This is one of the best Mothers Day ever for me!! Remember how much I loved Mario, the sweet singing hollow roll German Roller import, who stole my heart while quarantined in my bedroom this Spring? As soon as the light came on at 6:30 AM, I would start counting and many mornings I only counted to three before Mario started his beautiful serenade!
I was really heart broken when he came down with the terrible sickness that killed five of the ten imported birds in the shipment.
As previously posted, I cured five, including Mario, by treatment with Doxycycline 20%, Tylan, and Megamix in sugared (one teaspoon sugar to a liter) drinking water. This went on about three weeks and then I treated five more days with KD Powder. I quarantined an additional week but with the season getting away from me and wanting some chicks from these new imports, I paired Mario with two pure DKB German Roller Hens.
Normally, birds treated with Doxycycline are not bred for six weeks after treatment as one side effect of the drug is temporary infertility. With all the Baytril and Doxycycline and Tylan,, going on for several months, I was worried that it might be June before I got any chicks this season and perhaps I would just have to be patient and wait till next year and be happy five are OK.
The nest pictured hatched four of the five eggs today just in time for Mothers Day. Mario has beaten the odds again and all of the first hens five eggs were fertile and maybe the last egg will hatch tomorrow!
Two plastic eggs which I will move to the middle to help support the newborn chicks.
One fertile egg remains pictured in the middle here.
16:00 Breaking News: 5th egg hatches!
10 comments:
Well done Mario!
Congratulations Granny !
Deb
Hi Linda,
I was not aware that temporary infertility was a side effect of Doxycycline.
Doxycycline is a Tetracycline antibiotic and is similar to Aureomycin, many fanciers use this in the hens drinking water for small chicks up to seven days after hatching to decrease chick mortality. If Doxycycline or indeed Aureomycin was causing temporary infertility, one would think that the next round these fanciers take would be so affected?
What has your experience with Doxycycline been or are you going on what you have been told by others?
Over the years, I have not used antibiotic except in serious illness which has been rare.
The temporary infertility is a caution on Doxycycline use in Canary Health by Dr. Rob Marshall. Having read and re-read his book, I find him very knowledgeable. In Kansas, it is not humid and so canaries here rarely struggle with illness. I find his KD powder to be excellent and I am very glad I used Doxycycline with tylan as it got rid of the gasping lower respiratory disease of the rollers from Germany who came out of quarantine.
Congrats Linda!
How are you able to get such good pictures of the babies?
Aren't you afraid of the hen abandoning the chicks?
I try NOT to interfer with any hatching nest until I am sure mom/dad are feeding.
Hi Linda,
So glad your birds pulled through, you certainly went the extra mile for them.
Re Dr Marshalls book, I purchased it but confess to being a slightly disappointed with the contents, as it's focussed on his own brands of products and the best situations to use them, which is fair enough but I would have liked a little more objectivity.
Give me CanaryTales any day!!
Evon
Overall, my birds are very tame but I must be careful to not stress the hen the first few days.
I get my camera ready and the gently lift the nest out leaving the wire hanger in place. Shot quickly four or five shots and them quickly put the nest back. The 16:00 shot was actual only two pictures and I posted them both.
There is less risk with a full nest of begging chicks than when there is only one sickly one in the nest.
Dr. Marshall's book also gave me an bad impression at first as it looked like it was a sales pitch for his products.
After reading and re-reading, I began to catch his essence which is obsession with maintaining and breeding canaries! This obsession, I share and once I realized that, I was able to gather some very valuable information.
Canaries are more difficult to keep healthy in areas where the humidity is high. Kansas being dry makes my job much easier.
I am totally sold on his KD powder, a citric acid product, at the first sign of trouble, KD to the rescue! I could fix the same problem but this product makes keeping canaries healthy easy.
I may live in Happy Valley, Oregon but agree with you whole heartedly about humidity. We had one of our wettest, coldest Springs on record. Very challenging for canary breeding. Several of our local, struggling breeders became successful when they moved to places like Arizona. Go figure!
Linda, if I read correctly you move two plastic eggs to middle to support the hen even in a nest of 5? I do this for singles or doubles, but not full nests. When do you remove plastic eggs?
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