2021 has been a GREAT year, so far!

 I have not taped any videos from the birdroom in 2021, and these blog posts have been few and far between.  I post a few things to my Facebook page, so make sure you follow Savoy Singers Aviary on Facebook.  :)

I am on the down hill side of breeding season, with GREAT results so far.  There are three favorite hens that have produced chicks that are just what I wanted!  Two new hens have not given me a single egg, even though they seem to love building nests.  The remaining twenty hens did well.  Nearly every hen laid a good number of eggs, with nearly a 100% hatch... I lost only one little chick when he was tossed out of the nest.

Another chick faded away after being rejected by his parents.  He was eating on his own, but not enough I suppose.  I tried hand feeding, but he was not willing.  I forced in a little formula, but he only lasted a couple of days.

Two casualties and 73 lively and healthy chicks makes me happy!  My final number may not reach 100, but anything over 65 gives me enough to chose ones to keep for next year!

The weaning flights are filling up.  Most of the hens have either hatched or will soon hatch their second nests.  It won't be long and I will be sorting and evaluating the youngsters.

Hope everyone has some promising youngsters!  I'll be back with a video soon!

Breeding Season 2021 is Well Underway!

There are nests of little chicks hatching all around the bird room!  So far, most pairs are producing fertile eggs, hatching normally, and seem to be feeding well. 
I set a small group of hens in early April and a second larger group the very end of April, which are hatching this week.  A third group of hens are due to hatch next week.  A fourth small number of hens are building nests, or beginning to lay eggs.

For 2021, I have roughly 31 hens, most of which are set up as pairs with a male.  Most are birds of my own raising.  There are 13 American Singer pairs, 3 Fife hens, 6 pairs of the Thompson line of yellows, 1 pair of bronzes, and 8 agate or opal hens. 

For the past 8 months I have worried about some way to keep my total numbers down.  I had too many birds last year... too many pairs, and too many youngsters.  Oh, I had FUN!  And I raised so many really NICE youngsters!

I proved several theories about the various families in my bird room.  Plus, I met some wonderful people as I sold my extras last fall and this spring!  But, I did not have as much time for leisurely observation of the birds, seated in a rocker in the bird room, and sipping a coffee drink!  

My goal is to maintain approx 20 pairs, with only a little wiggle room for extras!  :)
At the moment, I have no idea how to drop approximately one third of my plans!

But that problem can be postponed until later this summer!  :)

Breeding season 2015

Feed me... NOW!!

This youngster is about 3 1/2 weeks old, and a second before the camera
snapped this picture, the hen was feeding her baby.

The newest American Singer pair are started on their second nest.

Here are the three youngsters from their first nest.. about 3 weeks old.

This is the last nest to hatch... Mama is a young hen and she layed and hatched 5 eggs!
She spends all day feeding them!

Breeding season 2013

There are baby canaries in my house!  :)

I had two hens on nests.... and they each hatched two chicks!
This is the yellow hen's nest, with her two chicks...
Warning:  view at your own risk!  They 'ain't pretty'!
But they are about one week old, and it won't be long and they will look 'a little' better with feathers.
In a month, they will be out of the nest and look just like regular canaries.
When they hatched, they were just a bit larger than the egg that is still in the nest!

Laurie, you asked for the 'cute' pictures of the baby canaries...

Well, here are the two 'babies' shown in the earlier photo, with the two babies from the red factor hen:

The variegated and yellow birds are from the yellow hen, and both birds on the right (both top perch and the branch) are from the red factor hen.

Okay, they grew up before I got a photo!  They are still smaller than adult size, and soon they will molt their juvenile feathers.



So.... the two hens went to work again!  :)
Here are their second nestlings:
First the yellow hen had four babies:

Here are the red hen's babies:

I must admit that I am not particularily attracted to the variegated ones... I love the solid colored canaries best.  But I think the soft peachy color of the red factor babies made them look 'sweeter'!  :)

     I wish I had thought to take a video clip.... as these babies got older, they began to look around and watch mama eating on the floor.  Sometimes they hopped to the edge of the nest.  I would peek through the doorway from the other room and see they were just overflowing the nest.  The nests looked like they had a frothy, feathery topknot.  I never could sneak close enough to get a good photo.... as soon as they caught a glance of me, they would duck and the nest would SINK!  The whole top just disappeared!  It was so funny!  It was hard to believe all those big babies could flatten out so much! 

     The day after I took these photos, all eight babies LEFT THE NESTS!  Wow, did they have problems getting their 'sea legs' !  Or 'flying wings'!   They usually fell to the bottom of the cage, but could fly from perch to perch up to the top again.  It is amazing how well they could fly when you think they spent a month just sitting in the nest.   BUT, they flutter their wings very fast all the while the parents are feeding them, so I suppose that is Nature's way to build up their wing strength.

Breeding season 2011

Long Story Short:  There are CANARY BABIES!

Here is the yellow hen with one little guy's head showing... at 4 days of age:

Here is the nest with all four chicks:

The Gloster hen hatched 2 TINY chicks!

It is amazing how tiny they are! I know the Gloster Fancy breed is supposed to be smaller than the regular singing and color breeds, AND the hen and male are smaller....
BUT these babes are TINY!
The egg left in the nest is about the size of my thumbnail, if that large... maybe more like the nail on my index finger.

The chicks are 6 days old!

I am having problems getting a good photo of Dad feeding the birds, because everytime I get close, he stops and glares at me!  This one is taken from some distance!

Notice the 'droppings' along the edge of the nest.  The little ones scoot their tail end up to the edge of the nest or over the edge.  Keeps the nest clean, I guess.

Breeding season 2011 continued

The Chicks Are Growing!!

Just an update.... at the rate they are growing, soon they will look enough like Mama and Daddy that the photos won't be interesting!! Here are the chicks at 10 days old:

And again, at 12 days old:

The last photo, taken at 15 days of age, yesterday.  I used a flash... so will try to do better soon.

My, how many birds you have, my dear!!!

Hard to imagine I didn't have a single cage four months ago!!!!

Left to right:

The Gloster hen is in the 'tv cabinet' box cage, with the Gloster male and the 2 young ones from the first hatch in the cage on the table in front.

The two square dark cages in the middle have the varigated hen in one and the yellow hen in the other.  The little cage is wired between the doors of each cage... so that the male can go from one hen to the other however he is needed. He goes into the little cage whenever he wants to move, and I close one door behind him and open the other!  :)

The white cage on the right has the 3 young ones from the yellow hen's first hatch.

Oh, Grannie and Stubby are still in the kitchen, so that makes 6 cages on April 11th!!!

( I do plan on 'consolidating' the hens into one or two cages, when they have finished nesting!)