FINCHforum

After having a successful spring and 2 healthy clutches of canary babies, I am now at my wits end with caging them.

"Experts" say males should be kept alone in a cage and females can be caged together. Tried all of that and the females fight. Also keep the father and mother separated by a divider in large aviary cage..... that is not going well. They mope for each other all the time. Everyone is also moulting.

After much moving around this is the scenario I have in each cage: mother and father in separate divider aviary cage......they are not happy, they miss being together. 2 baby males one from each clutch together in large cage....tried separating them in their own cages, but they were so unhappy and stopped singing, I decided to put them back together.....now they are back to singing and happy. New male (was quarantined for a month) is in with 2 of my babies which turned out to be females. They are very happy and get along fine with occasional spats. I know this goes against all the expert advice but it seems to work here.

If I remove the divider and allow the mother and father access to each other, I am hoping that since they are moulting, breeding won't be on their minds but this would allow much more room for flight and exercise and hopefully they will once again be happy.

Any advice would be welcomed and appreciated.

First of all, you never did mention what variety of canaries we are talking about. A lot of these "rules" were based on the "wild type" of canaries and the strains that most closely resembled them in genetics and behavior. For example: You could never house two adult timbrado males together or one would end up killing the other, almost for certain. A couple of years back there was a big "bird fighting ring" broken up in Connecticut and the culprits were not roosters, they were male canaries!

A lot of todays birds (especially red factors) have had their genes diluted down so much, they hardly resemble the behavior of a true canariy. The siskins they were mixed with are highly social birds. Your young males may not show aggression toward each other until fully mature and until next breeding season.

I've had a large cage of just hens and they do squabble and fight over food or favorite perches. These "fights" have never turned violent to the point of drawing blood and I've never had one kill another. I would not attempt this with males and males once identified, were either rehomed or given their own cage. As far as male and female wanting to be together, this urge will die down after the moult and the onset of cooler weather. Be sure to keep your birds on a natural daylight schedule. Hope this helps at least a little, and remember there are exceptions to all the rules. Bob

My uncle breeds canaries on a small scale, ut this is how he has/had it set up as of last year

Each male alone before breeding season, hens all together,

then he paired up each one and the hen moved into the males cage

after all had babies, he has one flight for all his red canaries (mosaics, red factors) ot was a community M/F flight, he also had the same with all he yellow and white birds, M/F flight (these were including parents and offspring.. If there was one problem bird it was isolated, evenetually he sold most of his offspring and move the males back to individual cages and the females all together

Linda to this question there is no right or wrong answer just what works best for you. I have males outside of breeding season in both single caged and in flights. Hens I always place in flights and as bob pointed out yes they don't all get along but there fights are usually harmless as the hens will go off else where. My young are all placed in a flight and once sexed will be determined where they go. I have flights with pairs living together also and have no issues. There are many ways you can do this and many reasons why people house their canaries and I've tried many ways which work with some and not others so do what you feel is right and as long as there's no major fighting a little spat here and there is normal. It will depend on the amount of room you have to be able to house them in certain ways. Males are generally housed singular to allow them there space and to hear others sing but not see them, hens on the other hand were placed in a spacious flight to get them fit and condition the muscles for breeding. If the females are in a flight and constantly keep bickering you could attempt to build stress perches which are a perch with a dividing board at every so many inches to allow 1 bird to sit there and not have anyone else in their space.

Thanks everyone for your advice and experience. You all had good suggestions and I guess I just need to do what works here for my canaries.

After the original post, I discovered my one green/yellow baby girl attempting to break into song! She has also been fighting alot with the new orange male and the fighting increased after I added another baby girl to the cage. Needless to say, I now think the green/yellow girl is actually a boy that is taking much longer to sing. I separated him out the of large cage to a cage of his own. There is peace in the large cage again with the orange male and my baby girl. I will wait and see how the green/yellow male does with the singing and then I will know for sure what sex he is.

If he does turn out to be a male, that means I only had one female baby out of 2 clutches and the other 5 were males.....how lucky was that!

Dan, great to hear from you and I will post some photos soon.

Hi Linda haven't been far just a bit more quiet reading lots. Sorry to say but it sounds like your little Green/yellow girl just might be a boy. Going by averages you should end up with two boys to every girl but these are based on 1000 young so maybe next time you'll end up with a couple more little girls. I've got the same problem with young males taking a while to show their true forms and I also ended up with alot more boys than girls from last seasons young. Well season has started for a few of my canaries and at the moment I have 1 baby from a clutch of five and the other pair has young but can't get to the nest at present and two more down with eggs so here's hoping that the others get ready soon.

Hi Dan....I too have been off the forum for awhile. I guess the breeding season for your canaries would be the opposite of us here in Mexico. Ours will not start until probably January. Hope you have great success this season!

I am posting a couple of pictures for you to check out of the green/yellow male? Also the new orange male. I am thinking the green/yellow one would be considered a green variegated?? Also he was always a midget and I almost think he is a throwback to a Fife??? Whats your opinion?? I have tried him in several different situations cage wise, but he always ends up fighting and being very bossy.

Don't know how I got a green fife but I guess anything is possible. I am also going to post a photo of the dad who is gorgeous! He has alot of bronze/copper in his head and neck area especially now after moulting. It is hard to tell from the pic of the baby, but he has NO bronze like the dad, just green. As always I value your opinion. Have a great day!

Linda your orange is beautiful and he is a buff so next mate for him should be a hard feather. Dad is also a very nice bird but doesn't like his photo taken. Young male well he is classed as a heavy variegated by the photo. If he is still an angry little guy then keep him alone till breeding season. Breeding season here starts around the Sept and finishes around March depending on what the individual breeder wants. I hope to have all my clutches before Christmas and rest them over the hot part of summer.

Dan,

Since orange creamsicle is new, this will be his first breeding season coming up in January. My plan was to put him with the the "hard feather, greenish/yellow youngster" ( I have to think of a name for him ), when I originally believed he was a she. Oh well the best laid plans...haha. Creamsicle is now in with Pinta who is the only other female available. She is still a youngster so they have no problem in the same cage and both are happy. She is a yellow buff with a little streak of white and a little cafe on her head...hence the name Pinta. Plans may change if I come across something "special" in the next few months

I read an article on colors after reading your previous post: All canary colors are based upon genes that control the melanin and the lipochrome. The melanin is the black in the original wild canary. The lipochrome is the ground color, yellow in the original bird. The combination of black and yellow gives the appearance of a green bird. The gene that removes melanin is partially dominant. One factor gives a variegated (a patchwork mix of light and dark colors) bird, two a "clear" canary. A clear canary only shows the ground (lipochrome) color. This would definitely apply to the little green/yellow one. When he was hatched he was so dark even his little beak was black, I could not imagine what I had. His skin was black whereas his siblings skin was pink. This would mean he had alot of melanin....now I understand.

Thanks again for your input and help.

Linda glad to see that you are learning alot, genetics isn't one of my string points and love the little phrase you added. Warning buff to buff is not really done due to the feathers becoming to soft and then the babies get feather lumps, these then have to be cut open at the right time to allow the feathers to grow out. If mum and dad for both aren't buff to buff then this one time should not result with feather lumps as buff to buff should only he done for one generation. If you choose to keep them together as both parents of each consist of a hard feather and a buff all young from this pair must be placed with a hard feather. Sorry I i don't mean to get you worried but I would rather you know this now than later with feather problems.

I've heard from various sources that females don't often sing - but my experience in this has been different. I've had two - including one very loud 'male' sold to me as a singer - until she laid eggs! She was one of my favorite birds. Check Youtube. They have several examples of this.,

Zebrafincher yes you are correct that hens can sing as a good as some males, this is a rare find and you won't come across this very often. Females can sing and its a very short and not very loud song, but there are exceptions to this and you had one. If I had a hen that could sing like that she would be placed with my best singer to produce a good singing young. To get the best singers you should have a great singing male with a female that comes from good singing lines.

I loved my little female! SHe was a great pet, but she died from eggbinding!

You have to remember that you cannot pair like sexes right after the breeding season. You have to bring them out of condition before they can be houses together.