ISSN 1492-8132
Issue Number 60,
Copyright © 2002
All rights reserved,
No reprints without permission

This is a heartwarming story of one finch breeder's adventures into learning how to keep canaries, that led to her hand-raising a canary. But don't just take my word for it - read this one for yourself!

This issue's tip is one I have been using for years myself. It comes from reader Roger Stroman, who writes;

"Here's a tip from my avian vet: use two drops of raw (unpasteurized) apple cider vinegar in about 4 oz. of water or adjust proportionately for larger quantities.

"He uses this on all birds who come into his clinic and finds it helps ward off bacteria and is very beneficial.

"I had been using a slight amount of bleach and/or vanodine in my water. When the vet heard that, he said, 'I see in bird periodicals all the time that people are using that with their birds.' He said it is one of the worst things you can do: you're cleansing the entire gut of everything, good and bad; thus, opening the door for opportunistic culprits to enter and take over.

"Since that talk with him about two years ago, I am a firm believer in apple cider vinegar and all of my canaries get it in their water daily. They are in sparkling good health - partially at least, I attribute to this."

Canker is the most commonly encountered protozoa disease in aviculture. Many of our water sources contain low levels of Canker, giardia, and other protazoa. This water will pass routine water inspections provided the levels are low enough to not be injurious to dogs, cats, or human babies.

These same low levels can cause problems for our birds - especially young chicks. Low levels of infection typically cause increased early chick death and increased dead in shell. In adults it causes pasty vents, slow weight loss and eventual death.

By treating the flock with Ronivet prior to the breeding season, we are able to eliminate many of these needless losses. Ronivet-S is a water soluble, water stable chemical that has extremely high safety margins. It does not make the male birds infertile, and can be used at any stage of the birds breeding cycle to combat protozoa infection.

For more info visit birds2grow.com

Our next issue is due Dec 22nd - until then, may you and your birds enjoy all the best of everything!

Robirda
Dec 8, 2002

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Learn more about our CD at robirda.com/songs.html

Feature Article

Learning how to troubleshoot potential problems may be one of the most difficult chores a new bird keeper will ever have to do. Sometimes even the tiniest of changes can be indicators of the beginning of a major problem.

Since this is too broad a field to cover in a single article, I will instead use an example to illustrate the process. Apply a similar process to whatever the problem may be, in whatever species of bird, and you just may find, as others have, that one of the most useful of talents for a birdkeeper to develop, is skill in...

by R C McDonald
http://www.robirda.com
Copyright © Dec 2002

Here, then, are some of the steps involved in troubleshooting a canary's care and environment, to discover why he has stopped singing.

Sometimes this will simply be because he is undergoing his annual moult, which should happen once a year, usually in the summer. Growing in feathers takes a lot of energy, and many canaries will not sing much if at all during this time. Once the moult is over he should start singing again fairly soon, usually within two or three weeks of the day when the last feathers fell.

Moulting that occurs at other times of the year indicates a problem, and help should be sought to find and stop the draft or stress causing the unseasonable feather fall.

Available nutrients can make a difference, too. Adequate vitamin and mineral supplys are especially important during and just after the moult, as if he is a little short on a needed nutrient, it will take him longer to get back to full health once the moult is complete, even if he is acting and eating normally.

Moulting takes a lot of nutrition, and if there isn't enough available in the bloodstream, nutrients needed to grow feathers will come out of the bird's bodily stores. If that is not enough, his body will have to wait until enough nutrients trickle in from other sources.

Another little-known fact is that what a canary sings can depend quite a lot on what he hears around him during his moult. Science has discovered that when they are growing in those new feathers, they are also growing in new brain cells, and listening to everything they hear.

Many of those sounds - the ones they find agreeable and interesting - will end up incorporated into their songs. But if he doesn't hear anything he considers interesting, he may not develop much of a song.

If he is slow to resume his song, it could also mean that disease or illness may be a factor.

The fact is that birds will try their utmost to hide any signs of illness. This instinct evolved in the wild, when any creature showing even the slightest signs of weakness was soon to become somebody's lunch.

This in turn means that very often the little signs like not singing may be the only clues you will have to go on, until the bird has become too weak to continue to keep up the charade. By then matters are likely to have become very serious indeed.

It's always a good idea, whenever an unexpected change in behaviour happens - especially if there is no obvious cause - to have an experienced avian vet take a look... just in case! It's actually rather amazing how often even a tiny change can be an indicator of a serious problem under development.

It's best, if at all possible, to take all your birds in annually for a 'wellness check-up', whether they seem ill or not. This will help a lot if any illness should ever develop, and can save money in case of disease or accident, too - a vet who knows a bird when healthy, will have a base of already-prepared information to compare to and use, when dealing with the same bird ill.

Diet is an important consideration too. Among the questions that need to be considered are these:

What brand of seed or pellets are being fed? How complete is the nutrition offered? If seed, is it 'vitaminized', or not? Is it sold bagged, or out of a bin? How is it stored, and how often is the supply renewed?

Seed kept in a bin ages quite quickly, and will soon be stale. At home, seed or pellets stored in a cupboard will quickly go stale, too - but stored in a freezer they can stay fresh for a year or two, maybe more, as long as you protect them from condensation.

You also need to look at what treat seeds are being offered. What kind are they, how much is being offered, and how often?

Over-feeding fatty treat seeds is a rather common mistake. In practice, all treat seeds offered should consist of no more than a teaspoon or so per bird per week. And that's all treat seeds combined, not each! Letting a canary have free access to more than this can lead to some serious health problems.

If there are other birds being kept nearby, you will need to check where he is in relation to them - is he higher than them, or lower? Are they close by, or further away? Does he have his own cage, or are they expected to share?

Canaries do not like sharing cages, and this can drastically limit the amount of song, and can also seriously affect their health, if harrassment by other birds is present.

Even if he lives in his own cage, if there are other birds living nearby, he may find them intimidating, if they are placed so that they are higher than him. Ideally, his top perch should be level with their top perches, so that he knows that he is on an equal footing with them - and to be sure that he knows that he has the right to sing.

If he is kept at a lower height, he is in effect being told that they own the space, not him. Since a canary sings to brag about ownership of 'his' territory, he needs to feel that his cage really does belong to him, or even if he's totally healthy, he may not sing a note.

Yet another factor that needs to be examined is what kinds of fresh foods are being offered. What kind of fruits, if any, are commonly offered, how much, and how often? What kinds of greens are given, how much is offered, and when? What time of day are these foods being supplied, and how much of them does the bird eat, and how fast?

Foods containing a lot of water are better offered earlier in the day rather than later. Canaries do not need a lot of fruit, and soft fruits especially should be offered in very limited quantities, if at all. Some greens are far more nutritious than others, while others can negatively affect the digestion of other elements in the diet.

For example, kale has many times the nutrients of any lettuce, but spinach can inhibit digestion of calcium. Many birds are chronically short of vitamin A, and most greens are quite high in it, so it is a good idea to offer plenty of the darker, more nutritious greens, as often as you can - daily, if possible.

But try to offer organically grown greens, and avoid those grown with the use of pesticides or fertilizers - when you are dealing with the chemically sensitive canary, it takes very little to create a toxic (possibly deadly) reaction!

If you are not feeding pellets, you will need to offer vitamin and mineral supplements designed for use with a seed-based diet. You should not attempt to convert any bird from seed to a pellets until you are 100% sure that he is totally healthy. Unless he is a young bird, the conversion process may be difficult, so you need to be sure he is super-healthy before you begin.

A powdered supplement that you can offer on soft food, greens or soak seed is much preferred to the kinds meant to be offered in water, as canaries don't drink often enough or in enough quantity for these to be very effective.

Most people provide a mineral block and/or a cuttlebone for their canary to chew on - this not only provides a source for essential minerals 'on demand', but also helps keep the beak in shape.

If he is near a window, especially if he gets direct sunshine for even part of the day, you need to be sure that he has shade available when he wants it. This is very important! You will also need to be sure that there is no draft, or, if there is one, that there is shelter available when he wishes it.

Often there is quite a lot of heat exchange through windows, and any cage within a foot or two of the glass is almost inevitably in a draft. A lit candle is very useful when checking for drafts - they can be almost impossible to see, but a candle flame will flicker and bend at the slightest stir of the air, allowing you to detect, not only exactly where the draft is coming from, but how strong and how regular it is (or isn't).

Sometimes a computer or other electrical equipment can cause problems, especially if they are near the birds, and are on and active much of the time. Birds are quite sensitive to electromagnetic fields, which computers and other electrical equipment generate.

Another common mistake is to think that canaries like to live in a quiet environment. This is most definitely not the case! Most birds, including canaries, greatly prefer a loud environment to a quiet one - to any creature who evolved in a forested environment, noise means safety.

Remember that canaries sing to claim ownership of their territory. They need to feel that they are 'Lord and master of all they survey' before they will feel much like singing. If you can make him feel like 'The Boss', he may be more liable to want to brag about 'his' home.

Another thing to keep in mind, is that many kinds of houseshold products can produce fumes that are harmful to birds. Sometimes, just cooking itself can produce harmful fumes. If you do much if any frying of any sort, you should not keep your canary nearby, and of course, any kind of appliance with a non-stick surface is anathema, in a home with birds - these products can kill, and their use in a bird-keeping home should not be allowed, period.

These can include items such as some oven mitts, baking pans, muffin or bread tins, cookie sheets, irons, ironing board covers, drip trays under stove elements, and more. It used to be thought that these non-stick materials were only dangerous under high heat, but recent research has shown this not to be necessarily true - under certain conditions, normal cooking temperatures can suffice.

So you do want to be extra careful that there is nothing of the sort in your home, if you have a canary living there! (Or for that matter, any other kind of bird.) Be wary of exposing your bird to anything that produces fumes of any sort, including perfumes, scented candles, air and carpet deoderizers or 'fresheners', and many cleaning products, and your birds will thank you by living much longer and healthier lives.

Finally, it may seem redundant, but always make certain that you have read over all the reliable information you can find on what is involved in basic care for your bird, before you go looking for more exotic causes. More often than not, the key to finding the answer to a problem will be to take a good long look at what is included or not in the bird's daily care and environment, and compare that with known basic needs for that species.

This is only one example of how to troubleshoot a bird's problem - but if you try to approach all your problems similarly, you may find, as I have, that this kind of approach can be worth its weight in gold, when it comes to finding affordable and workable solutions for your birds.

by R C McDonald
http://www.robirda.com
Copyright © Dec 2002

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• Do you have or sell a great bird product? Send us a sample, and have it reviewed for Flock Talk readers! We will be reviewing foods, cages & cage accessories, toys, and other bird items we have direct experience with in upcoming issues. To arrange for a review, send your inquiry and a brief description of your product(s) here, to Robirda.