FINCHforum

Okay so I have decided to get my very first bird which shall be a canary. I hope they are easy to take care of. I have a large cage, food, vitamins, and treats/millet. What am I looking for in a canary? Also, if I plan on getting two per say, will they mate? I mean I want babies, but will it be a hassle? Do canaries breed easily? Will canaries be accepting to whoever I put in the cage? Like if I stuck a male I had and a female together is there a big chance they will get along? Or are canaries very picky of mates? Okay thanks. I hope I get some replies. I read the user's start sticky and learned so much!

Welcome to the forum! I can't help you with canaries at all, but there are members here who have experience with them and should be able to answer questions for you. If you put your general location in your profile, it makes it easier to answer locale-specific questions later on.

I have three canaries, a cock and two hens. I can advise you.

Canaries are very easy birds. Probably one of the better beginner species. They are very easy to feed and not at all picky and really love fresh vegetables. I offer lettuce and broccoli every day, spinach weekly, apples a few times a week. My birds love anything green, and the more greens you can offer the better for them. It isn't abnormal or unhealthy for a canary to finish off a plate of veggies as big as itself every day! - they will still eat plenty of their seed mix.

Canaries need a fattier diet than other finches and are best fed on a commercial canary seedmix rather than a finch mix or a basic mix. They will eat the larger finch millets if hungry enough but normally pick through them for the canary grass seed and niger/thistle seeds. Canaries are my only birds who don't really like millet sprays, either - one of my hens will eat it up, but the other two birds are largely indifferent to it and will only take a nibble here and there.

Canaries are, in my experience, very picky with mates or companions in general, but once they pair they go to nest very quickly. My two hens get along acceptably with enough space, with a relationship that ranges day to day from indifference to mild physical violence (though never anything severe). They don't really seem to like one another, though when separated they do call to each other so seem to have some sort of bond, if only a distant one. They aren't what I'd call close, though.

My male canary gets along swimmingly with one of the hens. These two took to one another from the beginning, and are now actually setting on their first clutch of eggs set to hatch in a few days now. They bonded instantly and very strongly.

The male and the other hen, however, cannot stand one another. If together, both will try to outright kill the other. I don't know why this is, why they had instant animosity from the very first moment whilst the other hen got along so well, but I can only assume that something about their personalities just doesn't click. I don't know if these two can ever be kept together or not. By the way, the space they cannot get along in is a 10 x 12 foot wide interior aviary. Even with this much room, they immediately go after one another with such vigor that, if left together, I am certain one would be dead in short order. Maybe this will change in the future, but for now the male and his mate are confined within the room so he cannot go after the other hen, and she cannot disturb their nesting.

So in short words, I wouldn't get a pair unless you have back-up housing for the two separate in the very possible scenario that they don't get along. It still remains to be seen if my male and his chosen hen will still be on good terms after mating season, or if they will have to be separated too come this time. For now, they're very bonded and he feeds her and preens her all the day long, assisting in incubation when she gets up for a break and being an excellent husband. This is my first clutch of this species and they are doing all the work so far, so I can't add much more advice on breeding yet, except make sure your birds have lots of access to calcium (at all times but especially for egg-laying). I use cups of crushed eggshell, the birds prefer it to cuttlebone.

What sort of canary to get is up to you. Forms exists bred for both color and song, some for both, like the American singer. My birds consist of an American singer male, an American singer cross female, and a 'kitchen' canary hen of no pedigree. This is the hen my male fell for, ironically. All canaries are behaviorally similar, though different breeds can have very different songs. Red-factor canaries, due to hybridization with siskens, are more social than others and better for keeping in groups.

Most canaries can be kept without problem with other finch species - all mine do fine with our other birds - but all individuals vary and this may not apply to all canaries.

Oh, and for the record, it is a myth that a male canary stops singing with a mate around, however he will sing considerably less - still a few times each day, and I find it a much more peaceful and pleasant song than when he screams his heart out when alone.

Canaries need day lengths that follow the natural cycle at least somewhat, meaning shorter days in winter and long days in summer, in order to moult properly. Days must not exceed 13 hours in winter with a maximum of 12 safer but should be allowed to peak at 15 in summer to induce a seasonal moult. If days are too long in winter they will moult out of season and potentially run into health problems. If you don't want your birds breeding, 10 hour days are best in winter, as this is too short a photo-period to incite springtime breeding instincts. I've never had my day length below 12 hours all winter though as the aviary houses many more species I am trying to breed, and my non-breeding hen gets broody, but does stop periodically on their own despite this if inhibited from nesting and hasn't tried nesting in a few months now even though the day is long because I did not let her build a nest and she eventually tired of trying.

They are very personable birds with lots of personality.



This is my breeding pair, Steve (left) and Walter. Steve is a hen, albeit a misnamed and masculine-looking one, who was thought to be a male until she began laying eggs.

She is always doing something to make us laugh.



This is our other female, Kari.

Dylan summed it up very nicely. Usually a male/female pair will get along nicely, but same sex birds are likely to fight, especially if there are only two of them. My canaries have never involved a bird of another species in their "politics", including a green singer and a European goldfinch.

As to millet, Trixie adores it. I make sure she has a spray in her cage at all times because she loves it so much. She still eats plenty of her regular food, too. It may be a matter of individual preference and some canaries don't like it, but mine definitely does.

I would also suggest a variety of toys. She has two mirrors and takes turns admiring herself in them, and also has several toys and two swings. Her favorite toys are castoffs from the Quaker parrots, so they're huge compared to her, and she loves them. I gave her a budgie-sized toy, figuring she's small and it would suit her, and she ignores it entirely in favor of the big ones. One is wooden beads and sticks and one is unraveled cotton rope and stiff paper. She also prefers the larger of the two swings, which is better suited to a Quaker/conure sized bird that a tiny canary, but it's the one she likes.

Trixie has no roommate in her cage, but she lives in the same room as my starling, who is out of her cage all day and likes to sit on Trixie's cage and talk to her. Trixie seems to like having the company. She doesn't act a bit afraid or uncomfortable. I don't know how she'd like having another bird IN her cage, though.

I must defer my prior statement - my Walter and Kari are as of today apparently over their feud... neither paid the other any mind during an attempted free-flight together today, to my shock! Perhaps the two just needed longer to get acquainted? I closed Walter and Steve back up in the evening, but they spent the day without issue out with Kari today for the first time in ever! So I suppose that my case may just be a personal thing and a clashing of personalities/need to get to know one another better rather than a rule of the species. As I've said, all birds are individuals....

I can't add much more than the excellent advice already given but I'd like to stress that they are indeed (or at least can be) picky regarding their mates. It's never a good idea to put a new pair together without introducing them gradually first and ensuring that they are compatible. Even then, they may not get on so well outside of the breeding season (in the wild, male canaries are solitary when not breeding), so having a second cage on hand is a must (and for any young as well). The cages should be longer rather than tall. Many commercially available canary and finch cages are horribly designed.

Zachariah wrote: Okay so I have decided to get my very first bird which shall be a canary. I hope they are easy to take care of. I have a large cage, food, vitamins, and treats/millet. What am I looking for in a canary? Also, if I plan on getting two per say, will they mate? I mean I want babies, but will it be a hassle? Do canaries breed easily? Will canaries be accepting to whoever I put in the cage? Like if I stuck a male I had and a female together is there a big chance they will get along? Or are canaries very picky of mates? Okay thanks. I hope I get some replies. I read the user's start sticky and learned so much!

Hello Zachary and welcome to the forum.

I'm a canary breeder. I can tell you from my experience, if you want to breed just one pair, it's very easy. The difficulty of breeding canaries happens when you get more than one pair, because now the canaries have other potential mates and competition ensues. As you have read, some even end up fighting each other.

If you want to breed, even for hobby or just to try so,etching out, I cannot stress that buying from a reputable breeder with super high quality is a must, otherwise you'll run into problems.

Don't breed whites with whites, crested with crested either. They have the lethal gene. And maybe only 25% of the clutch will survive.

You want to put your birds on a timer with a natural spectrum light but and give at least 12 hrs for them to breed.

I would like to mention that now is the worst time to buy a canary. This is because 90% of the time, you will not get a good canary due to breeders having already paired up the best canaries as this is breeding season. Trust me.... I needed a few canaries this season and I regret every purchase I made, even from good breeders. The ones you get now are the ones that didn't do so well last month and they're holding them off. You can get lucky if someone just doesn't have any space to breed or has good hens and cocks on reserve. The best time to buy is in September to November.

You want to buy closed banded 2014 birds, prefer all born in March of 2014. The younger pairs will not do so good the first clutch but second clutch you'll have higher quality.

I use a vitamin fortified mix. If you don't have that you'll need to supplement them with a good multivitamin.

When offering greens limit to 3x a week. NO ICEBERG LETTUCE! Too much water and will give them the runs.

Offer kale, mealworms or... Boiled eggs for protein.

They can eat broccoli and bunch of other veggies.

If you have a red factor bird, you can search my post about natural red foods for them

Fruit only twice a week, or they get runs. Don't feed avacado, chocolate or Apple seeds. They will die from it.

If you have any questions, you can PM me.

Thanks