Beauty Marks Dress Up Mosaic Stafford Faces

This mosaic is striking with its dark hook beauty mark! The eye catching mark highlights the face and is so striking when you watch the bird hoop back and forth in the show cage! The mark keeps your attention focused on the beautiful head shape with its full back skull.


Love that dark hook with his developing mask! This ones hook is striking especially when he moves it calls attention to his full neck. The hook is a beautiful extension of his nice round crest!


What a face! The dark ring around the collar follows through clear around the neck and up till it covers his eyes. The markings call attention to his very full face and rounded head plus it gives it a jovial expression! Can't wait to have his face mask finished molting.


What a pretty artsy mark! This is so attractive when it moves and again calls attention to its great head which appears round when it is not in my hand!


Wow! This Stafford mosaic young cock has an especially attractive brown blush under his eyes! Not only is he always made up ready for a camera shot or a trip out to a bird show but also he sports a quite long round crest too!

Marks Can Make A Face

I have always loved variegated birds! That was one of my reasons for choosing Staffords where melanin pigments can make even a show bird more beautiful!

Staffords are enhanced by markings unlike colorbreds where slightly marked birds are only good for breeding better ground color but worthless on the show bench. When lipochrome colorbred are shown, points are seriously subtracted for any trace of melanin in clear birds.

Notice how the placement of the mark adds character and beauty to these young molting Staffords'! These birds melanic markings are beautiful and I am anxious for them to finish molting around their face and with the loss of baby feathers, the development of good red colored masks and while I am dreaming lets throw in good round long crests too!

Wearing a Mask Well

Promising Molting Stafford Mosaic Young Cock Needs Some Grooming of Its Hair-like Head Projections

Whose Chick is This?

As I watch my young birds coming out of the molt, this guy has real potential. Seems like it got mom's color and dad's face mask! I really appreciate how his color is full and high above the beak. His mask has not been groomed, he just has a naturally very good mask!

It is not very obvious in the picture but you can see a few thin extra long hair-like projections around his head which make the head lines look a little fuzzy rather than distinct. Some of these projections can be seen against my index finger in the picture. Click directly on the picture for a better view!

The best way to see these hairy projections is to examine one of your own birds. Gently brush the head feathers forward with your finger and you will see a few of these longer thin hair-like projections which are longer then their feathers.

In September, when the molt is clearly finished, I will brush my birds head feathers forward and using manicure scissors, I will snip these stray hairy projections back in line with their feathers to give their heads a more distinct shape. I will also recheck show birds for these projections and trim as necessary before exhibitions.

Can anyone identify his parents? Congratulations Mike and Evon, see comments for the answer!!

Not Quite Snow White

Molting Young Yellow Mosaic Lipochrome Hen

This young mosaic hen is snow white except for the areas around her face where she still shows her yellow baby feathers. As those face baby feathers are replaced she should look pretty nice and hopefully show quality.

She will need a little more exercise to slim her down a bit. Time to stop feeding her greens and sprouted black oil sunflower seeds as I don't want a dirty face and introduce her to the border cage. Then a few days before the show I will hand wash and trim the tip off her beak and surely she can get a 92 or at least 91 points!

If it works out, I will be showing her at the National Cage Bird Show in Tulsa. Have you made plans to attend our national? For details check out www.ncbs.org. Love to see you there!!

Ask Big Bird?

A Place to Post Canary Questions

I started this blog as a teaching tool which would help me instantly share information with many more canary lovers. Most of the ideas for posts come from my aviary observations and the few questions or comments that I have received. A big thank you to those who have shared and interacted on this blog and also to those who have used any of the information and shared it with others!!

Today, I received an e-mail from Paul asking where should he post canary questions that just don't fit any current blog posting? I am investigating if I can have such a place on the blog other than comments to posts.

For now, please post any unrelated questions, a comment, or if you have an idea for something you want addressed, post it to comments on this "Ask Big Bird" blog posting! I will re-post "Ask Big Bird" periodically to keep it in the more recent blogs.

Ring Full of Black Beauties

Growing Up Beautiful

This late nest continues to progress very well. Today, the late hatch bronze chicks are huddled close together as the exhaust fan is on and temperature was done to 60 degrees.

Yesterday during the day, the aviary was 95 degrees. When it is hot and the exhaust is stirring the air and drawing in a hot draft, the chick will spread out a bit so they are not touching. Interestingly, they always stay under the ring! It seems this is much better than when they are confined to a nest and you see their heads hanging over the nest with their mouths open.

Seems like momma bird knew what she was doing building this open nest on the floor!!

Comment three days later: The last few days I have been tied up with work and volunteering at a religious conference over the weekend, my husband agreed to feed the bronze hen for me in the afternoon each day. The first time, he could not find the babies even though I told him the cage number! Finally, he got a flashlight and only then was he able to locate these late bloomers!

Mid-molt: Kicking Up The Carb's A Notch!

Cooked Wheat can be fed separately or added to other foods. Notice how some of the kernels are split open.


Thawed frozen peas with cooked wheat.


Cooked wheat with dry nestling food processed in the food processor. This is added to my egg containing nestling food at a 50/50 ratio.


Time to Start the Finishing Off Process - Adding Wheat to the Mid-molt Diet

Now that most of my birds are mid-molt, it is time to begin the finishing off process by increasing carb's in the diet. Even with cooked wheat fed both in nestling food and as kernels, it is not too much for even rollers during the molt.

Whole kernel wheat is available at a variety of places from health food stores, feed stores, and even directly from the farmer. This happened to come from my local feed store, who sells it for animal food, and it costs $15 for 50 lbs. A farmer will likely deliver twice that much for that kind of money for his grain! His wheat may or may not be cleaned and if dusty it will need to be washed before cooking. Be sure and do not buy treated wheat which is meant for planting.

I cook wheat in a rice cooker but it takes lots longer than cooking rice. If not soaked first, it is probably a couple of hours but if soaked overnight, the cooking time is significantly reduced. It is necessary to keep a watchful eye on it as periodically you will need to add additional water. Usually it takes about 3 times more water than wheat.

Once cooked and cool, I feed some as kernels and process some to add to my nestling food and any extra is stored covered with water in the refrigerator for the next day feedings.

Bee Pollen - Natures Completely Balanced Food

My favorite bee pollen source is Peggy's Pollen, a natural US product, e-mail Diane at dianer57@gmail.com or call 320-2434330. If you call, please remember to ask for Diane as Peggy is Diane's Daughter.

National Public Radio (NPR) reported recently that 90% of all bee pollen sold in the US is from China. After the publicity of tainted products from China, I read labels and am selective in my purchases.


Beautiful Multicolored Peggy's Pollen Granules demonstrates that the bees collected it from a variety of plants and suggest better nutritional value!

To preserve it nutritional value, I store some in the refrigerator for daily use and the rest is stored in the freezer.


When Do You Feed Bee Pollen?

I use bee pollen for specific purposes throughout the year. It is very nutritious being 25% protein by weight and contains all 22 essential amino acids plus numerous vitamins, major minerals, micro-nutrients, enzymes and co-enzymes, fatty acids, pigments-xanthophyll and carotene, and some carbohydrates calories but not so many to be fattening.

All year round, it is good to offer bee pollen free choice to any thin bird or one that just is not up to par or ones that are out of condition. Many times I have seen these canaries enthusiastically eat bee pollen even when seed and other foods were difficult for them to eat. On most occasions their health or condition returned and they again ate a normal diet like the rest of the flock.

During molting, it is good nutrition for molting birds to meet their nutritional challenges but also it is good because of its yellow pigments that help to color yellow feathers. Borders are given bee pollen free choice during the molt. But because of the yellow pigments bee pollen contains, I do not feed it to red ground potential show birds.

It is a very good conditioner for breeding and consistently helps improve fertility rates. It is wonderful for weaning birds as they quickly begin eating pollen even before they learn to eat egg food!

Bee pollen is a strong song stimulator. With the German rollers, we compete in the equivalent of an adolescent boys song and not a breeding type song. A little bee pollen mixed in with rape, sunflower pieces, and thistle seed but no more than once a week in small amounts is OK even for rollers until they are put in the show cages. Care must be exercised to not over feed them bee pollen as you want to keep them quiet until their bodies are fully developed to not ruin their ability to sing later.

Song birds where loudness, frequency and freedom are very important can be feed more bee pollen along with toasted wheat germ to improve these traits. Individuals who just want to enjoy a singing bird will be pleased with the results of feeding bee pollen with wheat germ.

So the answer to the question, "When do you feed bee pollen" is year round but selectively for the my intended purposes.

Note: When you start feeding bee pollen to molting loose feathered birds, their feathers will immediately tighten up. The improvement is obvious even as soon as within 24 hours! It is very important to feed bee pollen to borders!