
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 ISSN 1492-8132 Issue 45, Copyright © 2002 All rights reserved, no reprints without permission
The Avicultural Advancement Council of Canada If you are Canadian, this is the group to join. The AACC is a national organization of avicultural societies, pet bird owners, and individual aviculturists. It came into being in the early seventies to fulfill the need for a national organization to establish a uniform set of standards for the exhibition of cage birds in Canada. Over the years its goals have expanded to include setting ethical standards for the management, exhibition, captive breeding and conservation of all non-agriculture bird species kept in captivity in Canada. Recently they have begun to offer their services to aviculturalists in Canada who have seen pending local and provincial legislation threaten their hobby and their birds.
"The tricky part is trying to tell the HomeSeer software what the sunrise/sunset times are for the Canary Islands. Normally you tell it where you are and what your time zone is and it will automatically calculate the correct sunrise and sunset times, for the whole year, for where you are - but it is not meant to mimic the sunrise times of other areas on the planet, such as (in this case) the Canary Islands. At first I entered the latitude and longitude coordinates for the Canary Islands, but because of the time zone difference its calculations were all wrong since it has to use your computer's time and zone for its calculations rather than the Canary Islands' time zone. I then entered the latitude for the Canary Islands and the longitude and time zone for Idaho, and that worked better but it was still off by about an hour on the sunset time. I was confused, as I had thought that would work. Next I sat down and played with a globe of the earth, adjusting the coordinates until I found the right combination. I had to increase the longitude a small amount and then the sunrise/sunset times matched the Canary Islands sunrise/sunset times very closely! This Sunday morning my birds and I had our first simulated Canary Islands Sunrise! Yippee!
Young chicks or birds that have been stressed, suffer from decreased immune response, and are wide open to a variety of lethal infections. 'Bio-Plus' is a multi-strain probiotic that includes garlic extract, vitamins, minerals, electrolytes and glucose polymers. Used twice a week, it acts to restore and refresh beneficial gut bacteria, and establish a more favorable environment in which friendly bacteria will thrive. This in turn helps improve the bird's resistance to infections, especially those of the digestive system. For more info visit www.birds2grow.com - Products - Flock Talk - Birds Board - Articles - Canary Cam - Canary FAQs - Search - Questions - Ask Robirda - Bird Links - Privacy Policy - Sponsorships - Site Map
Your Birds, With Love
Our next issue is due out May 26th - until then, may
you and your birds enjoy all the best of everything!
Robirda
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 For breeder or pet bird owners who care.
Hello! Welcome to Flock Talk's 45th issue, thanks for reading! Share your thoughts, ideas, tips or stories - send an email here, to Robirda.
We invited Leanne and her digital movie camera over to record this historic occasion - thanks to her efforts, you can find a short movie of our antics during the draw posted at robirda.com/draw.html All the email addresses of every customer to buy one of Robirda's new Bird eBooks in March or April were entered, with each purchase counting as one chance to win. And our winner is (**big drum roll**) ... Jennifer Sweet! Congratulations, Jennifer - your new ebook will soon be in your hands!
 It’s amazing now to sit back and think about how these events unfolded, and to think I owe it all to Robirda's 'Birds Board' and 'A Place for Canaries'.
by Rebecca Stapells It all started in February of 2000, when I suddenly became the owner of a pair of canaries who'd been rescued from perdition in a tiny cage in a dark garage, Heidi & Mike. I had a pair of Zebra finches at the time and knew how to care for them, but, canaries??? So I set out to read everything I could get my hands on about keeping canaries. It was during this research that I discovered the most informative web site I'd ever found. I'm sure you know exactly where I was - A Place for Canaries. It didn't take me long to discover that I was at a different kind of site. You could tell that Robirda really cared and wanted to share her knowledge and experience with the world. It was there that I discovered the Birds Board. What an amazing idea! A forum to discuss, share and learn about our birds. It was wonderful, I could talk about my Canaries or my Finches and there were people there who kept or who could talk about other kinds of birds, too! I quickly renamed it 'the happiest place on earth'. It was so wonderful to be able to spend time with so many people from all over the world. Even better, it was obvious that everybody cared deeply for all animals, not just birds. I began to visit the board daily to read all the stories about everyone's birds. It was there that I met another wonderful person, Judy, a.k.a. 'Naylz'. I started talking to Naylz about Lovebirds, as I was thinking about getting one. Naylz has some of the most intriguing little feathered characters you've ever met. One little bird in particular, is Zoe the birdie Mama. Naylz had met Robirda at least a year previously, when Zoe had decided to change her personal status from 'Beloved Pet Lovebird' to 'Momma Lovebird With Babies'. Naylz didn't need or want any bird babies, and between them, she and Robirda tried every trick in the book, only to fail; Zoe's breeding instinct was too strong for them, and she won her heart's desire - a mate, and babies to raise. Naylz let Zoe have two clutches of babies, and she proved herself to be a natural Mommy. She and her mate Zeus produced some of the sweetest little Lovebirds you have ever seen. Not only did they have the beautiful colours seen in so many lovebirds, but they all had Zoe's friendly, ebullient, outgoing good nature. I fell in love with them and eventually asked Naylz if she would sell me one of her youngsters. I was sad to learn that Naylz does not sell her babies and that she was not going to let Zoe have another clutch for a while, but ecstatic to hear that when she did decide to let Zoe have more babies, that she would then be willing to give me a baby lovebird, saying that if she knew the babies were going to a good home, that was payment enough. Matters were settled, or so we thought - Naylz and Zoe would take a break from raising babies, and I would have to wait (however impatiently), before I would have a Lovebird of my own. But we'd forgotten to reckon with Zoe. As before, Zoe had ideas of her own about the whole affair, and unbeknownst to any of us, slyly began her plot to again become a Mommy. In early April she began laying eggs, even though Naylz had removed her nestbox. Zoe simply crammed herself into the tiny space under her feedcup and proceeded to lay her eggs there. Exasperated with the continued egg-laying, Naylz switched each of Zoe's egg's with a fake egg, until Zoe had eight artificial eggs tidily stashed under her seed cup, and she finally decided to settle down and 'incubate' them. Naylz thought she'd outsmarted Zoe, but as it turned out Zoe had a few surprises of her own. On Easter Sunday (April 18th, 2000), Naylz woke to find in the middle of those plastic eggs a tiny baby lovebird. Somehow Zoe had managed to lay and incubate a real egg in the middle of the fake eggs, right under Naylz' watchful eyes. It was a miracle! An Easter miracle, so Naylz named her new baby 'Easter Belz'. We all laughed together, on the Birds Board - Naylz had been so diligent about hunting out all of Zoe's eggs and switching them! Yet Zoe, already infamous for getting her own way, had pulled a rabbit out of the hat again. That wasn't the only surprise she had for us, either; four days later little Bunny Belz hatched. Zoe had again found a way to outsmart her 'Humom'. The next day I received an email from Naylz. It said, "Another Baby Belz hatched yesterday. The babies are very small, and I am not sure they will even live, but if one does you are first in line for it!" I don't think that I have ever cried so hard in all my life. Naylz began sending me photos of Easter every few days, and both of use were posting daily on the Birds Board, to keep everybody updated. Everyone there seemed to feel like they were a big part of the whole adoption. (editor's note - we did) Finally the big day came! My husband had to go away on business and by some miracle his trip would take him to within an hour's drive of where Naylz lived. The Birds Board ballooned with posts as everybody counted the days with me until I could go and pick up my little Belz. I had decided to name her 'Baby' as she was going to be my very first baby bird. On June 2nd, 2000 I met Naylz in person for the first time, and made first contact with Baby. It was love at first sight - or should I say "'Love-bird at first sight?" From that moment on we have been inseparable. Baby eats meals with me and helps me with my chores around the house. She amazes me every day with her intelligence. She has been potty trained, obeys the 'up-up', and 'down' commands, understands 'yes', 'no', 'no biting', 'kisses', and 'love-love' and can mimic a number of sounds from her environment. Baby has become a huge part of my life, and even though she and I are different species, I know in my heart that we are kindred spirits. I can hardly believe that she is going to be two already in April, and I can hardly wait to see how many more years of love we bring into each others lives. See some photos of Baby and Rebecca here
by Rebecca Stapells
Many answers can be found in Robirda's ebooks, in the posted articles, and in the listed FAQs, and you can search the Birds Board for answers to questions others have posted. Just use the navigation bars at the top and bottom of every page on the site, to go to these areas and more! This issue's question is; "My hens have raised two nests of chicks each, and want to have another. Is there any reason not to let them continue to have babies, if the conditions are right?" Robirda's answer; "Do yourself and them a favour, and set your hens with plastic eggs if they want to keep breeding after raising two nests worth of youngsters. The fake eggs will help keep them occupied until the moult begins, and they begin to naturally come out of breeding condition. You don't want them to exhaust themselves in this breeding season, or you could have problems next year. "Laying too many eggs is not nearly as exhausting as raising too many babies - that can really wear a hen out. "The problem is that a hen will rarely show signs of exhaustion until she begins to moult. Then, she will have a long, heavy moult, and a rough winter. If she is badly exhausted, she could die. Many won't recover adequate energy in time to breed the next year, while some never attain full breeding condition again. "It is easy when you first start breeding to 'trip' over this problem - once you have figured out how to get fertile eggs, you don't want to throw any away! But sometimes it is kinder than allowing the hen to half-kill herself by raising every egg she lays. "One reason wild birds have such short life-spans, is due to this instinct to keep breeding as long as possible. It is good for species survival if the adults can continue to produce babies as long as conditions allow, but it exhausts the parents' ability to retain enough energy through the moult to be able to withstand predation. "In Nature's world, this instinct allows for the survival of both the birds and their predators - but we don't have such a system in our aviaries, and tend to forget that we are dealing with an eon or two of natural evolution, when it comes to our birds and what they will want to do."
I am speaking of a group calling themselves "The Avian Welfare Coalition". The AWC is a spin-off of the better-known anti-pet group PETA, but this group concentrates its efforts on birds and bird keepers. Their hidden agenda is to make pet bird ownership and all other uses of birds, as pets or otherwise, illegal. Please do not give them any money or support if you believe it is okay to have and keep birds. They will use 'bird mill', 'bad pet shop', and 'foreign smuggling' horror stories to solicit donations from bird lovers who don't realize the group's real goals. There are other organizations who support humane treatment of birds and animals, so please don't be duped into supporting this radical new group with the benign sounding name! Their website is: www.avianwelfare.org They are currently sending spam to all the bird club email contacts giving free rights to reprint their articles. I'm sure some over-committed club newsletter editors will download and include this propaganda without really investigating the source. This group reminds me of those innocent sounding charities who secretly funnel funds into war efforts, or their own pockets. Except these 'animal rights' terrorists raid pet shops and research labs to set animals 'free', usually resulting in a short and terrifying life outdoors for the 'freed' creatures. I believe that many charities are legitimate, but this illustrates how important it is to be sure to investigate charties before ending money, as even the best-sounding organizations may have an illicit faction. If you want to support your right to own birds, the major organizations that are fighting this Coalition and similar groups are the American Federation of Aviculture (AFA), and the Avicultural Advancement Council of Canada (AACC). Please join one or the other group, if not both. Each produces newsletters filled with information and updates. As with other bird publications, good small pet bird articles are rather rare, but you will find lots of interesting stories about people learning to captive breed rare and/or endangered species of birds. Because of habitat destruction, learning more about what it takes to keep these creatures happy, healthy, and interested in breeding is what will really save our threatened bird species, not setting pets free and banning legal imports for licensed captive breeding programs! |
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