True love

My canaries came from two sources; let’s call them source A and B.  I have males and females from both sources.  My plan was to set up the male from source A with a female from source B and vice versa.  I wanted to start breeding with a good outcross.

 But birds are strange creatures when it comes to love.    Petey my oldest canary is a source A bird but he would have nothing to do with the pretty little hen from source B who I put on the other side of his divided cage.    Instead he spent a lot of time on the floor in one corner of his cage cocking his head toward a hen from source A who was in a cage below and to the right of him.  They called back and forth to each other frequently.

 Sunny the young male from source B was equally unhappy with the pretty red factor hen from source A.  He spent his day hanging on the back side of his cage talking to the hen who was in supposed to be Peteys girl.  Their cages came pretty close together at one corner and they spent their days there kissing through the bars when Sunny wasn’t challenging Petey with vigorous song.

 Finally I gave up trying to force my choices on the birds and switched the males.  The red factor hen is now the reserve hen with no male for her.  And within an hour of the move both males were kissing and talking to their chosen mates through the cage dividers.  I except the girls will spend more time actually building a nest now and not playing with the nesting materials.  Hopefully in a week or so I will be able to remove the dividers.

 Petey in particular seems ecstatically happy with his chosen girl, a little green and yellow variegated hen. He is bringing her pieces of paper and string for her nest already.  She was the hen without a mate but she had a nest in her cage and was more interested in it than the girls who did have mates.  The hen which I originally set Petey up with was a variegated hen too, almost identical to the other hen, but to Petey there must have been a difference, maybe because that one seemed to prefer Sunny. 

 Although the birds are now with mates that came from the same sources they aren’t sisters and brothers so the breeding should go ok.  They must have been able to recognize some family trait that made them prefer that mate.  Its been just a couple hours since the move and everyone seems much happier.

Poultry, for the most part are not so picky about their mates.   They are flock breeders rather than pair breeders.  But roosters do sometimes favor one hen over others, although they don’t totally ignore the others.  Ducks also tend to have a favorite, although domestic ducks don’t seem to really pair off like some wild ducks do. 

Last weekend something got in the barn one night and ate all the eggs that were on the floor, including those of the Muscovy duck that were just about to hatch.  I suspect an opossum, because a coon would have killed something, especially with my young Frizzle chicks in there.  But everyone has returned to laying and there seems to be no return yet of the predator.  The turkeys are laying and there are now three duck nests.   One of the Frizzle mommas is now sitting eggs again while the other is watching the half grown chicks.

Tomorrow is the first day of March and I had it in my head that I would open up the barn and let the birds out to free range for the rest of the season.  But we are having a mess of rain and snow mix, with some ice expected so tomorrow probably won’t be the day.  I think I will concentrate this weekend on trimming some wings so that when I do open the doors I won’t have turkeys and ducks all over the front yard.  Hurry Spring!