Keeping and breeding canaries at home. Canary care. swiss curly canary

Canary- a miniature bird that does not differ in intelligence, so for what reason were they given to kings and monks in the 16th century? The reason lies in the musical ability. Of course, if you go outside you can hear the singing of many birds. But it is the canary that is so unpretentious in food, it is easy to train and maintain.

Description of the canary bird

Canary slightly smaller than its ancestor - the Canarian canary finch, it is 13.5-14.5 cm in size (singing, colored), while decorative canaries are from 11 cm to 23 cm. canaries rounded head, long claws, short beak and harmonious finch. This bird has many colors, although yellow is the most common, the plumage color can be white, brown, orange, light brown, greenish. flies canary wavy, and some individuals have tufts and curls on the head. Canary changes the color of plumage from natural conditions, for example, when the climate changes. And if you change the feathered diet, the color also changes. Unusual, right?

A feature of the bird is sensitivity to natural gas. The cage with this bird was taken into the mine, and if she felt anxious, people immediately left as quickly as possible, because gas explosions occurred in such places, thus, the bird saved the lives of many people! Did you know that canary can imitate sounds, and even remember their sequence, in order to reproduce them later? She also remembers someone else's singing, storing a huge number of sounds in her memory. He begins his song with a quiet tone, having sung, perhaps your neighbors will also hear it.

NUTRITION AND MAINTENANCE OF CANARY POULTRY

What to feed a canary

From right diet many things depend, for example, plumage, health and life expectancy. The main diet consists from 3 feeds: grain, oilseed and succulent.

To grain feed include seeds of various plants - oats, millet, barley, wheat, corn, buckwheat, rice, canary seed. Seeds of succulent herbs ( quinoa, dandelion, plantain). Bran, rapeseed, chestnuts and acorns, seeds and nuts (oil and linseeds, sunflower). Same way, canary you can give berries, fruits and vegetables. Most canaries love grapes, apricots, cherries, sweet apples and peaches. Dried fruits are a good delicacy: raisins, dried apricots, prunes, figs, dates, apples. In addition, freshly squeezed juice is great, except for those that contain a lot of sugar.

In winter, add branches of fruit and deciduous trees to the cage, for example, apple, cherry, alder, birch, linden, maple, hawthorn, mountain ash, raspberry, currant, elderberry, beech, willow, aspen, alder, ash. Canary food of animal origin is also suitable: fish oil, low-fat cottage cheese, boiled chicken eggs, honey, various insects.

What can not be a canary:

Potato

Persimmon

Mango

papaya

Avocado

Parsley and other herbs

Keeping canaries at home

domestic canary spends most of the time in the cage, and care is reduced to a minimum. You can choose any cage, it will be easier for you with a metal one, because it is easier to wash and can be disinfected. Equip the cage with a swing, a bowl, a drinking bowl, a mirror. Remember that the cage should be spacious, with several perches. And all that is required of you for care is feeding the bird, changing the water daily and cleaning the cage a couple of times a week. How to tame a canary? You need to talk to her constantly and evenly, let her fly out of the cage. Over time, the bird will get used to you, because it is quite tame, and may well sit on your shoulder. These birds are very fond of swimming, thereby cleansing the skin and feathers. The water should be infused at room temperature. Attach the bathing suit to the outside of the door, so water does not get into the cage, then remove the bathing suit and close the door. You can bathe the bird daily, wash the bathing suit every day.

VIDEO: CANARY SINGING

HAVE YOU EVER HEARD A CANARY SINGS? NO? YOU WILL HAVE THIS OPPORTUNITY BY WATCHING THIS VIDEO!

When choosing a pet, very often people stop at birds. Not requiring a lot of time and attention, as well as frequent walks, feathered friends delight their owners with a light, cheerful disposition and sonorous singing.

And, if many, one way or another, are quite expensive and picky creatures in terms of care, then canaries are universal, accessible to everyone both in price and in terms of easy care. Keeping a canary is not difficult, even Small child.

It is enough just to change the flooring in the cage, as well as feeders and water, and your pet will be healthy and happy, regularly delighting you with its sonorous singing. canary bird- a small bird, up to about 15 cm in size, although some decorative types can reach 23 cm from the beak to the tip of the tail. Appearance canary is very harmonious and nothing particularly remarkable, except for a different color.

The most common are yellow canaries, but the variety of their colors is great, there are even black canaries or red, obtained, of course, by crossing canaries with other birds. As a result of selection, some types of canaries also have tufts or attractive curls. All the great variety of colors of these birds, you can observe on photo of canaries.

Features and habitat

At the moment canary - poultry, and you can buy it at any pet store around the world. But the ancestors of this bird were Canary, inhabited in the Canary Islands. The latter, by the way, still live in the Canary and Azores as wild free birds to this day.

Pictured crested canary

Character and lifestyle

Canaries are very sociable. They live in large or small flocks - it does not matter, but socialization is very important for everyone. They live low - by small flights in low bushes they look for suitable food, while constantly communicating with other members of their family.

Usually, closer to the night, small flocks of canaries meet and merge into one large flock, jointly find a place suitable for an overnight stay and wait out the night there. In the morning, they all again scatter into their small, constantly noisy groups. Canaries are songbirds, therefore, acquiring it as a pet, be prepared to forget forever what silence is.

Food

correct canary food guarantees her health, well-being and mood. AT wild nature canary finches feed mainly on plant seeds and, occasionally, insects during nesting periods. For poultry, there is an incredible variety of balanced feeds that you can purchase at any pet store in your city.

Each pack of food is written with recommendations for its use for a certain life period of your pet, for example, “for feeding during molting” or “food during breeding”. When buying, carefully monitor the expiration date of the food so that it does not expire before your pet has time to eat it.

Among other things, veterinarians advise not to change the composition of the canary's food, as it gets used to a certain variety and, with some difficulty, transfers to a different type of food. Since the canary does not have much room to fly in the modest space of its own cage, these birds are prone to obesity.

To avoid this situation, calculate the daily ration for your pet. Usually it does not exceed 1-2 teaspoons of food per day. For a change, you can give the bird a hard-boiled egg once a week, adding grated crackers and carrots to it.

In addition to the main food, a couple of times a week it is worth giving some vitamin supplements. In summer, lettuce or dandelion leaves and other plants are suitable for these purposes. And in winter, you can dilute the diet with a green apple, carrot or sweet bell pepper. In no case should you neglect the mineral supplement, which should be in the cage all the time.

Usually it includes coarse sand, which in the bird's stomach will contribute to the grinding and digestion of grains, as well as ground eggshell and chalk as sources of calcium. Such a feeder should be changed about once a week to prevent it from getting dirty and ingested by the bird.

Reproduction and lifespan

In the wild, the breeding season for canaries begins in the spring - warm weather and the appearance of excess food are a kind of signal for birds that it is time to continue their race.

At home, you can breed canaries year-round, just by creating suitable external conditions for them. Birds aged from one to four years are suitable for breeding. In one breeding cycle, the female makes several clutches, but it is better not to allow her to make more than two, so as not to deplete the body of the bird.

For the greatest comfort of your bird, it is worth creating one or two nesting hemispherical bases. For softness, it can be wrapped with grass, straw, thread or hemp rope. Do not make them too long to prevent your pet from getting tangled in the nest with their paws.

A perch should be attached close to the nest so that the birds can first sit on it, and then calmly step onto the nest, this will prevent damage to the chick or egg. When a couple comes together, then in a week the first egg may appear, subsequently another egg will appear every day, usually no more than four.

canary eggs very small, weighing up to two grams, usually bluish in color with small brown patches. Only one female incubates the eggs, the chicks are born in turn, in the same order in which the eggs were laid.

Often, older chicks take away food from the younger ones, thereby preventing them from eating and growing normally. Sometimes late chicks even die because of this. To avoid such situations, the eggs laid by her are taken away from the female, replacing them with dummies, and kept on a fleece under a lamp.

And when all 4 eggs are laid, the dummies are again changed to real eggs. Due to this, the female begins to incubate eggs at the same time, respectively, and they also hatch together. When the chicks are a month old, they will begin to learn to fly. For these purposes, you need a really large cage - at least a meter in each direction.

As soon as it becomes possible to determine the sex, the males should be seated in different cages, as they are often aggressive towards each other. Females, on the contrary, are very friendly and enjoy living in the same cage all together. The average lifespan of a canary reaches 8 to 10 years, but with very good care, birds can live up to 15 years.

Dr. Elliot, BVMS, MRCVS is a veterinarian with over 30 years of experience in veterinary surgery and treatment of companion animals. She graduated from the University of Glasgow in 1987 with a degree in Veterinary Medicine and Surgery. She has been working at the same animal clinic in her hometown for over 20 years.

Number of sources used in this article: . You will find a list of them at the bottom of the page.

Canaries are social birds with bright plumage and are native to the Canary Islands. Canaries live 10-15 years, although there are cases when they lived up to 20 years. These are unpretentious birds, which are quite easy to care for. Learn the basic rules for caring for canaries, and you will surely make friends with your cheerful pet.

Steps

Part 1

Arrange the cage

Get a spacious cage. Canaries like to fly from side to side, so they need a very wide, but not necessarily high, cage. For one canary, a cage about 40 centimeters high and 75 centimeters wide is suitable. The larger the cage, the better your pet will feel.

Install perches. Purchase natural wood perches from the pet store and place them in the cage. Buy perches of different diameters to diversify everyday life your pet. Since canaries like to fly horizontally rather than up or down, place the perches on opposite sides of the cage.

Clean the cage regularly. Line the bottom of the cage with newspaper. Change the newspaper daily and clean the water and food bowls. Wash the cage thoroughly once a week with soap and water or a birdcage disinfectant. Do not use bleach.

Give the canary bird food in the form of pellets. Granules are preferred over grains as they contain more proteins and vitamins that your pet needs. However, if the canary has not been raised on such food, it may refuse it. In this case, you can try to accustom the canary to pellets, but this should be done slowly and carefully.

Feed your canary grains. While not the best source of nutrition for a canary, it is possible that grains are its favorite food. Feed your pet canary grain mix, which is available at the pet store. Give the bird about one teaspoon of the mixture per day. Canaries don't tend to overeat, so you can give them a little more food if you think it's necessary.

Give the canary fruits and vegetables. The canary's daily diet should consist of about 20-25% of fruits and vegetables. Every day, wash and very finely chop a piece of fruit or vegetable and put no more than a teaspoon in a separate plate. Try to vary the fruits and vegetables you give your bird.

Give the canary protein food. A grain diet is usually unable to provide a canary with sufficient protein. To provide your pet with protein, give him a hard-boiled egg. Put the egg in boiling water for 15-20 minutes, then drain the water and wait for the egg to cool. Cut off small pieces from the egg and put them in a plate for additional food twice a week.

A boiled egg spoils quickly. After 4-5 hours, remove the remains of the egg from the cage.

Part 3

Take care of a suitable environment and the health of the canary

Make sure that the canary is not bored. To do this, place some kind of toy or swinging perch in the cage. However, keep in mind that canaries are less likely to play with toys than other birds. One toy will be enough not to litter the cage, otherwise it will be difficult for the canary to fly over it (this is very important).
- In the wild, canaries love to romp in wet grass. Put wet dandelion leaves or grass in the bottom of the cage to keep your pet entertained.
Let the canary take a bath. The canary must take care of itself, just pour slightly warm water into a shallow dish. Place a bowl of water in the cage away from the perches. Plastic plates for seedlings are well suited. Wash this plate daily.

Trim your canary's nails. Canaries need to have their nails trimmed about twice a year to stay healthy. However, there is a blood vessel in each claw, and damage to it can cause bleeding and even endanger the life of the bird. Talk to your veterinarian about the best way to trim your nails.

The domestic canary is a subspecies of the finch from the Canary Islands. The bird is found in the Canary, Azores and Madeira Islands. More than 5 centuries have passed since man tamed the bird. As a result of selection, the vocal apparatus of the finch has changed. The singing of the domestic canary differs from that of the wild species.

Canary: maintenance and care at home

Varieties of canaries

In most cases, yellow canaries are taken as pets. But this does not mean that the plumage of a bird has only a yellow color. There are three main types of domestic canaries.

Colored canaries. The color of colored canaries is diverse: yellow, red, green, gray, white, mottled. Gray canaries are especially remarkable, they are born from the combination of green and yellow breeds. As a result of crossing, the color of birds varies from dull black to silver. Red canary is the most catchy, this color is rarely found in nature. Pied canaries have a wide range of colors, their common name is harlequin.

decorative canaries. Distinctive features of birds are unusual plumage and body shape. The names of some breeds of ornamental canaries speak for themselves, for example, curly and hunchbacked.

Singers. Canaries of all kinds sing. The singers have beautiful overflows in the melody, their voices are more musical. Soft birds are traditionally considered the best singers. Kenar breeders especially distinguish green and yellow individuals. Red birds are spectacular, but their voices do not caress the ear. Variegated ones without scarlet shades in feathers sing wonderfully. The arias are performed only by the male. The bird sings throughout the year, with the exception of the molting time. The most remarkable performance is in February-March, when mating season. The female only sings along: short, rare, less melodious. Caring for canaries of any kind is the same. Everyone who decides to have a bird should know the conditions for keeping a pet.

Canaries are quickly tamed, trusting, and amenable to education. They easily get used to the owner, under comfortable conditions they breed without problems.

Canary cage size: length 35 cm, width 22 cm, height 29 cm. The distance between the bars of the cage should not exceed 1.5 cm. Otherwise, the bird may stick its head between the bars and get stuck. Side door, double bottom of stainless steel- characteristic of a good cell. The double bottom will allow you to easily clean the cage, changing the sand in it, and will facilitate the necessary regular disinfection.

The place where the cage stands should be well lit: a dark corner will not work, direct sunlight is also unacceptable. It is necessary to install a perch in the cage - round perches 1.5 cm thick. Perches with a rough surface are best suited. They are set at such a distance from each other that the bird jumps from perch to perch with a flap of wings.

Cage cleaning requires careful approach. All the contents of the cage: pallet, feeders, perches, drinkers, are cleaned at least 2 times a week, doused with boiling water several times. The next step is treatment with a disinfectant solution, for example, chamomile infusion or potassium permanganate solution. Dry after treatment with solution. The pallet is covered with white paper, it is changed every 2-3 days. Clean, river, dry sand is also applicable as bedding.

Feeders are most convenient if they are hinged and retractable. Putting the feeder on the bottom of the cage is not practical, as birds scatter food. Mounted feeders allow the bird to eat in a comfortable position, and the owner to clean up less.

Canaries love water. Bathing is good for birds. Water cleanses the skin and strengthens the feathers. Bathing requires a special container and water at room temperature. The water container cannot be left in the cage for a long time; after bathing, the container is removed. Bathing suit must be washed every day. A month after birth, the pet is ready to get acquainted with water procedures. Accustom the birds to bathing gradually. The sooner the process starts, the better. After all, then the pet will be spared the fear of water.

A drinking bowl is installed in the cage, filled with water at room temperature. Drinking bowl material - porcelain, glass. The drinking bowl is installed between the bars of the cage in any place convenient for the bird.

It is useful for a bird to arrange flight walks around the room. In this case, a number of conditions must be observed to ensure safety.

close all doors and windows;
remove hot, sharp objects;
remove pets from the premises.

When creating comfortable conditions for the bird, you should think about good lighting and long daylight hours. In winter, you can provide additional lighting by installing a lamp next to the cage. The birds wake up with the sunrise, so at night in the summer the cage is covered with a cloth. This measure will allow the owner of the pet to sleep longer.

Feeding

In the wild canary finch, following instincts, eats in the right proportions of greens, grains, insects. Home conditions of detention oblige the owner of the bird to take care of a balanced diet.

reproduction

The female lays her first egg 10-12 days after intercourse. Further laying occurs every day, usually a couple has up to 5 testicles. After the appearance of the first egg, it is replaced with a wooden one. This is done with each next testicle until the last. When the female lays the last egg, all previously taken ones are returned to the nest. If the eggs are not replaced, the chicks will appear on different days, which will lead to the risk of death of the youngest.

Eggs should be taken out of the nest with a spoon, and not with your hands, so as not to crush. Store in a soft box. The female incubates the eggs for two weeks.. Birds begin to feed their offspring in a day, some, especially caring parents, in a few hours.

The food for the chicks in the first days consists of a hard-boiled egg, finely chopped and mixed with white grated breadcrumbs. After 3-4 days, porridge is added to the diet. Porridge is cooked from rice and millet in milk with the addition of an egg. Food must be stored in the refrigerator.

Cooking porridge is easy:

boil a glass of water;
pour a teaspoon of cereal into a glass and cook until the cereal is boiled;
add 150 gr. to boiled cereals. milk;
after boiling milk, add 3 teaspoons of cereals and boil;
salted into boiled porridge and pour an egg into it.

As the chicks grow, the amount of food prepared increases..

A week later, the kenar joins the care of the offspring. On the eighth day the chicks open their eyes, on the twelfth day the chicks try to fly out of the nest. Then the kenar takes full care of the children, as the female must prepare for the next laying and incubation of eggs.

After the ability to fly is established, the chicks are fenced off from their parents with bars. In this case, the female and male will feed the young through the grate. The need for separation is due to the fact that, remaining all together, adults pluck the babies. After two weeks, the chicks are completely independent: they can fly and eat a mixture of grains. Kenars are placed in one cage, females in another and transferred to a normal feeding regimen.

In three weeks kenara begin to try to sing. The songs of the young are not as beautiful as the trills of adult birds, but they allow you to separate males from females. The females do not sing.

One way of breeding is to keep one male with two females. This option creates a serious burden on the female. Breeding in pairs produces healthier offspring and is easier on the birds.

Colored canaries are bred in the same way as songbirds, but they need more attention. Attention should be paid to the selection of individuals for mating. For example, two intensely colored red birds will produce weak offspring with sparse feathers. On the contrary, individuals with a pale color will give birth to healthy chicks with a bright color and beautiful appearance.

It is allowed to cross a pale individual and a brightly colored one, no matter who has the most intense color in a female or male. Part of the brood will take the data of the father, part - the data of the mother, there is a possibility of the birth of defective chicks.

Life span

The average lifespan of a canary is about 10 years., with good care, the birds live up to 15 years. Good care includes:

Canaries are beautiful birds that improve their singing skills throughout their lives. Birds are able to bring joy as pets, live soul to soul with the owner.

Quite often, people choose small birds as a pet. In a small apartment, they do not take up too much space, they do not require daily walks, they do not spoil furniture, and there is much more communication from them than from fish or turtles. Among all feathered living creatures, in the first place in popularity are budgerigars, and on the second - a domestic canary. We will talk about representatives of the latter species.

Types of canaries

Most people mistakenly believe that this bird is only yellow. Most often, indeed, they are given as pets. However, in fact, the canary bird is found in three varieties.

Whatever canaries are chosen, their maintenance and care are the same. And although taking care of them is not difficult, every future owner of these birds must know the basics and details.

Right house

First of all, you will need, of course, a cage for canaries. It is better to choose it in a simple form, without decorative excesses, domes and other details. The birds themselves are beautiful and do not need additional accessories, and it will be more difficult to clean the house. What size cage to buy depends on your goals. To keep a single canary-singer, a rectangular cage measuring 45/30/25 cm will be enough. If breeding canaries is supposed, three cages will be needed:

described above - a kenar will live in it during non-breeding time;
a cage 70/30/40 cm, in which the birds will breed;
a cage up to a meter long, where females and the younger generation will be after nesting.

The ideal choice would be cages of the "box" type. On the one hand, they should be lattice (or mesh), and on the rest - plywood, plastic or made of plexiglass. Any should have two doors: one will hang a nest or a bath (it's easier to clean and change them), and the other - to care for the cage.

Cell equipment

There must be several perches in the house - canaries love to fly from place to place. Well, if they are made of natural wood - willow, hazel or bird cherry. The perches should be at different heights and have a thickness of 8 to 15 mm, otherwise the birds will be uncomfortable on them. A cage for canaries should include at least three feeders: for mineral feeding, grain and soft food. A bath is obligatory, preferably a hanging one - these birds love to “splash in the water”. No hanging - put at least a ground bath in the cage, not too light or attached so that the canaries do not turn it over. Drinkers should be placed with spouts inward, and fasteners outward. This will make it easier to fill them up. That, in principle, is all that canaries need. Maintenance and care for them will consist in cleaning and feeding - as you can see, there is nothing complicated about this. The main thing is that everything is done regularly and accurately.

Place for a cage

It is very important for the canary, the maintenance and care of which you have undertaken, to properly place its house. Drafts are dangerous for birds with a cold, so you should not place them near air conditioners and balcony doors, and the window on the selected window sill should be closed. The kitchen is also banned: humidity and temperature are constantly changing there. And the smells from cooking and cleaning surfaces will not benefit the canaries. Other pets, if you have them, should not be able to drop the cage or even get to it. In addition, it is desirable that the sun's rays fall on the house - at least for a short time: they are useful for birds. In summer, you can put the cage on the balcony, be sure to shade part of the dwelling so that the canaries have somewhere to hide from the sun.

Cleaning question

Since a canary is not a dog that can be taken outside to "do its job" there, the future owners of this bird should think in advance about how they will perform regular cleaning in the cage. To make your task as easy as possible, you should line the pallet of your feathered pet's dwelling with something. For this purpose, you can use sand, which will absorb excrement. It can also be easily replaced if necessary. However, keep in mind that canaries are very active birds and will most likely scatter sand around the cage. Therefore, it is best to line the bottom with absorbent paper - it is not difficult to change it, and there will be less debris.

Release or not?

There remains the last question that concerns your canary. Maintenance and care includes concern for her health and safety. So if you take your pet for walks around the apartment (especially if you have a cat or a dog at home), then you can lose your feathered friend. Open windows are a risk that the bird will fly away. Hot surfaces like irons and hotplates are also a hazard to canaries. Moreover, even a curtain in which a bird can get entangled, or a narrow gap from which it cannot get out, threatens it with injuries. So most canine breeders advise not to let the birds out of the cage.

What to feed a canary?

In the wild, the bird makes its own food, paying attention to grains, greens and insects in the right doses. In captivity, she is deprived of the ability to control her diet, so the owners will have to buy special food for canaries. Moreover, it is impossible to replace it with, for example, food for parrots - the composition is not the same. You should choose the average for the price of feed. During molting or nesting, ordinary food should be replaced with specialized food: this way the “difficult” periods will be easier for the birds to survive. Sunflower seeds and crushed buckwheat can be added to ready-made mixtures. Do not forget that the canary eats and soft food. A couple of times a week she will have to give a boiled egg.

Vitamins for health

Feeding birds only with grain and ready-made mixtures is like sitting on oatmeal and pasta all the time. Remember that the canary eats greens willingly and with pleasure. In summer, it is sometimes easy to pick the leaves of dandelion, lettuce, sorrel or young plantain. Out of season, bell peppers, apples and grated carrots are suitable. In the end, in the same pet store you can buy greens for sprouting. Just don’t be zealous with the amount of vitamins, since the bird’s stomach can react negatively to such “care”.

Minerals are a must!

The food for canaries must certainly include some, at first glance, inedible things. First of all, it is coarse river sand, which is necessary for birds for digestion. It can be bought at a pet store. If you can't find it, collect it on the beach and scald it several times to disinfect it. To provide birds with calcium, ground egg shells or chalk are given (can be hung on a hook). Also needed charcoal- they canaries are treated in case of malaise. Pharmacy is perfect. All these top dressings are placed in a dedicated feeder. Do not forget to change them weekly - the birds pollute the contents of the bowls.

Beware of obesity!

Oddly enough, for such mobile birds, the problem excess weight is also relevant. Therefore, you need to limit them in grain nutrition. One canary is enough for a couple of spoons of the main food per day, so try and stick to this norm.

Canary breeding

If you are interested in getting offspring from your pets, decide how you will proceed. There are three possibilities:

Create a permanent couple. In this case, the canaries will always live in the same cage. This option is especially suitable for those who have a small "poultry farm".
If there are several females, the male can be placed next to them in turn. In this case, you will need a cage for each canary. Maintenance and care will therefore become more troublesome and time consuming.
Equip a spacious aviary in which the birds will be kept together - 3-4 "girls" for each "guy". In such conditions, the canaries themselves will deal with their "matchmaking", and only one room will have to be cleaned. Just remember to put the males in their cages when the nesting is over.

In nature, all mating games begin in the spring - with warming and the appearance of a sufficient amount of food. At home, canary breeding can occur at any time.

We have already talked about the houses necessary for successful breeding. Now let's talk about the material for building nests. Pieces of thick thread no longer than two centimeters are quite suitable so that the canaries do not get tangled in them with their paws. Next to the nest, you need to equip an additional perch, on which the female will move before taking off. Otherwise, she may crush the egg or chick.

mating season

The signal of readiness for mating will be a short, sharp, invocative song of the kenar, and the female answers it (if she agrees) with a squeak. At the same time, she begins to collect, in her opinion, suitable building materials (twigs, feathers, etc.) and tries to make a nest in some secluded corner. Having noticed these signs, canaries need to lengthen daylight hours: later throw fabric over the cage. At the same time, the share of vitamin feed in the diet of birds should be increased: greens, sprouted grains, vegetables, fruits. If the courtship process is successful in canaries, the first egg will appear in a week, after which the female will rush for another 2-3 days.

For two weeks, the new mother will incubate the eggs. The male does not take part in this process. Chicks that are one month old are already quite independent. They are moved to a meter-long enclosure where they can fly. As soon as it becomes possible to determine the sex of the young, all males are seated in their own apartments, as they are aggressive towards members of their own sex and can fight to the point of injury. Female canaries get along quite well in a common cage.

How to transport canaries

Sometimes it becomes necessary to transport your birds. If transportation is expected over short distances (within hometown, maximum - to the cottage), this can be done by seating the canaries in small transport cages measuring 15/7/7 cm. Please note that the road should not last more than three hours: the lack of space will have a bad effect on the birds. To make them feel calmer, you can cover them with a thick rag - “make the night”. Food and an incomplete drinker must be in every cell.

Health control

The owner of the canary must carefully monitor his pet in order to determine in time whether he has lost weight or, on the contrary, whether he has recovered, whether the molting time has come. Other health problems can only be determined by a veterinarian. Find out how to independently examine the bird. So, the canary is carefully taken in the palm of your hand, its head is fixed with the index and middle fingers, and the body is turned upside down. Very quietly, the owner blows lightly on a place not covered with feathers. It is called apteria. If panicles of new feathers or hemp are visible, then this means that the bird is shedding. She may need to be fed special food. If the aptery is completely covered with fat, then your canary needs a diet and a transplant into a larger cage - a kind of gym.

A well-groomed, grown in appropriate conditions and normally fed canary (the photo convincingly proves this) is extraordinarily beautiful. And you will be happy to sing!

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