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.

white starling

Its 2012, time does fly by.  I saw an amazing thing this week, a white starling.  It flew with a huge flock of regular dark starlings.  I want to catch it, starlings aren’t protected birds, but I doubt that I can.  It was a couple miles down the road and who knows if it even stays in that area.  Actually starlings get a bad rap from people.  They eat a lot of harmful insects.   But they also throw songbirds out of nests and take birdhouses for themselves.  They do eat grain, especially when they hang around barns and in the winter, but bugs would be their first choice.

 They congregate in huge flocks in the winter, which also doesn’t make them popular if you own the area they like to roost in.  They can be quite noisy in these flocks, although a starling’s song isn’t that bad taken alone.  I have heard that they can be taught to talk as well as a parakeet, and I have heard them mimic sounds so I believe it.  

 Their dotted black feathers could be kind of pretty, especially if mutations can be bred.  How about a white starling with dark polka dots?  Wouldn’t that be cool?  I have heard people do breed them.  It’s kind of intriguing.  I want to catch that white one!

Speaking of breeding, my muscovy ducks are laying eggs.  One is under the chicken nests and pulling all the straw out of the nests above her to use for her nest.  That’s the old mama we call Daisy and she nested there last fall.  The other is a young hen who is laying in a chicken nest each day.   I don’t think I will let them brood eggs just yet.  I have two frizzle hens sitting on eggs and I don’t know what will happen if those hatch.  I am going to let them stay with the hens since both are broody and they are the only hens in the pen.  If the cats don’t get them maybe they can raise them.

Beautiful December day

It’s a beautiful day here in Michigan.  For the 26th of December it can’t be better.  It’s about 45 and sunny, the little snow we had melted and left behind green grass.  I wanted to be outside this morning so I did some barn chores, moving hay around to make room for my little wagon inside, cleaning a dog kennel, digging a hole under the water dish in the chicken coop, spreading clean shavings in the coop.  Not really outside all the time but the sun was shining right inside that barn door.  

All the chickens, turkeys, ducks, guineas were outside in the “greenhouse annex.”  The plastic isn’t totally clear but there is filtered sunlight inside and they were enjoying it.  I dug the hole under the big water dish to make less of a wet spot.  I covered it with a grate and set the water dish on it.  Now all the duck splashes will go in the hole hopefully.  The clean shavings may reduce some of the mud in the dish.  The hoses all ran which makes cleaning things easier.

 I sat down to rest a moment and the momma stray cat came into the barn with a little bird in her mouth.  One of the half grown kittens ran up and she gave the bird to it.  It completely ate that bird in less than 5 minutes, only a few feathers left. It was either a sparrow or a chickadee, hopefully a sparrow - they are still flitting around in the chicken coop despite cats.   I talked to mamma cat and told her I was leaving her plenty of food for her and the kids and I’d appreciate it if she left the birds alone.  I doubt she cared.  She is constantly hunting.  Some cats are good hunters, some aren’t.  The mice and rats have pretty much disappeared around here too.   If the sitting frizzle hen hatches eggs I was going to let her raise the chicks but the cat may be a problem.  They are in a pen but I have no doubts the cats could get in if they wanted to.

 My canaries like the spring like weather even though they are inside.  The young male is finally getting a stronger song although it still is a little strange.   For a while I thought it might be a singing hen because he sang so softly and the song is weird.  But I think he is indeed a male because today he is much louder and has been singing a lot.  Petey the older male has been singing up a storm.  They will be ready to breed soon.  The hens are carrying feathers around.  I need to get some better breeding cages.

The dogs have been running in and out all day, and I bet half of their new Christmas squeaky toys are outside.  Our run of good weather is supposed to end tomorrow with a couple of inches of snow.  The toys will all be buried.  But hopefully the snow will be short lasting - warmer weather is predicted again by New Years.

I like this weather

I am looking out the window and it’s nearly the winter solstice and the grass is green. I love it. It will get colder of course but the longer this milder weather goes on the less there will be for the whole winter. And the days will soon start getting longer—like after tomorrow and the sun brighter and stronger- hurray! I don’t need snow for Christmas.


The water in the hoses to the barn ran today. The temps are falling through the day but the hose will still run tonight. Filling buckets up gives us water that doesn’t have to be carried for a few days. That’s one of the worst parts of winter for me. Driving on bad roads is the very worst part and shoveling a path to the barn is another bad thing. So far the roads haven’t been that bad and no shoveling has been done. And while I have carried water a few times it also hasn’t been that bad. Hope it keeps up this way.

I haven’t brought the horses over to the main barn yet and the birds still can use the back part of the barn for roaming around in. I’m keeping an eye on the weather forecast so I can get the horses over there if I have to before I have to lead them through drifts. They like the freedom of the larger pasture better anyway. They have a deep run in barn for shelter. They don’t mind this weather and are very frisky. Lily hasn’t had any trouble with her feet, maybe having Chance with her keeps her more active.

We butchered two turkeys, young toms. They weighed out at about ten pounds each, nice size for us. I was supposed to bring one tom to a friend but that has been postponed. The bronze tom has been being a bit of a bully, it’s strange they are all related but the red turkeys separate themselves from the bronze most of the time even inside.

If I was sure the weather would stay mild most of the winter- we are talking Michigan here- it could be -20 degrees and 3 feet of snow next week- I would turn the birds out to roam again. I’d have to clip turkey and duck wings or I’d have them all over the yard again and I’d probably never get them caught again. The Guineas would probably never come in again and roosting outside in the winter wouldn’t be good. If I had to bring the horses over then leaving a door open would be a problem. The horses would be after the bird grain all the time too. They would try to push through even a small door. The doors all face north- and that would be bad for birds to leave them open although the horses come in and stand to the side and are fine. I guess I’ll leave them locked up; there isn’t much to eat out there anyway. They do have their big “greenhouse” area we made by covering the fenced outside run.

The ducks are trying to nest already. Guess they think its spring. I don’t think I’ll let them hatch eggs this early though. We have 7 ducks left- soon to be 6 as I give another away and even that few make a big mess in the coop. Hurry spring.

Birds and Cats

When I sat down at my desk today to write I noticed that there were several slate colored juncos outside my window eating the seeds off weeds.  There is a dog run just outside my office window for my dogs Cricket, who can’t get along with other female dogs and Gus her companion, who is elderly and has a heart condition.  They have a doggie door to the run. 

 Back to the birds.  It struck me that the little birds were eating the seeds of some lambsquarter, a weed I had worked hard to remove from the dog run as it gets very tall and blocks my view.  A single small plant was left because it grew through a cinder block and was hard to remove.  They were also eating the seeds of some grass that grew close to the fence and had escaped the mower and weedwacker. 

 Those little birds were feasting on weeds, weeds that somehow managed to escape my efforts to control them.   There is a bird feeder in the front of the house and fields are only a few yards away.   If I hadn’t worked so hard to get rid of the weeds near the house however, these tiny grey birds would have entertained me more often just outside a window I spend a lot of time near. 

 Since the weeds were few, I decided to encourage the tiny birds by opening the window and tossing out some canary seed mixture I had collected from my canaries seed dishes when I refilled them.  They don’t eat all the seed and I generally throw the “waste” out under the bird feeder for the birds to pick through.  Now it’s outside my office window where it will probably attract mice instead of more tiny birds.  Cricket and Gus knew I threw something out there and they went out to check it over so the birds won’t be back for a while anyway.

 I bought a new bird feeder this week.  Our old one had been badly damaged by constant deer visits and the barn cat hanging from it as she tried to catch birds.  This is sturdy molded plastic in the shape of a white barn with cheerful red and green trim, very Christmasy.  The design is such that I think it will discourage deer and now that its colder maybe the cat won’t be hiding under the ramp waiting to pounce on birds so often.

 Until the stray cat moved here with her 5 kittens I always had dozens of birds at my feeders in front at all times.    The type and number of birds I see now has dropped off considerably.  We allowed the cat to move her family into the barn and we have been feeding them quite generously, so she no longer has a real need to hunt.  But being a hunting type cat at heart she continues to supplement their meals. 

 The cat was probably a pet before she was dumped but she is quite wild now, as are her kittens.  They hide in the hay in the barn and watch my every move.  I crack the tiny eggs from the frizzle chickens to give them, bring them table scraps and keep a full dish of dry cat food out for them  but they still won’t let me touch them or even get close.  They look plump and healthy and are so pretty but if I tried to cuddle them I know they would tear me up.  There are 5 of them and I hope they are all males!

I need a crystal ball

The snow has come to Michigan.  It’s melting a bit today, prompting some scrambling to get some things done we missed before the first snowfall.    Snow is supposed to make a comeback in a few days.  It’s not that we procrastinated, we have been plugging away at winter preparedness, just running out of time.

 The night before the big snowfall momma turkey who raised her brood in the yard, came into the barn to roost but her 4 youngsters, now as big as her, stubbornly took to their pine tree to roost.  In the morning I was able to shoo mama turkey into the chicken coop inside.   Her youngsters had been waiting outside the barn door, calling to her.  They seemed quite unhappy about walking in the white stuff with bare feet.  A little corn inside the barn and it was done, I trapped them inside and then shooed them into the coop also.

 The ducks are the only hold outs now.  Most of them stayed outside the night of the storm, around the pond edge.  I got 5 of them in the coop at various times but 11 are still out there.  The back of the barn has a run in horse stall- where the horses should be now- and the ducks are using it.  I am trying to run a tight schedule between catching up all the ducks and bringing the horses out of the pasture to the paddock behind the barn. 

 The ducks are scheduled for the butcher- all those we aren’t keeping, on Wednesday. I need to get them inside to make it easier to catch them and I need to get the horses back by the barn before the next snow storm.  But if the snow could just hold off and let us catch the ducks in the run in stall it would be so much easier than catching them in the bigger coop.

 We also have to get the riding mower over to the shed the horses use as shelter now before the snow gets deep, there’s no room inside the barn after expanding the chicken coop.  I am putting the push mower inside the frizzle chickens outside run, which we covered in plastic, and maybe a chair and the ladder too.  Tight quarters until some of the hay is eaten up, and the horses are sure working on that.

 I’d like to leave the horses in the bigger pasture and I’m sure they’d like to stay there but it is hard for Steve to feed and water them when I can’t in the winter over there and hard for me to carry water to them.  When they are in the barn we can just open the door and toss hay to them, everyone can be fed in one trip.  And if the weather is really bad they can eat inside, it’s hard for us to get hay to the pasture shed when the snow is deep. 

 The plastic roof we put over the outside chicken run held up to heavy wet snow but snow sure didn’t slide off like we thought it would.  It stuck quite well.  The inside stayed dry though.  I am debating on whether I should try to broom it off or if that might do more harm than good.  It stills seems quite light in there when it’s sunny.  The whole thing is enclosed so it’s like a greenhouse for birds.  A heater inside might melt the roof snow but that’s rather costly.

 If I just had a crystal ball to see how this winter will play out it would be so nice.  I’m not asking to change it, although that would be nice too.  Just asking to know what’s coming when.