Pigeon Talk

[CCUK]

For canaries, it has been my experience you are best keeping a single male. There are only certain situations, and certain individuals, that will get along in a cage. You can keep a lot of them in an aviary and they work out a pecking order, but just two or three together usually results in severe fighting and potentially dead canaries regardless of their sexes. Most are quite aggressive. It has been my experience females do not get along any better than males.

They only breed seasonally, in the spring, and you can introduce males and females around mid February and if they are both in condition they will usually start breeding. if the female isn't ready the male can kill her. They may or may not still get along after the breeding season. If my various canary pairs over the years, I've only had one couple that could live together the year round, the rest would fight after nesting season finished. The pair that did get along were red factors/crosses, which are said to be less aggressive. This male still sang with his mate, but most will sing much less or barely at all with a female in the cage with them. My current male stopped singing for nearly the entire duration of this past breeding season when paired with a hen. Most canaries don't form lasting pair bonds, so don't feel bad about keeping just one. They are not totally solitary, but are not very social either.

To keep a single male canary, which is all I have at the moment, you can get by with a small cage at least 14 x 18 inches but bigger is much better, and 30 x 18 is an ideal minimum to go with as it lets them fly a little bit. You want two or three different sized perches toward the long ends of the cage, about 3 - 4 inches from the sides and at slightly different heights plus a swing in the top middle of the cage. The best perches are varied size sticks from outdoor bushes or trees with the leaves stripped off (they also like to strip the leaves themselves from safe trees like apple, mulberry, willow). Larger cages can fit more perches. They sometimes play with very simple toys, like strips of tissue paper tied with jute twin next to a perch or little strings of beads, but they aren't playful like parakeets. No mirrors or shiny objects in the cage or they fight/obsess with their reflection. Not the smartest birds!

A good canary seed mix is easy to find. You want the ingredients to be mostly canary seed, rape seed, maybe some oat groats and hemp but stay away from mixes made for parakeets or which advertise "for all birds" that are mostly white millet because canaries don't like that type of seed at all. Canaries also need fresh food in their diet and will love you if you can give them some greens every day; romaine, kale, spinach, broccoli are favored. They enjoy apple slices but keep it to small amounts or a weekly treat. Offer hard-boiled egg for protein every week or so, and daily during the late summer molt. Keep a cup of mineral grit/fine ground oystershell in the cage at all times.

An important point that distinguishes canary care from other finches is that canaries are the most day-length sensitive of all caged birds and they require a natural schedule with no electric lighting past sunset at any point during the year in order to maintain a healthy hormone cycle. The long days of spring bring on breeding condition and very loud singing; the shortening days of August initiate the annual molt, in which they change out all of their feathers over 6 weeks. Short winter days let them relax, they sing leisurely and are very mellow at this time. Spring brings about the more intense breeding song which mellows out by June and then they molt again after summer. If you keep a canary in the front room and he is exposed to light well into the night in the winter, he can either stay in the breeding condition until he exhausts himself and fails to molt, so that his feathers begin to break off, or he can repeatedly molt out of season and if they do this too much it really weakens them and causes an early death. I've sadly seen both happen to canaries I've taken in as rehab birds. The solution though is very simple. Keep them near a window, and cover them down on the top and three sides facing the room inside with a dark sheet at sunset. They will then sleep, and wake normally with the sun. Or, so as I do, and keep the canary in a room that you dont light after sunset. Mine is on the sun porch.

They love to bathe, and you can either keep a big dish in the cage to let them do so at will (but it will need twice daily changing), or keep their drinking water in a small tube drinker and offer a bath a few times a week for just half an hour or so.

Thanks. There's a bit more to them than I expected. I didn't realise that they are better alone. We were thinking of getting two but not now! I've seen some cages for reasonable money so we can get that sorted first. I doesn't really matter but is there a way to sex them?

 

[Serin]

Thanks. There's a bit more to them than I expected. I didn't realise that they are better alone. We were thinking of getting two but not now! I've seen some cages for reasonable money so we can get that sorted first. I doesn't really matter but is there a way to sex them?

males sing. Dont buy a canary that you haven't heard sing in the store. I've bought two females sold as males that way. Make sure it sings before you take it.

 

[Serin]

Not that females cant be pets, but they're prone to chronic egg laying, shorter lived as a result and should never cost more than $40.

 

[memphis]

I LOVE hearing a canary sing!!

 

[biophiliac]

@Serin What became of the baby canaries?

 

[Serin]

@Serin What became of the baby canaries?

I sold all the chicks early in the summer. I don't breed canaries that often because I mostly just keep one or two males at a time. The female I paired to Mozart, the current male, was a poor mother and the two did not work well together, so I also sold her... unfortunately I was told she escaped the buyer the same day on the way into the house, though an open door on the carrier.

I thought maybe I'd keep one of Mozart's sons from this spring but decided not to because they were just fighting each other. With canaries, unless you have an aviary, they do best as just one bird or the rare bonded pair.

 

[h2oratt]

You should start a thread on all this info on canaries.

 

[tacothechicken]

Lol I have been away from this thread for awhile! Update though: I sold all my homers just this weekend to focus on my poultry as I set up a more organized and breed specific set ups for my chickens. In turn im down to ONE pigeon! My male Figurita Wallace.
Now I must convince him to become a proper house pet after all 5 years of his life has been loft living.

 

[cavemanrich]

And wishing you BEST in your alternate venture. @tacothechicken
Looking at your pigeon,,, I was wondering the breed/variety. Looks like it is one of those called Owl category with the short beak.
Serin has a similar pigeon,,,,, and is a GREAT HOUSE PET

 

[tacothechicken]

@cavemanrich hes a 5 year going on 6 year male Valencian Figurita! I'm pretty sure the smallest of all domesticated pigeon breeds.