FINCHforum

Like the title says , I am wondering when do chicks stop needing their mother to feed them .
Mom started laying a new group of eggs and I am afraid she wont be feeding the chick , I don't have a clue what to do , chick fledged though , he is a flying , his daddy was a little rough on him so I decided to move him to another cage , it was strange dad took a strand of nesting material , jumped on the perch the little guy was on and then started grabbing him with his feet .
Is that normal maybe I over reacted , maybe dad was just teaching him something or was he actually attacking the little chick?

Males feed the chicks for up to a month after they leave the nest, the earliest babies will feed themselves is 4 weeks and this is only on soft food... they won't survive on hard seed until six weeks. Mom will wean the babies if she has no help, but it's best to not let her have any more eggs so she isn't distracted from doing so. If you let her sit on a new clutch, she may not wean him.

Sheather So I removed the nest she made after the chick went out of the nest .
I recorded her and when the chick got to the nest she started spreading her wings and opening her beak on him and he did the same in the same time , before that when he hopped in the nest she started poking him with the beak , and I dont know what to do if both parents reject him , what should I do to encourage the mom to keep feeding the chick

The male just put his feet on the chick's back? He was not trying to copulate? I believe you overreacted, it is not an attack.

Once the chicks fledge the male will do most or all of the feeding, so i would put him back, only isolate him if you see real agression.

Get rid of all nests in the cage if keeping with the hen.
Or try again with the male.

Ricardo Ronsini The male canary took a strand of grass (nesting material) and jumped on the branch where the chick was , he started producing this sound and started flapping with his wings and put his feed on chicks back , I don't know if he is feeding him .
I will remove the nest and put dad back , but I dont know if he is attacking the chick or what ever he is doing..
By the way female canary layed an egg without a shell it looks so cool , reddish / yellow color and squishy..

Ricardo Ronsini Can you define real aggression because I don't know what he would have to do to him to be considered a real aggression ..
I noticed that he had a pinch of blood under his beak though , I am not sure if one of canaries attacked him or he poked himself on somehting.

StodOne

What you describe is a copulation behavior, some over exited males will try to copulate with their own chicks, especially when the female is laying new eggs, they feel like covering everything with feathers, but this is not aggression.

An agressive behaviour, would be as you have described:

StodOne wrote: Sheather I recorded her and when the chick got to the nest she started spreading her wings and opening her beak on him and he did the same in the same time , before that when he hopped in the nest she started poking him with the beak

So, wings slightly opened, beak opened and hissing towards the other bird, these are aggressive behaviors.

I would observe, if the male does not feed the chick, what happens sometimes, i would let the chick with the hen alone, without nest, or she may try to lay again, and will not appreciate the chick around.

This is often the trouble with leaving the adult cock canary in with the hen,
Prior to the youngsters being weaned the cock canary often drives the hen to nest again,
This is why the hen is showing slight aggression towards the youngster by opening it's wings and beak.

Basically it's mothers nature of saying you've now gotta start to stand on yer own to feet.

The cock bird will normally carry on with the feeding but again some cocks can also be boystress,

As a breeder and exhibitor of exhibition canaries I now only use the cock birds to serve the hens and then the hens are all left to incubate, hatch and rear on the own, by doing this I normally find that they normally concentrate on the job in hand much better because there not being distracted by the cock bird wanting the hen to go down again for a second round of youngsters,

If I decide that I wanted to breed a second round from me hens I'd then wait until the hens have completely reared and weaned all of their youngsters before letting any cock birds back in with the hens to serve em once again and then I'd separate the cocks and repeat the whole process once again allowing the hens to rear.

Yer now left with a dilemma, eaither persevere and watch closely to see if the youngster is actually being fed and if not take the nest pan and any access nesting material out of the cage and then watch again,

If still no sign of feeding within a few hrs I'd remove the cock bird temporarily and just see if the hen will now hopefully continue to feed the youngster, if still no sign then swap around and just see if the cock bird will feed instead,

In the meantime if a good few hrs have gone by you may need to use a small syringe or even the end of a match stick and just top up by hand feeding,
As a last resort you may have to continue to hand rear the baby for the extra few days until the bird starts to feed for itself,

Under normal circumstances most young canaries at the earliest can be separated from their parents at around 21 days old but this can be a rough guide line as all canaries are different and can take upto 24-25 days or so,

If the parents do manage to continue feeding yer baby canary I'd definitely make sure that its picking up and eating properly before separating,

Don't worry yerself about drinking water as baby canaries get enough moisture through there food and normally start to drink within a couple of days of feeding for themselves.

Be lucky

Stuart whiting Thanks , I've seen the hen feeding him this morning , male is being a bit aggressive for some reason both to the hen and the chick..
I don't know if I should put the nest back in the cage so that the female can mind her own business and the male might start feeding him, I don't know whats up with him , he was carrying just a few days ago before the chick got out of the nest as soon as it got out he went berserk ...
The female isn't aggressive anymore since I removed the nest.

I've put a phone and started recording I will see how they are doing in about 30 minutes , but its so frustrating...lol

Stuart whiting wrote: Under normal circumstances most young canaries at the earliest can be separated from their parents at around 21 days old but this can be a rough guide line as all canaries are different and can take upto 24-25 days or so,

Sorry Stuart, but i firmly would not recommend to separate a chick that young from its parents.

I have being breeding color canaries for more than five years, and i have never had a chick who was able to eat by itself being only 21 days old.

Some of mine will fledge within this age.

When they are 30 days, almost all of them start to eat the seeds by themselves, but i usually wait until they are 35 or 40, just to be sure that they won't have a hard time during the process.

I do the breeding differently than you though, i let the males to take care of the chicks once they fledge.

I think that if i separate a chick when it is 21 or even 25 days old, it would just starve to death, can't see how it would work here.

Sorry, i meant "have been".

Ricardo Ronsini @Stuart whiting He meant to separate it from parents to hand feed him , anyways I think its a false alarm , although they do fight when I am around , when I recorded them I saw the female feeding him like 3 times in a row and once the male was feeding the female , and there were 0 fights . I don't know is it possible that because of my presence they think they are in danger and push each other off the highest perch or something?

Ricardo Ronsini wrote:

Stuart whiting wrote: Under normal circumstances most young canaries at the earliest can be separated from their parents at around 21 days old but this can be a rough guide line as all canaries are different and can take upto 24-25 days or so,

Sorry Stuart, but i firmly would not recommend to separate a chick that young from its parents.

I have being breeding color canaries for more than five years, and i have never had a chick who was able to eat by itself being only 21 days old.

Some of mine will fledge within this age.

When they are 30 days, almost all of them start to eat the seeds by themselves, but i usually wait until they are 35 or 40, just to be sure that they won't have a hard time during the process.

I do the breeding differently than you though, i let the males to take care of the chicks once they fledge.

I think that if i separate a chick when it is 21 or even 25 days old, it would just starve to death, can't see how it would work here.

Sorry mate but you clearly lack the experience and need to learn a lot more as regards to breeding canaries, you say that you've been breeding canaries for all of 5 years,

I have been breeding and exhibiting canaries for 37 years and exhibiting at champion level for the last 15 years

I can assure you that a lot of breeders here in the uk will often remove youngsters at this age, most canaries bred will fledge at around 18 days or so, most start to pick up and start to feed for themselves between 21 -25 days and this would be the norm,

Many of us here still do and prefer to use the cock with the hen all the way through the breeding and rearing cycle but you've then got the problems that I mentioned earlier in me post where the cock makes a nuisance of himself wanting and trying to drive the hen to nest again, this can be an awkward time and seriously interfere with the rearing of the young and is why many if us also prefer to just allow only the hen to rear and wean the birds.

I talk from experience and not useless basic text books,

You have to realise that some of the best bred canaries in the world originate from the uk and then stands to reason that the uk is also renowned for having some of the worlds best canary fanciers IE Borders, Norwich, Yorkshire, Gloster, Fife, Lancashire, lizards, aswell as others,

Say no more

StodOne wrote: Stuart%20whiting]Ricardo Ronsini Stuart whiting[/url] He meant to separate it from parents to hand feed him , anyways I think its a false alarm , although they do fight when I am around , when I recorded them I saw the female feeding him like 3 times in a row and once the male was feeding the female , and there were 0 fights . I don't know is it possible that because of my presence they think they are in danger and push each other off the highest perch or something?

That's good mate, glad to here that yer youngster is still being fed

Be lucky