Heads Up Tips

Heads Up: Slender Hens (Click on each photo and compare)

Hens with a slender underline need to be checked for a yellow fat layer. This slender hen does not have a hint of fat. Unless she fattens up a bit, she will not come into good breeding condition. Give her a private cage or put her with like slender hens and feed fattening extras sunflower chips/pieces and soft bread.

Occasionally, fatten up a thin "hen", may surprise you as she is not really a she but rather a he!!

This hen shows a nice yellow abdominal fat layer. She is coming along nicely and will likely be ready to breed in about eight weeks.

Heads Up: Increased Mineral Consumption

When you have a lot of hens, it is helpful to watch hen cages for increased mineral consumption as long before laying, hens will eat a lot of mineral grit (ABBA mineral with oyster shell added).

Watching for mineral consumption is how I know which hens to catch first and give a physical exam to check for breeding readiness.

Increased mineral consumption is also seen before the 2nd clutch. Often I see a hen feeding chicks but eating a lot of minerals, this is a heads up to get the cock back in the cage as she is going to lay her 2nd clutch quicker than expected. Routinely, I put the cock back on the chicks fourteenth day but if I see her chowing down on mineral, he goes in sooner..

Heads Up: Low Priced Convenient Quality Broccoli

While at the National, Chirpy Chum Rich May, told me how he likes to use frozen broccoli in his nestling food.

I found this floret frozen broccoli at Aldi's discount grocer for only $1.09 where at the most popular grocer in Wichita it was $3.21. Fresh is selling regularly for $1.69/lb here.

Isn't this lovely! I move the package from the freezer to refrigerator and let it thaw there overnight for use the next morning.

After all that play while Big Bird writes this blog, its nap time.

Chirpy Chum Deb Eaton Shares Recipe

Great profile of Debbie!

Debbie writes:

I've been making a cheap food for my birds since I had no eggfood. They eat every tiny bite.

It is cheap wheat bread (1.00 loaf) a couple of mustard green leaves from my flower bed (or rape plant volunteers), a scoop of vitamin mineral powder and a small scoop of their daily pellets. I also buy large bags of organic carrots for my kitchen and sometimes use 1 or 2 carrots. Throw it all in the food processor and process until tiny bite-size pieces. When I use carrots, I process them first, then throw in the bread, etc.

This is something I've noticed on my birds. I bought a couple of Scots here that originally came from Mac. They had been hauled around to several bird marts, etc. and were looking a little rough.

I use pellets for 50% of my birds diet - usually ZuPreem Fruit, sometimes mix with egg food, but no eggfood this fall, just pellets. I bought Mazuri Breeder Pellets, some Pretty Bird Daily Select and mixed all 3 together - mostly because of my softbills, but decided oh well -feed it to all the birds.

With the little bit of wheat bread/greens mix and the pellets and fresh seed mix, within 10 days of buying the Scots - they had slicked down and tightened up considerably. Very noticeable. So much - I even asked Lisa to look at them and tell me what she thought had done it. She thought my box cages, and diet was the key. The poop on my birds has never been tighter and as dry as it is now. Sort of like when you take you dogs off of grocery store dog food and put them on Science Diet, you can just tell the waste is smaller and the food utilized.

We had a vet speak to our club Sunday, and her most important observation regarding illness in cage birds had to do with improper diet. I so agree.

Thanks so much Deb, I value your friendship very much!

Natural Approach To Avian Insect Control

If you have ever experienced an infestation with this weevil, you have my sympathy. This weevil commonly hatches out of household products such as cornmeal and in the house all that is necessary is find the source and get rid of it, not an easy task in the aviary. I have no idea still what it hatched out of.




These little monsters are about the length of thistle seed but wider, shown crawling on a wooden cage perch, they love hot weather and hate cold weather. I thought perhaps that pest strips would get them but even though they can fly, it was not effective.





Diatomaceous earth is non-toxic to animals and humans and environmentally safe and contains no chemical pesticides. The fine silicate particles destroy the insects waxy cuticle resulting in loss of moisture and death. This seems to be working but I look forward to seeing no more weevils ever!

If you use wood shavings it can be added to them. It is also reported that it is effective against mites and lice.

Big Bird's Test Kitchen

Today, I tested three products: chia seed, mixed grass seed, and Egg - N- Herbs. As usual, my Borders are my guinea pigs!!

Chia seed has been all the rage on Dr.Oz so I thought I would see if my birds like it. My friend Margaret shared that she use to have a chia pet and would trim the green growing fur and feed it to her birds. We also checked sprouting but decided it would be simpler to just try it straight.

Quickly, the Borders started eating it and these three Borders ate the whole dish of chia seeds by the nest morning.

Next I added a separate dish of a new product called Egg - N- Herbs. Mixed and sold by Connie Gahman of wings and things gahmanzoo@verizon.net 215 536-1599. To Proteen egg food manufactured by Higgins she selectively added the following herbs: alfalfa leaf, chamomile flower, oat straw, wild lettuce, blessed thistle, dandelion leaf, kelp, chickweed and also spirulina, egg shell, and orange peel.

The Higgins proteen egg food contains a number of items such as whole wheat flour, soya flour, corn meal, dried eggs, wheat germ, honey, almond meal, sesame seed meal, few seeds such as niger, hemp, poppy, German millet, oat groats and numerous nutrients such as sodium selenite, vitamins, and some amino acids plus lactobacillus acidophilius probiotic.

Borders liked this product also and gave it a three toes up rating!

Lastly, I tried an untreated mixed grass seed. This was also purchased from Connie Gahman and turned out to be the overall Border favorite. This year, my birds have wasted so much seed it was refreshing to see them eat every one! It is particularly easy to crack and I plan to add this to my weaning regiment with niger (thistle), which is also easy to crack, as the first seeds I introduce to my young chicks.

With so many extra dishes per cage, I thought why not make a health boost by mixing all three.

As expected they like the combo but the grass seeds are still number one on their list!

Shaving the Bird Food Bill

German Rollers eating Purina Flock Raiser immediately after putting it in their cage.

Non-medicated, nutritious and 20% protein makes this a great time to add flock raiser to your birds diet. Although higher priced than last year, it cost about $20 for 50 lbs.

Flock Raiser is crumbles are easy to eat. I feed it plain and also cut my regular seed mix by about 1/4 with it.

Another trick I have been using is processing green stems for the birds rather than wasting them in the cages. Here some collard green and bok choy stems are ready for processing. Yesterday, it was spinach stems. Processing broccoli also saves waste as the stems are totally eaten just like the heads.

Once processed it is ready to add to a conditioning mix. If it is too wet drain away the excess and add extra dry ingredients such as CeDe, Protein 25, or Petamine Breeding Formula. Adding petamine to a mix cuts the waste as birds like to pick the seeds out and eat little of the nutritious powder.

Poor Lucca, anyone know what this it?

Chirpy Chum - Conditioning Mix Shared By Doyle Johnson

Today as I chatted with my good bird friend Doyle Johnson, he shared his current conditioning mix recipe. It is wonderful to be blessed with bird enthusiasts friends and even more wonderful when they share their recipes!

Doyle's Conditioner

Place 1 cup cous cous in a large bowl and add 1 cup hot tap water and a dash of olive oil. Stir occasionally until liquid is absorbed.

Add 2 cups dry CeDe mixed with 1 teaspoon Miracle Amino Acid Vitamin Supplement (AA Miracle available from ABBA Products).

Add 2 Tablespoon Hen Egg Shell (prepare egg shells for feeding by either baking in the oven or microwave 1 1/2 minutes).

Add 1 cup processed broccoli (measure after processing in the food processor).

My birds loved it!!

Become a Chirpy Chum by sending your CHIRP to canarytales2@juno.co. Give your fellow breeders a helping hand!

The Curious Case of Shedding Feathers

The very next day after I brought this new Border home from the National in Kansas City mid-November, I found small feathers scattered all over the cage floor. Not just a couple but hundreds!

When finding small feathers on the cage floor, several possibilities need to be considered.

1. This time of year, hens lose their breast feathers making a bare brood patch so that their skin touches the eggs while the set on them.

When a bird experiences a change in diet, if the new diet is more stimulating, the birds will rapidly come into breeding condition. Usually this takes about two weeks. Since this was immediate, I ruled out coming into breeding condition. Furthermore, my impression is this is a cock and not a hen even though "he" was not singing!!

2. A second possibility is that the bird is in a soft molt. Exposure to inconsistent day length and warm temperatures may cause birds to get stuck losing small feathers. I have seen this with birds coming out of import and occasionally with birds coming home from a bird show.

Unlike a normal molt where first the birds drop long flight feathers about a month before losing small feathers, soft molting birds do not lose their long flight feathers.

Novice breeders sometimes get excited and fear their birds are in a soft molt when actually it is the normal process where hens lose their breast feathers.

Birds in a soft molt have loose feathers where birds in breeding condition have tight feathers. This bird has loose feathers and no singing so soft molt is more likely than coming into breeding condition.

3. The third possibility is the bird is stuck in a normal molt and that it lost its flight feathers about a month before I got it.

Birds that are in soft molt are in poor condition and the cocks especially lose their confirmation noted by loss of roundness in the back and hen, loss of confirmation also occurs when the cocks come into breeding condition but the difference is that breeding condition brings tight feather and breeding behaviors such as singing where either soft molt or normal molt often results in no singing and some degree of loose feathers and loss of confirmation.

This bird at the top of this post shows poor confirmation and loose feathers.

Treatment:

Being unsure of whether I was dealing with a soft molt or finishing a normal molt, I immediately, started the bird on liquid B vitamins. As excess B vitamins are excreted, I just pour some in the water till it is obvious and make that the only water available.



The very next day, no more small feathers were found on the floor. Usually in soft molt, it is necessary to also drop proteins and push high carb foods such as oatmeal. And typically the response would take a few days or longer.

It has been about six weeks now and look how the back is rising and head is rounding! The bird is coming into condition!! Even heard a little singing this morning!

Looking down on the head, it is totally full of pen feathers, typical of finishing a normal molt. Can't wait to see this birds head once it finishes its normal molt.

Hope you had a Merry Christmas and Wishing you the Best in 2012!