German Roller Show Cages and Bird Items on Ebay

Jeff Brooks is moving and needs to sell his bird items. He writes: I am listing and will be listing more German Roller Canary cages and related items on eBay.  

eBay Item Number 201119273798 closes in just 2 days! 

ANTIQUE GERMAN ROLLER CANARY SHOW CAGES

FOUR CAGES - COMPLETE WITH TRAYS AND GLASS FEEDERS

This is a set of four antique German Roller Canary show cages.  They were hand crafted, not assembly-line manufactured, and are at least 50-years old.  The hard-to-find glass feeders are included as well as two perches per cage.  No cabinet. The set is matched.  Each cage has a removable wire guard beneath the pull out tray which stays in place when the tray is removed and prevents birds from escaping when you are cleaning trays.

The cages are solid and well-built, but of course used.  There is chalk writing on the bodies of the cages numbering them 1-4.  This will easily wash off but I left it on so you could see how the owner marked the cages so they would stack them the same each time when training the birds.  These are unique and hard to find. 

The dimensions for each cage are 9" L x 6.5" W x 7.5" H.

eBay Item 201122559517

FOUR (4) VINTAGE GERMAN ROLLER SHOW CAGES

INDIVIDUALLY HAND CRAFTED

COMPLETE WITH TWO PERCHES and TWO LUSTAR #303 PLASTIC CAGE CUPS

PULL OUT TRAYS FOR EASY CLEANING

Set of four German Roller Canary show cages in good, usable condition.  Because most breeders use the glass feeders and this set is outfitted with the Lustar #303 American made plastic cage cups, they are  the perfect choice for training your team of birds for the show season. Cages are old but solid.  Like most show cages you will see at German Roller shows and exhibitions in the United States, (there are not many!), the show cages show their age and wear.  Most were  made by talented craftsmen and one can appreciate their skill and love of the art of cage building.  These came to me without a cabinet.

Check out my other listings for more canary related items.  And check back as I will be listing cages with cabinets shortly. 

Kind thoughts,

Jeff Brooks

Attention Bloggers In Ireland

Amish Cantaloupe

Can you help Big Bird?  I am planning a trip to Ireland to attend the All-Ireland All-Border Show in Dublin October 19 and 20th and would like to attend other bird shows around the same time.  Have not bought the ticket so I could attend the weekend before or after or both etc.

Am interested in seeing lots of Borders and other kinds of canaries. Would especially like to see Irish Fancy in particular as the numbers are somewhat limited here in the States.

Seems like this is a good time in my life to travel. My idea of the perfect trip is to see Canaries and attend Bird Shows! Got another idea for a bird trip?

My Kind of Fireworks! Happy 4th of July!

Sprouting Seed in a Sink Colander

 A Sink Colander for sprouting seeds is one of my favorite among aviary equipment. The side handles expand to fit your sink. Shown is ABBA Products soak seed which is covered with water for six hours and then placed in the sink colander for sprouting. Seed is sprayed in the colander daily. Works great!

I purchased mine a few years ago at Aldi. Aldi is a German company offering groceries and a few extras in the US. Today's ad featured the sink colander!

Surely These Stafford Chicks Are The Last Hatches of 2014

The two chicks on the left hatched yesterday and the one on the right hatched today. By now I had quit taking the eggs out and was thinking yesterday, I needed to finishing separating hens and cocks. Boy was I surprised to see two well fed chicks in the nest when I moved the hen off to check her eggs! The last egg looks good so I might have another chick tomorrow.

With unbanded chicks in the nest, I will wait awhile to drop my lights as I do not want to take a chance on the mom not feeding although the feeding hormones should prevent even dropping the lights from putting her into a molt.

July 3, 2014

July 10, 2014

Wow! This crest is looking pretty round for this stage. Wonder if he would like to fly to Dayton Ohio for the National Cage Bird Show?

Scoring More Chicks Using the Striker Method

While working with my Border hens this year, I would sometimes get frustrated when paired hens failed to invite mating. At times, they even ran from the male and I would think oh she's not quite ready but alas with a ready male in the cage with her, she never did get interested in inviting mating. When he was moved to another hen, mating would occur immediately.

When the hen is not receptive, I like to use divided cages and put him on one side her on the other and give him all the extras so she will beg him to feed her through the wire and once he is feeding her through the wire remove the divider. This works well but often when I have an uninterested hen, I do not have any divided cages available.

Avoid The Problem:

Planning ahead to avoid the problem by setting up a number of cages all in the same area of the aviary at the same time rather than scattering the ready pairs all over the room. This ensures that breeding song will be all around the hens. Just hearing it helps gets her in the mood to invite mating.  You may even notice her squatting for mating even when a male is not in her cage just because she hears the breeding song. I sometimes use a vigorously singing male who will not be mating with her, even of a different variety, under her cage if she is not surrounded by breeding song.

Striker Method For Troubleshooting The Uninterested Hen:

When the disinterested hen has built her nest and she is approximately five days from laying, introduce the breeding male and leave him a while with her only if she invites mating and mates immediately with him. After a few times, I put him back in his own cage to rest.

Introduce him again for a short period again each day until she lays her first egg. When mating occurs several days before the first egg, most eggs will be fertile. Once she starts laying, mating produces few fertile eggs.

Give him at least a minimum of a couple days rest to build his sperm count before repeating with another hen. I have done experiments with introducing him to two or more hens on the same day using the striker method and found that fertility is much better when he is only striking with one hen at a time and then resting.

Lucca loves to play soccer. He is comfortable playing 90 minutes before he needs a break! He is especially good at defense! Wonder if the US could use another back-up goalie?

Molting Time - Offer More Seeds and Greens

 My Borders love greens and this young male is enjoying fresh kale from my garden. The dish on the right is BioDecken Novafood, a complete food with only 14% protein. Novafood is offered free choice and they clean up their dish everyday. Novafood is available from Ricardo Sanchez at ricardo@ricardosanchez.cc or 214 998-7474.

This kale leaf will be totally eaten, made a little stem left, but that is it! Yellow ground birds get all the dark greens they care to eat daily!

 Another young Border male has green all over its beak!

 Blattner Siskin & Finch Seed

 Finally, we can again get Blattner Siskin & Finch Seed in the US. I just got an order from Bird Supply of New Hampshire. They also have CeDe Nestling Food. I inquired about CeDe Handrearing Formula that I use for weaning and feed twice a week to young birds through the molt. They checked and they can get it from their distributor!

ABBA Products soak seed is feed at least once a day and quickly eaten! They take vacation from June 30 to July 9th.

Today, I will place an order for Higgins Song Food and begin offering it too. I like to feed a variety now during the molt but will work toward mostly canary seed after the molt for show season.

I buy poppy seeds in 5 lb package from Natural of Course, Health Food Store in Wichita. It is added generously to cooked quinoa, cous cous and oil olive mix.

These young Columbus Fancy are alternating between the Blattner's seed and Abba soak seed!

Last weekend we held the annual family reunion of my family in Hamilton Kansas. Hamilton is about 80 miles from Wichita. While there, I drove out to check one of my pastures and was totally impressed with the quality of the grass. This one is 160 acres and we call it the South pasture. It was part of the 3000 acres homesteaded by my grandfather around 1880. My father was the last of his twelve children! The pastures have never been cultivated and at the foot of the famous Flint Hills. Cattle from Texas are sent up to fatten on our bluestem grass and leave around the first of August. When the cattle lay down, only the tops of their heads are visible!

Balance Problems

Occasionally, I have had a Border who had balance problems. They may sit with squinted eyes especially when I test them by raising my hand to stress them a bit, display wide tails, jerky head movements, unstable wobbly perching to being unable to maintain an upright perching position to instead laying on their backs on the floor. Invariably these are great looking birds and it just makes me sick to see them have neurological problems.

This year, I have had four cases, all older breeder males. The first one was given all the extras I could think of including daily nestling food and in spite of all my efforts, he died.

When the next three cases presented, being discouraged with the first case, I just put them in my old age cage and thought I would let nature take its course. They were fed my wheat germ oil coated seed which is fortified with vitamins and multiple vitamins in the water three or four days a week and extra plain greens a couple times a week. Very plain diet compared to the breeding and weaning birds.

How surprised I am as these birds did not die but rather look like they never had a problem! Even the one who before being placed in the aging cage was laying on his back! He was an outcross bird and I so wanted to bring in some new blood.. Never have I seen these wobbly birds improve, in the past they have all died sooner or later! As exciting as this is, i will not bred them as the worst thing that can happen is not when a weak bird dies but rather when you save it and breed a whole aviary full of them!

Why these four birds, I ask myself? Normally, I restrict hard boiled egg containing eggfood to paired birds especially Border which for quite some time have seemed to me to be protein sensitive. (It also seemed that if the egg food was strong on egg, the hens either would not feed it or stop feeding after a few days. So this year when I added frozen peas to egg containing nestling food, ever hen fed!)

These problem males had been paired with several hens unsuccessfully and I just kept trying and trying first one hen and them well maybe this one... So they had unlimited egg food first with one hen and then the next.

It seems to me that the problem is not only genetic but manifested when the birds are given too much protein.  There have been some research on protein folding problems as a factor in human neurological problems and perhaps something similar is happening in our birds.  After this experience, I am cutting back on proteins on my Borders limiting egg containing nestling food to birds feeding chicks.

I have also given all my bird extra B vitamins to support good neurological health.