ISSN 1492-8132
Issue Number 54,
Copyright © 2002
All rights reserved,
No reprints without permission

"Here's my tip .... it may be common practice but I figured this out on my own. I shish kabob fresh fruit on a bamboo skewer, the disposable type you use for cooking. Since the skewer is flexible, I am able to tuck both ends through the bars of his cage so the ends are on the outside. At days end, I discard the leftover fruit and skewer so there is virtually no cleanup."

[editor's note - this tip works wonderfully with chunks of veggies or greens, too - a good thing, because fruit should be offered to canaries in limited quantities, since too much (especially soft fruits) can cause some to have problems with diarrhea or worse.]

This issue's question:
"Can you clarify something for me? I've read canaries are solitary, territorial, etc. but also see others' aviaries with many birds living and singing happily together."

My answer is;
"Hello! Shared aviaries can be beautiful, but that beauty can also be very deceptive. Canaries who live year round in a shared aviary tend to live shorter lives due to the much higher levels of stress - an average of two to three years or less, versus ten years or more for a bird with its own cage.

"Many people keep canaries in mixed groups for part of the year - but the birds in those groups are carefully chosen, and it's generally only possible to keep them together during the mid-to-late summer, fall, and winter.

"As spring breeding season approaches, the males are separated out, and as it gets closer, the hens require separating too - they are often more social than the males, outside of breeding season, but when breeding, they are every bit as territorial as the males, if not more!

"Young canaries are much like the hens, in that they tend to be more sociable than the adult males. They need to 'hang out' together during their first summer, fall, and early winter - it's how they learn how to be a canary, in effect - but as they mature, they too will each require their own separate cage."

Feather Up is designed to be added to a birds' food while it is molting. It contains a mixture of the multi-vitamins, 'Rapisorb' minerals, and sulfur based amino acids most likely to be needed by the bird's system during this period. For best results use in conjunction with 'Calciboost'.

Customers report earlier, faster molt as well as improved feather condition when Feather up is used.

For more info visit birds2grow.com

Our next issue is due Sept 29th - until then, may you and your birds enjoy all the best of everything!

Robirda
Sept 15, 2002

Welcome to Robirda's Companion Birds eZine

For breeder or pet bird owners who care.

Not sure? Try a free sample first!

No, that date is not a typo! This area of the Bird Nature website reproduces a publication from 1898, featuring various articles on birds, including this report where the author visits and interviews one of the largest importers of songbirds of the time, in his New York warehouse.

In those days, says this article, anywhere from twenty to forty travellers would be hired every year, to purchase songbirds and bring them back to New York. The description of this process, including a description of the shipping processes employed, the birds' care during shipping, and the techniques employed in their training and subsequent sale, makes for some utterly fascinating reading.

Feature Article

This issue features an excerpt from our new ebook by Wilhelm Kiesselback, 'Living With A Parrot'. Wilhelm has been living with and caring for birds all his life, and has rehabilitated many a mistreated or abused bird with great success. His writing reflects both the depth of his experiences with them, and the intensity of his feelings about them.

In this excerpt from chapter three, he discusses some of the more essential aspects of handfeeding pet birds, including their introduction to life with humans, and how the methods used can impact, not just the beginning, but the entirety of a bird's life.

by Wilhelm Kiesselbach
excerpted from 'Living With A Parrot'
robirda.com/aboutparrots.html
Copyright © Aug 2002

There are three equally important separate and yet interconnected steps to the successful hand-rearing of birds: Hand feeding, weaning and fledging.

The correct and informed management of all baby birds has a vital and indelible impact on their future behavior patterns. In all species, the interactions with their caretaker (whether bird or human) when young will have a great deal to do with the development of their trust in humans, their adaptability to changing situations, their willingness to learn, how sociable they will be, and their preparedness to accept new and different foods.

In the more social species, such as most parrots, the quality and kind of interaction with their 'parent' will literally determine their attitudes and habits in all of these areas and for, for the life of the bird.

Contrary to popular opinion, hand feeding will not mean that the bird will bond more intimately to the person who feeds it. Many people don't realize that 'bonding' is not the real issue in developing a relationship with any creature - rather, trust is the essential (and too often missing) element. A bird of any species, raised correctly with love and patience, will learn to trust its new flock, all humans. It won't be afraid to be handled, and will be eager to interact, to socialize.

Parrots and many other bird species kept as pets are inherently social - they need to function within a group (usually their flock). They are genetically programmed to 'bond' with other flock members and/or their mates. If you find you must raise a baby bird by hand, it is your responsibility to see to it that it is properly handfed and 'Abundance Weaned' (® Phoebe Greene-Linden). Then the youngster must be taken through fledging, (including learning how to fly - and land!)

This guarantees that the bird in question will happily bond to and accept their new caregiver(s), and that they will be able to adapt to new and changing circumstances throughout their lives. There are many examples of adopted 'second or third hand' parrots bringing minimal emotional 'baggage' to their new homes, and in each case the reason turned out to be because they had been properly raised, weaned, and fledged.

It is wise to consider the fact that feather mutilation and plucking is almost never observed in wild caught birds, except in rare cases where disease is involved. Add this to the fact that most wild birds have quite a long weaning and fledging period, when they will be taught their manners by the entire flock, and the reason has to be obvious.

If done incorrectly, hand-rearing can negatively affect a bird's behavior for the rest of its life in ways that may not be initially apparent. These can include feather plucking, anxiety attacks, biting, screaming, etc., in a best case scenario-and outright maiming or even the killing of itself or other birds, in a worst case scenario.

For those reasons the hand feeding of baby birds by inexperienced care givers is actively discouraged by all informed members of the avian community including serious behaviorists, avian veterinarians and responsible breeders. But I feel I must comment, (after having seen the pathetic results of hand feeding/weaning/fledging efforts by some breeders who claim to be experienced in 'lovingly hand-raising birds'), that I am not convinced that a committed, informed and caring novice could not in many cases do a much better job.

Please do note that reading instructions in a book or in an article, (such as this one), is simply not enough to teach you everything you need to know in order to successfully hand-raise a young bird. It takes aptitude and skill, along with study, dedication, and an ability to focus on a constant effort to learn more from the bird itself, accompanied by knowledge, practice, patience, and more practice!

What is more, it takes a real sense of the intrinsic characteristics of the species in question, and an understanding of the real long term effects of incorrect initial management and the widely ranging needs of these unusual creatures.

Very few people would have their first child without adequately preparing themselves. The raising of baby birds should be considered to be an identical situation. Baby birds have physical and emotional needs very similar to human children, and they also have a crop in addition to a stomach, a place where even more digestive disorders can occur. And just as with human children, their needs go far beyond their basic nutritional requirements.

We, who are more used to keeping pets who have been bred by us for centuries, and who are ready to 'leave the nest' after a relatively short time, in many cases are not emotionally or technically equipped to deal with the tremendous amount of detailed effort involved in raising baby birds.

Nor are we very often as prepared as we may think to assume the responsibility of being a surrogate parent for an essentially wild creature whose instinctive and emotional intricacies have evolved over millions of years very much intact. Even less are we likely to be prepared to deal with an intelligent and sensitive companion who will demand to be treated as an equal, and who in many cases could very well outlive us.

Since there will always be new owners who, for whatever reason, simply must handfeed their new baby, the first task is to learn all the details of the subject of their new responsibility. Talking to the breeder is the first step.

Since not all breeders are as well informed as they should be, reliable books about the birds in question are a next and even more important step. Sally Blanchard's "Handbook to Companion Parrots" is one of the best books ever written about parrots. So is Bonnie Munro-Doane's "My Parrot, My Friend".

Very little has been written or published about hand-rearing any of the smaller species, but much of the same information as offered for parrots will apply equally well, as long as you remember to take general species characteristics into consideration. An example is the fact that most parrots will feed their young during the night, while almost none of the finch species will. It will be your responsibility to research and learn about the differences that apply to the species of your baby, and adapt your care-giving to match its needs.

Since so much has been learned only relatively recently and there is still so much to learn, books that have been published recently are always the most preferable.

      *      *      *      *      *      *      *      *      *      *      *       *

Our excerpt stops here. To read the rest, see Wilhelm's new ebook. Learn more about it at robirda.com/aboutparrots.html. Download a free sample at robirda.com/samples.html

by Wilhelm Kiesselbach
excerpted from 'Living With A Parrot'
robirda.com/aboutparrots.html
Copyright © Aug 2002

Researchers at Rockefeller University in the US and Ciudad University in Argentina have shown that a canary's syrinx may function in a surprisingly simple although unexpected fashion, as a simple harmonic oscillator. Researcher Tim Gardner and his colleagues developed a simple formula that accurately mimics at least three distinct notes in the canary's repertoire (T Gardner et al 2001 Phys. Rev. Lett. 87 208101-1).

A bird's vocal organ, known as a 'syrinx', consists of folds of tissue in the passage that connects the air sacs and the throat. As the bird exhales, these folds open and close, producing notes with frequencies between 1 and 2 kilohertz. Individual 'syllables' in canary songs last between 10 and 300 milliseconds.

Two factors control production of these sounds - pressure of the air entering the syrinx from the air sacs, and the elasticity of the folds that make up the walls of the syrinx. The folds oscillate when the air pressure rises enough. The researchers recognised this as similar to the motion of a simple harmonic oscillator, and developed a formula to relate the air pressure and elasticity to the pitch of the note produced.

Using their formula they accurately modelled and reproduced three typical notes in a canary's song - a short falling note, a long rising note and a medium-length note that rises then falls.

Biologists are interested in the link between brain activity and song because most fledglings learn to sing by listening to adult birdsong. However, research in this field requires understanding of the underlying physical processes, which Gardener and his co-researchers have now provided.