Share Your Experience - Debbie Eaton

Take Nothing For Granted in the Bird Room

Deb writes, "Today (Tuesday) I had a great quality hen that I noticed was sitting yesterday (Monday) and Sunday afternoon, in the very same spot at the back of the cage on the floor. I thought she was going through the motions of wanting to nest again with no nest in the cage, that was her spot. Yesterday, I put a cup of food close to her hoping to draw her out, but today she did not look good.

HER TOE was caught between the back wall of the cage and the tray (it's an ABBA Breeder). I would never have dreamed that was the problem. I picked her up and the toe was bad, and she was so dehydrated. Gave her a quick drink and then set her up on the floor in a clean spot with glucose water and food then added a perch with more water. I felt so bad....

This time of year, with the onset of molt and end of breeding, you have to pay attention to what they are doing. I was in a hurry yesterday to go to an appointment and took it for granted her reason for just sitting there."

Thanks so much Deb for sharing this frightening experience with us. It is a great piece of advice!

Preschool - Perch Placement

Getting the Right Amount of Exercise and Proper Stance - Second Principle

It is time to assess the number of perches and there placement. If the birds are too thin, increase the number of perches so that they make short hops rather than fly and make their food and water easily accessible. If they are too fat, reduce the number of perches to two and make them far apart to ensure they fly the length of the cage and up and down for food and water.

It is also important to adjust the height of the perches to encourage the bird to assume the correct stance. German rollers sound the very best and deepest when they perch parallel to the perch and even drop their chest below the perch level. To encourage this posture, I move the German roller perches up high in the cage so that they are close to the cage ceiling. I just keep moving them higher until I like the way the rollers are laying down on their perches.

My type and color birds need to stand upright so the perches in their cages are placed much lower but not so low that they hang on the cage wire. By watching stance and adjusting perch height, the birds will be encouraged to stand naturally at the appropriate angle.

Preschool - Off Season Early Show Training

Learning When to Eat and When to Show Their Stuff - First Principle

Now that I have turned off all artificial lights, it is time to begin preparing my birds for the Oct/Nov/Dec show season. Perhaps it seems a little early to you but there are real benefits to making show behavior as natural for the birds as possible.

The first show training principle is to always feed in dim lighting. It is so tempting to want to come in the aviary turn on all the bright lights and feed our birds. But what are you teaching the birds to expect? That when the lights come on bright, it is time to eat!

Certainly, moving to the show bench, whether type, color or song involves going from dimmer light to brighter lighting and when that happens we expect the birds to show their stuff or even sing! No points, in any category are awarded for eating seed off the floor or looking for seed in empty cups!!

It is fine to give the birds short mini doses of bright light under similar bright show lighting but do it after they have eaten their fill in dim lighting! For all my birds, whether Rollers, Borders, Staffords, or Colorbred, I use 10 minutes maximum of bright lighting at different times of day once daily now and up to three times when we reach a month before show season starts.

Regardless of the type of bird that I am judging, whether it is type, color or song, it is surprising how many show birds have been trained to expect to be fed when they are set before me! Sorry birds, it's my husband and not me who is the phenomenal cook!

Sweet Tri-color Corn For The 4th of July

Fresh Husked Ears are Great for Perching and Eating

Never mind the goal of some folks for corn knee high by the 4 th of July, true Kansans want fresh corn on the table by the 4 th of July!! And for me that's table and aviary!!

Actually there is only a short 3 or 4 week interval when corn is young that the canaries love to eat it off the cob, when the kernels are small and sweet. I can tell if it is young enough for them by breaking the ear. If the ear can be easily broken by hand into 4 or more pieces it is just right. If on the other hand you need a knife to cut the cob, the birds will likely find it tough and inedible.

Note how they like to perch on the ear and nibble at the corn at their feet and at other times they like to munch on the ends. They may need help turning the ear the first time but they quickly catch on and rotate the ear without any help. All of my birds were eating corn for the first time this morning but only this cage of newly weaned Borders were photogenic!

Update: Well one cage did roll the cob and got all the kernels but I had to turn the rest of them over but alas this morning every kernel on the cob had been eaten.

Only Four Resourceful Hens Remain Persistent

This Stafford hen has resourcefully selected a feeding dish for her nest!


She optimistically sits on three infertile eggs.


This German roller has laid infertile eggs in seed on the cage floor and does not seem to notice that a couple of her eggs have rolled out from under her.


A closer look shows she really has a five eggs.


Here a couple of hens have gathered stray nesting material and feathers and have made a nest to share in the cage corner.

Necessity is the Mother of Invention

The sound of fireworks outside is not deterring these last persistent hens from building nests and laying infertile eggs. Although I have started them on a lower protein diet complete with fine grind milo/corn free choice, they just do not want to leave breeding season and start their annual molt. Perhaps they are smart enough to not fall for the milo/corn molting trick!

In any case, the outside temperature has hit 100 degrees F and it is time to stop this fruitless late breeding activity and precipitate the annual molt! So I will abruptly turn off all artificial light in the aviary. Only natural light coming through the double standard window on the south, the two sky lights, and the double standard tree shaded window on the west will light the aviary. The aviary room is about six feet longer than a two car garage so the light coming in is dim and unstimulating but still has plenty of light for eating. Day length, likewise, is now much shorter as it is on the natural sun pattern instead of the extended hours during the breeding season.

Critical Concept: Dropping the level of light and the day length is an excellent way to facilitate a quick molt!

Store Bought Veggies

Buying Vegetables

Living in Kansas, I am truly blessed with local farmer grown seasonal produce available at Farmer's Markets and vegetables grown in my own backyard. It is hard to imagine that many of you can only get fresh produce from your local grocer.

Those who read along my blog will recall that this Spring my birds, for the first time, refused to eat grocery store broccoli. So taking my clues from the birds, who did not care for any of our different grocers broccoli, I switched them to frozen peas.

In the past, my birds hardly ate frozen peas but this year, in the absence of tasty broccoli, they eat frozen peas quite well. In fact, they are currently eating a minimum of one lb a day and on days where I am short of other veggies, they eat two lbs!

In addition to frozen peas, I also use grocer carrots when local ones are not available. I like to process them to coarse and them add flock raiser and continue processing till it is more of fine grind crumble. This carrot/flock raiser crumble is added to cous cous (semolina), poppy seed, and quinoa mixture and also to my nestling egg food.

Peas and carrots purchased at the local store have always been safe. "Spider" brought up the question of purchasing the various greens from grocers or even health food store. One of his friends birds had gotten E. coli from health food store organic produce.

Hardly a week goes by that either meat, cookie dough, or even produce is not being recalled as unsafe because of bacterial contamination. By coincidence, right before the cookie dough recall, my grand daughter was shopping with me and we decided to make cookies from scratch rather than buy what turned out to be the recalled cookie dough brand! Experiences like this make me wonder just what is safe from my grocer.

What's the Point: The point of all this rambling is that variety is great but grow your own or buy from a trusted local farmer, or if you are concern with store bought veggies safety, limit your grocery store buying to carrots and frozen peas!

Home Sweet Home

Keep watch for signs that a bird is being hassled and picked by its cage mates. The lower back is a common picking site. Move any picked ones to a new cage, either separate or with other picked chicks.


Carefully examine the space between the last gray wire (far left) and the brown side of the cage (far right). Note how not only is the air space narrow but the width of the air space decreases on its way down until it is more narrow than the width of a bird band. Birds can get their band caught in the upper wider region and struggle toward the bottom where they are totally stuck.


Insert packing in the air space to protect the birds from getting trapped. I cut strips of padded foam and lodge it in the space between the last wire and cage side. Even cardboard would work. The packing shown is "griprite", a non-slip liner purchased in a roll for $2 at the Dollar General Store!



Providing a Safe and Hassle-Free Cage

Take a critical look at your young birds especially their lower backs for any signs of picking. If so, decrease the animal protein in their diet and move any picked birds to their own separate cage. Also be sure and move any thin birds away from the others as they are high risk for picking and going light. Likewise separate female birds from the more aggressive male birds.

In addition, free your cages from any potential unsafe conditions. It is a terrible tragedy when a bird is accidentally trapped in its cage and breaks it leg. Sometimes this can be a wire sticking out that somehow that manages to slip under the bird's band, trapping the bird. The bird will fight for freedom and in the process breaks or severs its leg.

Or like the example above, the space between the side wire and solid cage side is narrow but not so narrow that a bird's band can't get lodged in the air space. To make matters worse the air space decreases as you look toward the bottom of the cage so that as the bird struggles and moves toward the cage bottom, the narrowing space will more firmly secure the lodged band. And just like the wire accident, the caught bird struggles to get free and in the process will break and sever its leg. Unless seen before the break, the bird will unfortunately loose its leg.

A few years ago, I bought a large expensive name brand four tier floor to ceiling cage. Yesterday, as I was taking care of my birds, I noticed a flutter at the door area of the bottom cage. To my shock, a bird had its nail caught where the wire met the cage door. Luckily, I was able to free this bird without a dislocation or break but what if I had not seen the bird in time?