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!

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.

es, maybe a pet store

It’s drizzling today and it is expected to change to snow this evening, although we are supposed to get less than 3 inches over the next 2 days.  I don’t remember another winter when we have had so much mild weather and so little snow.  The hose ran this morning to the pasture and barn.  That’s quite remarkable in January and it’s very nice not to have to carry water.  We are going to get some cold weather in the next few days but I hope the water stored in the barn will get me through to the next thaw.

 I have two frizzle hens sitting on a nest of eggs together.  The eggs are supposed to hatch today so we will see if I have chicks in January.  That will be another first for me although I know some people plan on eggs hatching in incubators on Jan. 1.    I am going to let the hens raise the chicks if they hatch.

 I brought a pot in from outside last week that had chickweed growing in it.  The canaries loved the chickweed.  I left the pot on the back porch, it’s unheated but sunny and the chickweed and some violas- which are also edible- are growing like crazy.  I was actually able to pull big clumps of chickweed for my coop birds from my perennial beds on Tuesday which they loved.  Chickweed is stuffed with nutrition for birds.

 I am shopping for new canary breeding cages.  I want to start breeding them by about February if they are ready.   Being able to breed them inside makes me more inclined to wait on breeding the outside birds until the weather is better.  (Although it’s really hard when the weather has been so nice.) 

 The canary cages I have are made of welded wire which is ok but the doors are large and open to the sides and birds can get by me sometimes, especially if I am trying to catch them for moving to a new cage.  I want cages with slide up doors and removable dividers and trays on the bottom.  My current cages have welded wire floors and you put newspaper under them.  The floors need to be brushed- scraped every week or so and that disturbs the birds.  So I am cage shopping.

 I don’t like shopping of any kind.  I thought internet shopping would be easier to me but I am confronted with too many choices and questions that a picture and brief description can’t answer.   I like small stores but they have small choices and large prices generally.  Pet stores used to be common everywhere but in this area anyway there are none any more.  Even the larger cities have few pet stores.   That’s odd because people love their pets and spend lots of money on them.   I don’t know if a few big box pet stores have just captured the market or people are mail ordering pet stuff.

 My husband and I were going to open a pet store down in the city once.  We looked at locations even.  We decided against it because there were so many established pet stores in existence.   I’m thinking that was a wise decision now.  But if I had the money I think a pet store with poultry supplies might be nice.