canary cages

I have birds in the house as well as the barn and I spent the whole day yesterday fixing up some new breeding cages I bought for my canaries.  The cages look nice and they were a pretty reasonable price but as I started to work with them I realized why they were that good price. 

 The perches only fit in one direction and only in certain spots were there are cross wires to hold them up.   Those spots are too close to the top of the cage or near the bottom.  And they need the divider to hold up one end so what happens when you remove the divider to put two birds together? 

 I usually use some wood dowel and some bamboo pieces that I grow in my own garden as perches so the bird’s feet have different diameters and textures.  My old cages were 1/2 by 1 inch welded wire and perches would fit in any number of ways.  These cages are made of slender vertical bars, which show off the birds nicely but is heck to put perches on.  There are only a few cross bars and the perches slide down the wire.  I ended up with a temporary mish mash of perches until I get some new dowels and am ready to open up the divider between the cages to let the males in with the females.

 The new cages have nice plastic cups that fit into cup doors on the bottom.  No more birds flying out the door as I put feed dishes in.  However for canaries the cups are held too far off the floor for them to stand on the floor and eat out of them.  I put a perch right in front but that makes them lean way down to eat or drink.

The cages have a grate over a pull out pan as a floor, but the grate is the same vertical bars as the sides and the birds are reluctant to land on them.  I solved that by putting in a sheet of cardstock paper near the feed dishes they can land on.  Of course that is going to have to be changed frequently.

 To top it off the cross bars are so close to the top I had a difficult time getting the canary nests I was putting in the females cages to fit correctly requiring some make do with bent paper clips.  There are nest box doors on each end of the cages but they are too close to the floor to hang a nest on.

 So much for the pretty cages.  We are all getting used to them.  Petey my old male who usually sings loudly and frequently has so far been silent.  The young male has sang a little.  These cages had to be stacked to fit the space and the one bird so far in the bottom tier, a little hen, keeps trying to fly up where she knows the other birds are.  Its darker down there too. I have been trying to move the light around to make it brighter.    I’ll work out the kinks.

 In bird world outside the baby chicks that hatched all made it to 2 weeks old.  They are going into the outside pen, which is enclosed in plastic to keep it dry, just hopping right in and out with their two moms.  I left the rooster in there and he is just fine with the chicks.   I had a hard time finding starter feed this time of year so the first week or so they were getting crushed cheerios and dry cat food.    I bought some marked down salad greens to give the birds yesterday and those baby chicks were grabbing and eating that like they had been doing it all their lives.   They are also fond of the bread treats. 

 The hen ducks are all trying to nest and laying eggs.  Some are laying eggs in the hen nests, which is good because we can pick them up and use them for the dogs or cats.  Some are being hidden though and I don’t know if I want them to hatch ducklings this time of year so I am going to have to do a search and destroy.  I know where one nest is although it’s difficult to reach, and I think one may be out in the “greenhouse annex” we made on the coop.   If they wait another month to start setting then the time would be about right when they hatch.