Monday, November 16, 2009

Getting My German Rollers Ready For National

Last Monday when I got back from the Toronto Roller Show, I caged up seven sets of my German rollers for the first time.



The first 24 hours in the roller show cage the cages are out in the open in the aviary. Only natural light coming from the sky lights and windows light the room. Normally, I would be using just rape and canary seed with bread but after the first day of hearing them start and stop and not being developed in song, I made a mix of canary, rape, hemp and petamine. I also feed them bread.

On Tuesday last week, the German rollers were moved to cabinets are in my garage and a dimmer light was used to darken them down. The dimmer is set to come on at 7 AM and go off at 5:30 PM. Natural lighting was on 7:09 to 5:21 PM when the birds were moved to the garage. For the first 24 hours in the cabinets, the door are wide open and then gradually closed each day till they are open about 1/2 inch.

Once a day I stack each team in bright light and give them five minutes to start singing. If a bird sings, they get to stay out for a total of ten minutes. The next day to stay out ten minutes, two birds must sing. Just like other animal training, I up the requirements each day for the reward. Cabinet doors were open as this picture was taken within 24 hours of moving them to the garage.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Great pics, I know this off topic but what's your fool proof way for color feeding.

MontanaGal said...

I always wondered how they "trained" rollers...very interesting.

Anonymous said...

I like your "German" cages in first picture. I got to get me some and try to make some more on my own.

Almin