To Intervene or Not?

Time to talk about newborn chick intervention.

When do I assist the hen with feeding? When is it best to let her handle it herself? Or when should I foster the chicks?

I basically believe the hen who feeds her chicks herself is the very best option! But how do we know she is doing a good job? Some breeders look for food in the crop but unless they are stuffed it does not mean they are not being fed well. Instead look at the baby fuzz, if it is plentiful and sticking straight out making the chicks look like a fuzzy ball, they are in good shape. Any skin you see is rosy-pink.

If the chick has fuzz stuck to its skin, leaving it mostly bare looking or if its color is yellow or gray and you see it shrinking, you must intervene. I have good luck with Kaytee Exact Hand Feeding Formula and Scenic Hand Feeding Formula. Be sure to make it very thin for new chicks.

Should you happen to have another hen feeding her own chicks and only one or two of her own and the same size, move the chick to the foster mother. Most foster mothers will feed if the chick hatches under her or if she is already feeding her own chicks. Just moving a chick to a setting hen without chicks is very high risk.

I like to set five or six hens or more to hatch on the same day to increase my options. That means I will hold some eggs a few extra days so they can all be set to hatch on the same day.

In the photo above, the largest chick is doing fine but notice the back on the smaller one, it needs help.

Contest: What Kind Of Canaries Do I Have?

Cock

Hen

Cock

Dear Linda,

My name is Bogdan and I live in Austin TX. I have been breeding Gouldian finches for years and last year I bought some canaries from "second hand " if I may say that. I know that these birds come from a canary breeder from San Antonio. I tried to contact him but he didn't respond. So I have these nice birds but I don't know what kind of canaries they are.

I have read your blog from first to last post and I found it fascinating. I noticed that you often post pictures of canaries and ask the readers to tell what kind of canaries are they. I would very much appreciate if you could take a look at the pics I attached and tell me what kind of canaries I have. Maybe you can use them for a next contest on your blog. Please help.

Sincerely,

Bogdan Wlodarczyk

Can You Help Him?

This Weeks Questions and Tips for Big Bird

This is an excellent product as it has calcium, D3, and magnesium.

Dewitt Natural Burlap is easy to shred for nesting material and available at garden shops and also Lowe's.

My husband Pat making bread for the oyster PO-boy sandwiches he is serving for lunch. (Being diabetic, I'm having mine on salad.)

Sunday Tip

Chirpy Chum Anna Sinclair told me about a pigeon product from Africa sold by Foy's. It is for respiratory problems and is called Mycoban. Anyone have experience using this?

Sunday Question:

My bird has respiratory problems, green diarrhea, and is blowing bubbles.

Answer: Birds with respiratory problems sometimes start out with air sac mites and then have secondary infections with a number of infectious agents. The green diarrhea means it is starving. Blowing bubbles is a sign of trichomoniasis (parasite).

Pasted Vent

Usually a pasted vent is obvious but on occasion it can be subtle. This bird was on the bottom of the cage with its wings dropped and straining. On careful examination, I saw the vent was sealed shut even though not much fecal material was clinging to the vent.

Causes for pasted vent include a variety of infectious agents from bacterial, fungal, parasitic, and viruses to systemic disease and even toxins.

Cause separation, to some degree, can be made based on smell. Normal fecal material should be odorless while many bacterial such as E. coli and some fungal causes such as Candida produce odor.

In this case, the color was creamy and no odor was detected. I cleaned the vent and checked again in a couple hours and found it pasted again. This repeated most of the day.

Since I had Ronex in my bird medicine chest, I decided to try it and within a couple more hours the problem was gone. Ronex is effective against many parasitic causes for wet vent. Treatment is seven days in the water. (www.ladygloudianfinch.com)

Hens Control The Breeding Cycle

I am often ask, "Are your birds breeding yet or When are going to breed your birds?" My standard answer has always been, I watch my birds and when they are ready, I am ready.

But a better answer would be that I watch my birds and when the hen is ready, the breeding cycle begins! It truly is the hen who determines the start of the breeding cycle, not the bird breeder, and not the male! When the breeder takes control without working with the hens natural breeding condition signs, disaster often results such as infertile eggs, hens that do not sit on the eggs, eggs that do not hatch and chicks that die of starvation.

As the hen comes into breeding condition, she has endless energy, fly back and forth frantically and turning flips in mid air and becoming increasingly interested cocks, even calling to them. She may pluck feathers or tear up paper and try to build a nest in a food cup or on the floor. Should she squat and lift her tail while calling to the cock, waste no time the breeding cycle has just begun!

Houdini Saga Continues

Houdini out foxed Big Bird today! For several days now, she has been trying to teach Houdini that when she opens the cage door, it is to put delicious food in for him.

At first, she just slid it in with the tray without opening the door, today he seemed to finally get it so she tried opening the door, walking away with his door open and returning with a dish of quinoa/broccoli/poppy seed.

He was perfect just watched her and once the food was in his cage, he promptly went down and started eating it! Wow Big Bird proudly thought, maybe she could have another career training circus animals!

So Big Bird gets the camera and opens the door again to take a picture of Houdini setting in his cage with the door opened. And to her surprise, out he flew with poppy seeds sticking on his beak!

What Big Bird doesn't get is that a guy has to see his gal regularly and court her or lose out.

Bird Bird has a soft spot for a sweet song, even on the perch outside the cage!

Big Bird Takes A New Breed Under Her Wing

Yellow colored male

Crested male

Hen for the crested male above.

Hen for the plainhead yellow colored male above.

At the National Cage Bird Show in Kansas City, I made the decision to take a new breed into my aviary.

What breed is it?