That Bird Blog – Bird Care and History for Pet Birds

Molting season is a trying time for Canaries – after all, they are shedding and replacing over 2,000 feathers!  Following are some steps you can take to lessen the stress of your pet’s annual molt.

Timing of the Molt

Canaries molt once each year, usually in late summer or early fall.  The process seems partially controlled by an “internal clock”, and usually occurs at the proper time, but external factors do have an influence.  Molting out-of-season can negatively affect a bird’s health.

If your Canary is molting in winter or spring, try limiting its day to 8-10 hours of light, and keep the temperature at 68-70F.  Full spectrum light (please see article below) is also helpful in establishing normal cycles and supports immune system functioning.<!–more–>

Stressful situations can cause partial or complete out-of-season molts.  Fear (noise, another pet, moving), overly-warm temperatures, and too much light during the fall and winter are common causes of stress-induced molting.

Molting Behavior

Your Canary should complete its molt in 6-12 weeks.  During that time, the feathers will appear loose and disheveled (please see photo) and it may become listless and less active than usual; males often cease singing.  This is a normal response to the physical drain of growing so many new feathers; molting birds are also less capable of escaping predators, and so instinctively maintain a low profile.

Diet and Care

Despite being less active, your Canary’s need for protein and fat will soar during the molting season (feathers are 88-85% protein).  Egg Food, oil-rich seeds such as niger, flax and hemp and small live or canned crickets and mealworms are important additions to the diet throughout the molting period.

A bath should always be available and will get frequent use during molting; specially formulated feather-sprays are useful in dry homes or for Canaries that appear to be slow in finishing their molts.

Further Reading

Feather-related ailments can mimic bad molts and need to be addressed by a veterinarian.  Please see this article for info on French Molt.

Full Spectrum Lighting for Pet Birds

 
Domestic Canary image referenced from wikipedia and originally posted by L.E. MacDonald

I’d like to depart from pet trade birds today to highlight a serious conservation concern that has remained largely un-noticed until quite recently.  Most bird enthusiasts are aware that superstition has played a role in the demise of rhinos, tigers and other creatures, but our avian friends usually face other threats.  However, it now seems that an unlikely combination of ancient sorcery and modern pop culture is threatening the continued existence of owls in India and, perhaps, elsewhere. Read More »

Right now, as autumn progresses in the north and spring arrives in the south, billions of birds embark on epic migrations that take them to breeding and wintering grounds.  The journeys of many species, such as the pole-to-pole trip of the Arctic Tern, are well-known to bird enthusiasts.  We don’t often think of parrots as migrants, yet many do undertake very impressive seasonal trips.  Today I’ll highlight 2 little-known migratory rarities, the Swift Parrot (Lathamus discolor) and the Orange-Bellied Grass Parakeet (Neophema chrysogaster).

Perilous Travels

The journeys of Australia’s only migratory parrots do not approach in length those of many other birds, but they are fraught with danger for other reasons.  Both species are rare, and rely upon disappearing habitats and very unique foods; like all migrants, protection is needed at both their Australian winter and Tasmanian summer ranges, and along their migration routes.  Read More »

Animals unknown to science, including sizable mammals, come to light every day (in fact, 1 every 3 days for the past decade in the Amazon Basin alone!).  But parrots, being loud, colorful and active by day, have a hard time remaining undetected, even in remote habitats.  Brazil’s Bald or Orange-Headed Parrot (Pyrilia aurantiocephala), however, despite being glimpsed in the past, was only recognized as a distinct species in 2002.

Incredible Species Diversity

The World Wildlife Fund recently announced that over 1,200 new species have been discovered since 1999 in the area of South America drained by the Amazon River, popularly known as the Amazon Basin.  The region is a hotbed of diversity (new insects are so numerous that they were excluded from the report, and more fish species have been found in the Amazon than in the entire Atlantic Ocean!), but birds accounted for only 16 of the new discoveries.  However, among these was a real shocker – a noisy blue and aquamarine parrot with a featherless, orange head. Read More »

The very qualities that make parrots such desirable pets – intelligence, sociability, long lives and high activity levels – can also make it quite difficult to provide them with proper care.  During my years with the Bronx Zoo, I was astounded by both the numbers of people looking to find homes for their “problem parrots”, and by those seeking to adopt unwanted pets.  Parrot rescues have sprung up all over the world in response to this situation, but not all are what they appear to be.

Hoarders – Drowning in Birds

“Animal Hoarding” has become a trendy term lately, but there is nothing new about this sad phenomenon.  Over several decades, in the course of assisting the NYC Police Department and other agencies responding to animal emergency calls, I have run across people who jammed their houses full of unsustainable numbers of turtles, rabbits, lizards and even caiman (South American crocodilians) – as well as the more commonly-kept dogs, parrots and cats.  To the person, most were good-hearted and well-meaning, but for some reason (please see article below) they became enmeshed in unrealistic efforts to save too many creatures.  Read More »