Bird Building - The Chirp Shire

[cindy]

OMG>>>>I love them...they are stunning. No fair, now I have to add a second page to my want list!!!!

[MLaRue]

Also there are these little turkeys! Still not sure if and when I'm going to finish feeding them so they can be tame... torn on the idea!

Gosh they are even cuter!

Pair one has one and only one baby in this clutch



Look at that crop!




Pair two has four babies and as you can see the size difference - they do just like the Canaries and start sitting as soon as they start laying their eggs...









Peanut!

[MLaRue]

OMG>>>>I love them...they are stunning. No fair, now I have to add a second page to my want list!!!!

Ask Donna I was over the MOON with them! I've been wanting these for so long and our last fair I finally got them

[cindy]

Linnies???? Did you decide to pull any for handfeeding yet? I love handfeeding! It is the weaning and them rejecting your offering of food that tugs at my heart...it is like they don't neeed me anymore!!!!

[MLaRue]

Linnies???? Did you decide to pull any for handfeeding yet? I love handfeeding! It is the weaning and them rejecting your offering of food that tugs at my heart...it is like they don't neeed me anymore!!!!

Yes

I can't decide to pull or not to pull!!! UGH! I feel like a child abductor!!!!

I just found the information on the pairs and the colors they can produce I think the yellows are Creams - since father is split for it and mother is cream - but then they could be Lutino as well...

[cindy]

email me their genetics and I'll ask my friend if you like...Misty pulling them is such a personal decision. It depends on how big the clutch is and if the parents can manage....it also depends if you want to pull to handfeed so you will have tame pets or a calm breeder bird...or if you choose not to pull and have yours parent birds raise out the young to be strictly breeders when mature.

Look at it this way, if you decide to pull the parents really won't notice, they will be less stressed in trying to feed the demands a a good size clutch...they would be grateful! Like having quints and having lots of family to help with feedings, diapers, bottles....

[Sally]

Those canaries are beautiful, I love the markings!! Congrats! So is that the secret new species that you wouldn't tell us about?

[cindy]

or is it just a little preview of what is to come?????

[MLaRue]

Well this is certainly one of them ;)

But you guys already knew about the Linnies - I posted about them in the Off Topic...

[CandoAviary]

Love your canaries...what color/mutation are they? Isabelle? are they american singers or colorbred?
They are beautiful... they are my favorite birds to breed...the chicks are precious and the parents don't care of you peek

Those linnies are huge and do look a little like chicken skin

[lovemyfinch]

They are all just so adorable,. congrats Misty

[L in Ontario]

Ahhh I'm so jealous of your Canaries with the baby!! How long have you had them? How old are they? What is their diet? Mine won't lay fertile eggs. Congratulations on yours!!!

And the linnies are fabulous too! Congrats on ALL the babies!!

[MLaRue]

Love your canaries...what color/mutation are they? Isabelle? are they american singers or colorbred?
They are beautiful... they are my favorite birds to breed...the chicks are precious and the parents don't care of you peek

Those linnies are huge and do look a little like chicken skin

Thank you

The Linnies are like holding small chickens in the palm of your hand!

Sinatra and Streisand are considered a "Yellow Agate Opal Mosaic Canary" and also considered a "Colorbred" but I don't feed them any color food - could but won't - I love their colors just as they are now

[MLaRue]

Liz and Janine - thank you

I've not had the Canaries that long - it wasn't the last fair we had at Farmers Market but the one in Norcross that we went too that Donna was talking about all the cages and birds in her car Maybe a month?

I feed them almost the same as my finches - lots of fresh eggfood, greens and chitted seeds - they devour everything and leave their plates clean!

At first I didn't give them a nest until I saw the male was getting frisky with her so I finally gave in - within a day there was an egg and I didn't think it would be that fast so I didn't pull the eggs like you should because she had already started sitting on the first egg and I was afraid by taking it away it would kill the baby... next time I need to pay better attention - I'm so in the "finch" mind set!

I was also not sure what I wanted to do about the male - some take them out and let the females do everything? I can't seem to do it since he is such a good husband and father to them - he feeds her and she then feeds the baby - precious!

The Linnies do that too! Dad eats all day and feeds her and then she feeds them and or both. Now that they are bigger the parents are eating together all the time feeding those babies!

[CandoAviary]

Sinatra and Streisand are considered a "Yellow Agate Opal Mosaic Canary" and also considered a "Colorbred" but I don't feed them any color food - could but won't - I love their colors just as they are now

Wow, that mutation is a mouth full to say Awesome! The mutation colors are endless with canaries...you will have fun with them.
I mostly bred colorbred, mostly the intensive, buff, frost yellows and the mosaics, red and yellows.
Colorbred does not mean that they are fed color food...It is the ground color of the bird. Like some canaries are bred for "type" like, frills and gibbons. Some canaries are bred for "song", like rollers, waterslagers, and trimbrados. Then there are those that are bred for color...hence the name "colorbred". The only canaries that are fed colorfoods to change their natural colors are the red factors, which do happen to be in the colorbred group. Red is not a natural color to canaries but many years ago the yellow ground canary was crossed with a red siskin...hence the factor/gene that was introduced into the canary for it to obtain the ability to manufacture foods (lutein into canthanin) basically yellow into red. Much like a yellow headed gouldian needs the factor/gene of red to be able to produce the red in the head of the red heads. Or like the european goldfinches...getting a better red mask by feeding dark green leafy vegatables that contain lots of lutein. Birds that have this gene will make the red color within their own bodies. The stuff that you can add to the water to turn birds red is a strong concetraion of these photoplants. By doing it this way the birds miss out on the other health benefits of the leafy grean and other rich betacarotene foods. The yellow color of the yellow ground colorbred canaries can also be at it's peak from eating foods rich in lutein.
It is common for many people to think that colobred means that they are called that because of artificial feeding but this is a misnomer. Colorbred simply means that you are concentrating on breeding canaries for rich varities of colors, over song and type. But I loved the colorbreds as I found them to be very adaptable to learning great song also, beside being of the most beautiful feathered. I would play CD's of waterslagers, rollers, choppers, etc.( song type canaries) all day in the grow out flights. The youngsters, along with their parents learned songs beyond their natural talents
I plan on adding some canries back into my breeding program....and they will be colorbreds And maybe some "american singers" I still have 4 male colorbreds that are going on 15 years old...... they are singing with the spring warmth of the outdoor aviary and they still sound pretty good for the old man quartet I can't imagine ever being without canary song.
Here is a show chart showing the many colors in the colorbred classification., from white to yellow and everything in between:
http://nationalcolorbred.com/Show_Classifications.html