When to check or remove eggs

[Bahadir]

Animalzoo

Hello,

Did Jill pass away?

[Animalzoo]

Bahadir

Yes, just now.

[Bahadir]

Animalzoo

Just let's keep her memories always in our minds. My first canary (it was last year) he died suddenly and i still keep his videos. It is sad but we will see their death as long as they are with us. RIP Jill.

[Bahadir]

Animalzoo

I dont know Jill's story but did she have babies or eggs? I hope there is no any orphaned chicks.

[Animalzoo]

Bahadir

She was sitting on 5 eggs (3 fertile) and one had hatched today. I have 3 other pairs all breeding so I have fostered the baby and fertile eggs out to other hens. Still annoying though!

[Bahadir]

Animalzoo

I really dont know what to say. I have just read her story. But you will save her babies to remember her.

But you said Jill's partner is fluffed and sitting at floor of the cage. How is he now?

[Animalzoo]

Bahadir

He is ok. Yes she had 4 good healthy babies and maybe even these 3 more may survive. I will wait for them all to be adults and chose 1 to keep

[Jamm972]

Animalzoo I'm So sorry for your loss. Poor Jill. Maybe you will have a Jill Jr. out pf the clutch. the baby that hatched already, make sure the foster parents are feeding, if not you might have to try hand feeding., but if they are leave well enough alone.

Now off to the unhatched eggs, Its good thing you moved them to another sitting hen, but.....as soon as they hatch put them with the other baby so there on the same page. you don't want the one sitting on the current eggs to get confused. Chances are when you move the new babies with the other babies the foster parents will catch up. If you leave the babies there before the other eggs hatch in 5 days mom might leave nest to get more food and chance the other eggs going cold.

Yeah its hard when you lose a bird. but we have to realize nature works in mysterious ways. Hopefully Jack will improve, he might have been aware that something was going wrong with jill and it hit home. I would isolate him for at least 7 days. Keep in mind that if he does improve though, he may take on his role of both parents and feed the babies.

Rest in Peace Jill. You will be missed and I do mean that. She was a beautiful bird.

Lots of Hugs for you Animalzoo, I know it can be tough but all we can do is look forward from here. I was upset about brownie as well but I had to move forward from there because I still had other canaries to tend to.

Have you thought about keeping your babies from this year. I know you mentioned having a space/cage issue. Maybe you can keep some females of your own. I forgot, was this a 2nd clutch for Jill? You do know you can breed a father daughter pair. Its not suggested to practice this but when I read up on this it helps build a strong breeder line of a specific bird and type.

Let me send this and start a new paragraph.

[Jamm972]

Animalzoo So please let me know how things work out with the babies. What worked for you and what didn't. I always wondered about fostering how it would work when you have babies older than the ones you add, or adding eggs that are due to hatch when other eggs have a few more days to go.

I'm just concerned that if you leave them in the nest and wait the 5 days the eggs might get squished and or pushed out of the nest.

To turn things into a positive. Guess what. You were right about Tails. She is still with Orangie and has started building a nest on her own. So I'm assuming that within 5 or so days she will start to lay eggs. This definitely is her first nest because its really sloppy, just think back to when kids first try making there bed and say its done but were in a hurry to go out and play. lol So now I have way to much going on and might consider leaving my other half at home wile I travel to NY so I know at least the water is being changed.
Whiteys eggs are all hatching on time as expected. The last egg #4 is due tomorrow. I removed yellow and opened the cage up so Donald and Whitey can do there parenting. I felt Yellow was just being a distraction. I put Yellow in a divided cage and put Toopay on the other side. I'm not expecting anything from it. there both getting the same treatment and food. I prolly wont remove the divider regardless if Yellow builds a nest again.

Blanca has laid 3 eggs, so tomorrow when she lays the 4th I will put all 3 eggs back in the nest. But I have a feeling Blanca might lay 5.
Noname has laid 2 eggs so far, but to keep the birds on the same page or age group I might put her eggs back in the nest tomorrow as well.

I'm feeling a little overwhelmed. When I play video games I always love the ones where you have to breed and or mate. So what I'm doing in real life is so much fun but hard to keep up and track.

If Tails does decide to have a successful clutch then that means I have 2 late bloomers that will be going for a 2nd clutch.

My other half does not want me to have Whitey go again. Their afraid we will wake up 1 morning and find her at the bottom of the cage. Because the others are now clutching I think I might heed their advice and keep Whitey and Donald separated once the birds fledge this time.

Blanca's first 2 babies are finnaly fledging. Almost time to put the divider in because they are inching their way closer to the new nest where blanca is.

Financially I cant keep all these baby birds. So I might keep mostog Whiteys and donalds Babies, and atleast 1 from the other clutches. I have a local pet store interested in buying, I might at first just trade for store credit. Only because I get more for store credit then them writing me a check to take home.

My next thing to learn for molting season is Color feeding. I have been feeding the Red Factors a red factor egg mix, but I don't think its enough for them to grow in new colorful feathers. But I'm hoping it enough to make the babies grow in the beautiful red color. If the turn out yellow I will get confused. But will document that they carry the red factor gene and need to be color fed before next molt.

I really wish I could send you one of my crested canaries, or even one of my red factors. We could do a trade off. But Shipping birds , especially crossed the globe I think is prohibited and if its not is very expensive

You never did say how jack is doing? Is he showing any improvements ? usually canaries show a 2 day down time when they a separated from a bonded pair. and tend to kick back to normal after that. Keep me posted.

again sorry for your loss

Talk soon.

[Bahadir]

Hello Jamm972 Animalzoo

Today, my friend have gifted me a pair of finch. I just wanted to share with you. Have anyone care finchs before?

[Animalzoo]

Bahadir

I keep finches, what type have you been given. Congratulations!

[Animalzoo]

Jamm972

Hiya, well so far so good. The 4 babies from Scully survived and the foster baby from Jill is also ok. So Scully is now feeding 5 babies.

Sonny inherited the 2 eggs from Jill and so far still only the 1 has hatched. Personally I would have expected the 2nd egg to have hatched today so 50/50 whether it will.

All the other birds are healthy and well.

The boyfriend is still eager to buy the new cages....but I'm not. I feel that we're ok for cages in the current breeding season so maybe for next year we can plan ahead but not for now. If e need anything it's an additional flight cage. My boyfriend is saying things like we should get rid of 'ALL' the budgies to use the outside aviary for canaries. However I have mentioned its not as easy as just getting rid of birds and also as you and I know, canaries don't just get on in an aviary. We could get squabbles and fights all over the place. Hmmmmmmmmm

So I've had a few days packed full of dramas but things have chilled for a moment. I'm taking each day as it comes and dealing with any problems as and when they happen and nothing else. I'm so pleased for the birds I have bred so far and just hope the babies growing and hatching will be ok. If I have to draw an end to my season now then my goodness I'm so pleased with what I have ended up with and what an introduction to canaries. I'm loving them

[Jamm972]

Animalzoo How is jack doing? you didn't say in your last response. Flight cages are good, but just a heads up now that were in the middle to end of breeding season, you might get some good deals on breeding cages.

Aviaries are good for free flight canaries, or fleshly fledged canaries. You could use the aviary to breed but it has its disadvantages. 1st being you never know who the father is of the babies, 2nd you cant really monitor the babies for illness and sickness, 3rd, there is a higher risk of the babies and adults getting mites. Aviaries and outside bred birds are always at risk. Cage bred canaries are at less of risk cause of the constant monitoring and cleaning. 4th you are right some of the males might take ownership not just on 1 hen but on several. Which can cause conflict in the aviary.

I personally will use the aviary for free flight and molting. So they can stretch there wings and build muscle. Me and my partner decided we are going to have a local guy who custim builds aviaries to come and measure, write down our demands, and build one. We want a mobil one. One we can have indoors, as well as be able to roll outdoors for easy cleaning, and letting the canaries get some Sun.

All of whiteys eggs have hatched. Funny thing is she is already stacking nesting material in the corner. Something tells me she is not done yet for this season. Im scared....I dont want her to stop doing what is natural, but I dont want to walk in one day and find her deceased. Right now they are my best breeding pair. Like my partner says, rest wont hurt her, it can only help her. So if I d do anything I might give her 3 weeks of rest, and not even give her a nest or nesting material. After the 3 weeks i will give her a clean nest and see what she decides to do. I think I got me some rare champion birds.
Blanca so far laid 4 eggs and I put the other 3 back in the nest. I wonder if she will lay 5, but 14 days from today I'm exspecting them to all hatch and be fertile. It seems that once you have a successful clutch with fertile eggs the next clutch can only improve from the last. So I'm assuming that all 4 will be fertile because last clutch she had 2.

Noname and Stud are on their 3rd egg, tomorrow I will check for a 4th egg and add in the other 3 eggs so I can have a 14 days later hatch as well. This technically is nonames 2nd attempt but her first attempt was not fertile with Toopay.

Tails is on the go, She is begging Orangie to mount her and he don't even hesitate. Sometimes she will beg and then they get aggressive. This is only normal from what I have red. So I guess Tails, Orangie, Noname, and Stud are all off to a late start.

I think you were right I was just inpatient. But my inpatients caused me to learn that I needed to block off the view from the other cages that were on the stand next to them. I believe this was making the pairs confused and didn't quite know what to do or who to choose.

Yellow is in the breeder cage with Toopay, still barricaded though. Toopay started to molt. He is loosing his feathers and I think Yellow has also started because I'm finding a lot of smaller yellow feather on her side. but this could just be Toopays feathers.

So I will have my work cut out for me in 14 to 24 days. because I will have to feed more prepared egg food, and buy some color food for the babies so they will get the red factor color. Plus try and prepare a 2nd nest to see if they want to go for another clutch. I wasn't expecting this many babies this year but getting more than enough to pick for next years breeding season.

I might have to order more bands. I only ordered 25. I am moving the babies into a bigger flight cage because there fighting a lot. So maybe a bigger cage will allow them to be less territorial. But before I do this I'm going to document who is fighting who the most so I can have a better chance at predicting their sex next year. This is still confusing and hard for me to view. As far as the females I haven't even seen a belly that shows like it does in pictures. But the males are becoming pretty obvious when there starting to condition themselves. I think I might try and write a book on my experience as a beginner and breeding canaries. Like what worked for me what didn't. what was helpful what wasn't. I'm a good writer if you haven't noticed by all my long speeches.

to be continued:

[Jamm972]

Animalzoo I just wanted to comment on the end of your breeding season. Don't give up because of Jill. If the other pairs are not done why stop.

Just keep in mind you might want to keep some of the babies from Jill's clutch and hope for a female. Maybe you can have breed a hybrid of her to continue her bloodline. I seen a bird today that looks like her. I so wanted to buy her, and yes it was a female because she was sitting in the food dish with another hen. I might go back on payday and see if she is still there She isn't exactly a red factor but I love the color. Do you know what type of canary Jill was considered to be based off of her color? I really hope we can stay in touch throughout the year. Its been fun communicating with you on our progress and I think it helped us both learn.

I would consider finches but they breed year round and are self sufficient. All you really need to do is weekly maintenance and fresh food. The prices here in AZ for Finches are cheap. Don't seem much like a fun hobby to take on. However having multiple choices in birds causes better inquiries, and repeat visitor's.

As for a hobby its not really for profit its for fun. But again today when I went into the pet store they asked me how my breeding season was going and if I was ready to sell them my babies. I kindly told them I was flattered but wasn't ready to part with any of them. As of right now there all my favorites and are family. And once there family I cant send them to strangers.

I have been observing the wild birds here, and now that I self taught my self on the knowledge of birds I'm making it easier to point out the differences in color and quality to determine which ones are male and female. Mostly quail and pigeons. I have a Quail right now nesting in my back yard in my Dog Kennel where I was keeping my tomato and pepper plants. But the quail decided to squeeze in there and shove some dirt aside and lay only 12 eggs, before incubating them.

My step son wants me to barricade them in there and keep them but when they are wild its not healthy to do so.

If I took on a second type of bird to breed it might be cockatiels, and or love birds. Its still up in the air though. A bird I would love to breed though would be Conures, or however there spelled.

Well that's enough chit chat for tonight. off to bed to get rest. Have a lot to do tomorrow.

[Animalzoo]

Jamm972
Evening. Thanks for your words of support. It wasn't just because Jill has died that I thought of ending the season. I've sensed that for whatever reason, the 2nd clutches haven't gone as well as the first so, you know...... Today I've spent a nice day in with the birdies and I have a few updates.

Jack is fine. I moved him into the flight cage. So he is now in with Mulder and babies, including his own 4 grown babies. There has been some scrapping but no all out war so for now they are staying put. The good thing I was able to decommission his cage, disinfect and put it away so I'm one cage down now. A bit sad but heyho.

Sonny and Cher were sitting on 2 eggs. I candled them today, they are about 10 days old, none were fertile so I removed them. Leaving Jill's baby and her (still) unhatched egg in the nest. I doubt it'll hatch now so it did die in the shell, probably through getting too cold.

Romeo and Juliet have been sitting on 5 eggs. I also candled these today, the oldest is 7 days old. So I would have expected to see 2 or 3 eggs with life in them but no, only one. That doesn't mean the other 2 or 3 won't grow, so still early days.

That leaves Scully and Lucky. Her 4 babies are fine and the foster baby from Jill is also ok. So she's feeding 5 babies. All the same age, hatched the same day.

I was tempted to move the baby in Cher's nest in with them but feeding 6 chicks in my opinion is just too risky. It's a shame as I'd like to let Sonny and Cher go again. They've only had one baby all this time. Lots of infertile eggs.

So thats the reason I'm thinking of drawing them to a close. It's funny you mentioned the finches. I keep zebra, society, gouldian and java finches as well. I've bred zebra and societies for years. I know the breed inside and out and you're right they are easy. Just throw a boy n girl together, add a nest and voila. The trick with them is multiples. I had 4 couples but a male died, so I'm down to 3 pairs. I can keep a baby though so technically I'm still ok with the 4 pairs. I then have 2 pairs of societies. I sold 9 babies in January and raised 27€, 3€ each. I turned that money around into seed so if I do that every few months then win win. It's still not profitable and of course I need more than 27€ worth of food and supplies to go 3-4 months but still. So my theory is let my 6 pairs go at the same time, have lots of babies and try to come away with 50€ for example. Right now I have 15 babies to sell and thats after keeping back a male. Once they're gone I'll let the pairs go again. It's easy as you say but still enjoyable watching nature take it's course.

You have wild Quail. Wow. I wanted to keep quail in my aviary, I think they're well sweet. No, I agree with you don't lock them in but you can buy quail from a breeder can't you. A nice addition to your collection.

I tell you what I do recommend, thats the Java Finchs. I only have 2 pair and this is my first try with them and so far I have 3 babies in one nest and 7 eggs in another although the first few laid are not fertile. They're lovely finches, easy, pretty song and just that little bit bigger than zebras etc.

Gouldians are hard work I'd say the same if not more hard work than the canaries. I have a few birds in a hospital environment atm, and one pair breeding but they laid dud eggs so waiting on round 2 with them now.

So yes, I will be keeping a female (or 2) from Jills babies, including selecting from the new ones so at least her legacy goes on. I think you asked about her colour. She is (was) a red mosaic. I have another one, identical in colour. Thats Juliet. I took pictures today...here you go....


The (current) flight cage. You can see the grey one is Mulder and the brighter red one is Jack. On Tuesday we're moving them to another flight cage thats much much bigger.


One of Jill's babies in Cher's nest along with the egg that hasn't hatched yet.


The 5 babies in Scully's nest.


This is Juliet sitting on her 5 eggs. She is identical to Jill. Another red mosaic.


The 5 eggs.



Yours are doing well. It's great. And yes, I agree, we should keep contact I too have enjoyed sharing the updates.

By the way I have a facebook group for our birds.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/5435475 ... =bookmarks
See if this link works. If you are on facebook its an open group so you can join and see my updates on all the birds including the canaries.