Questions about my new canary - Hop-Sing

[Hop-Sing]

I'm new here and am the happy new owner of Hop-Sing, a one-year-old canary. I purchased him from a wonderful breeder, and he's settled in just fine. Just have a couple of questions (for now!) - should I avoid giving him chlorinated water, or is that not a big deal? Also, his droppings have a definite solid part but also a watery part - is that normal? I'm used to budgies, who have relatively dry droppings.
Hop-Sing is already singing well after just a couple of days and is very active. Looking forward to enjoying him and learning a lot more about canaries on this forum! I've had a couple of canaries years ago, also other types of birds, but now it's just me and Hop-Sing (named after the cook on "Bonanza" if you're old enough to remember that!).

[Sheather]

Mine drink tapwater and they're just fine!
Canaries naturally have wetter droppings than budgies, too, especially if eating vegetables.
Good luck with your new pet. Make sure to read up on their lighting requirements if you are not familiar. Canaries need to be kept on a natural daylight cycle to stay in good shape.

[Hop-Sing]

Thanks! I'm surprised the breeder didn't say anything about the importance of lighting - he's been raising canaries for decades! For now, I'm using a black fleece cover when it's dark outside, because he's in a room where the lights are on after dark - will that be enough, or should I move him to another room?

[Dave]

Sheather is right, and messed up day length is probably the #1 problem that can occur with Canaries. Covering the cage at sunset works perfectly well. It doesn't have to be pitch black, just dark.

If you normally get up after sunrise in the morning, you can uncover the cage when you go to bed and the bird will see light again on the sun's schedule rather than your schedule.

[Maleficum]

Dave
What is an optimal light time for them?

Right now I have mine in a separate room with the cage lights on a timer. Now it's set for 8 hours of light (because we have winter here and it's a cooler temperature in there room than in the summertime).

@Hop-Sing
He is beautiful and reminds me of one of my canaries =D

[Dave]

https://www.timeanddate.com/astronomy/spain/arrecife

This shows what the day length is for today on the Canary Islands, where these birds originated. I follow this, changing the timer once a week to reflect the correct day length.

Some people stay at 8 hours over the winter and then just pop the time up to 13+ hours. I'm not comfortable with that sudden of a change, but I don't have any data to support that. Other than seeing that sudden changes are not a good thing for most organisms.

If you want to catch up your day length to natural conditions, you can do that. You're four hours of day length behind. My guess is that you want to be at natural day length by the summer solstice.

[Maleficum]

Dave

Thanks! I have started to think about lengthening the light hour for them because we have gotten more natural light outside now (so they already wakes up before the lights go on right now).

I totally agree with you that it don't sound good to do a sudden change in the light time (not natural for anyone).

And thanks for the link! Where I live we have approximately the same day length (we have about 10 minutes longer day) but we are one hour earlier So I should have no problem starting to regulate the light hours after our natural light.

[Nipper06]

I think the best way to provide lighting for canaries is just to follow nature. I keep my birds in a room of their own, where I do not normally turn on the lights at night. They wake up with the normal seasonal sunrise and go to bed when the sun goes down - no problems and my canary sings like crazy. I never have to cover them.

I do provide extra artificial lighting over the cages too but my lights go on after sunrise and go off before sundown - I use a timer. This gives them the benefit of extra full-spectrum lighting and sort of duplicates peak daylight at midday, like it would be outside.

Below, Tweety is using the "swimming pool"...

[Zebrafincher]

What a lovely bird ! How many canaries do you keep together? Do you let them out together or separately?

Zebrafincher

[Nipper06]

If you mean me, I just have the one canary. He is in the same room with a budgie and 2 bourke parakeets. Everyone has their own cage but I let them out together. My canary is very curious and "visits" the keets and they tolerate him pretty well (I do keep an eye on things, as budgies can be aggressive). Canaries are way smarter than people think. I can get mine to go back in his cage with simple hand signals. But he loves to be out of his cage. I am just very calm around him and he almost never leaves the room he is in. I have toyed with getting a second canary but I would cage it separately.

[wilkifam]

Beautiful! LOVE the name.

[Nipper06]

I also like the Hop-Sing name! I remembered instantly where it came from. Good choice! Is Hop-Sing singing now?

[Fraza]

Nipper06 I noticed you own ring neck doves and I have a pair that come to my garden and eat peanuts are they like a cream colour and a skinny head and thin beak but then a black half run shape at the back of the neck

I’m usher if it’s a weird pigion or a ringnevk dove pol

[Nipper06]

I see you are in the UK. Chances are, what you have in your garden are Eurasian Collared Doves (Streptopelia decaocto), which are closely related to the Ringneck Dove and look extremely similar. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurasian_collared_dove

The Ringneck or Barbary Dove (Streptopelia risoria) is actually thought to be a domesticated form of the closely-related African Collared Dove (Streptopelia roseogrisea). See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbary_dove

So unless you are seeing someone's x-pets (escaped pets), chances are you are seeing the Eurasian Collared Dove, which is now common throughout the UK (and has recently spread to the U.S.).

p.s. Sorry to hijack Hop-Sing's post !

[Fraza]

Nipper06 amp sorry for tuning your post lol
And yes it the one on the first photo I’ve just uploaded