July 10, 2013
As I write this evening, the first clutch of baby society finches has been weaned. The poor things have begun the molt into their adult plumage and are looking very tattered. Meanwhile, their brothers and sisters in the next clutch are ready to be removed from the nest for hand rearing. Outside in the aviary are several birds with health issues (the bullied zebra finches are doing better; the plucked budgie isn’t showing any improvement yet, all 3 starlings need a good beak trimming) and there’s a huge backlog of projects to finish and improvements to make. It was only a few weeks ago that 2 budgies managed to gnaw right through the wallboard of the aviary and get themselves caught behind the inner and outer walls. Fortunately when I came into the aviary that day I noticed the faint screaming and scolding that was emanating from behind the walls. Greg and I had to drill several additional holes in the wallboard to find the culprits and get them out. Right now those holes are covered with duct tape….
July 2013
The second clutch of Society finch chicks is coming along quickly. Several of the seven chicks have started to fly! But…the others haven’t learned yet. They don’t want to leave the nest — instead they are spending most of their day eating, snoozing, and preening their bristly feathers. Sounds good to me (except for the bristly part).
I decided to try putting the entire nest bowl into the large cage with Clutch # 1, their older siblings. They are about a month older, and already weaned. I expected some of the Clutch 2 babies to pop out of the nest to join Clutch 1 up on the perches. But instead, the older birds all came down and crammed into the nest bowl with the babies!
The birds on the left are some of the Clutch 1 chicks. They are in the middle of their “juvenile molt” — they are losing their soft, fluffy chick feathers and are growing in their adult plumage. They look a little scruffy.
Yes, there really are 13 birds crammed into that one little bowl!
July 8, 2013
On Saturday we got one set of finch shelves assembled. Greg was very helpful, not only with the actual construction, but also with some suggestions to make the design better.
Notice that he is working with such blinding speed that his hand is a blur!
I finished the last step — attaching the wheels to the bottom — a little after midnight. Here the shelves are with some cages on them (but not in the final configuration).
Aviary Updates
Screening in Area D will be a big help towards getting the other projects done in the aviary. Here’s Area D — the “hallway”
Once this area is closed off, I’ll be able to move birds out of Area A and do some work in there (tile the floor, repair the wall).
July 11 — They can’t sit still
The second clutch of finches are starting to leave the nest.
They come out for a while, then go back to the nest to nap or to spend the night. It used to be, when I wanted to feed them, I would take the entire nest bowl out of the cage. But…they don’t want to stay put. And once one pops out…
…pandemonium ensues. The reason you only see 6 finches in this picture is because finch # 7 was sitting ON TOP OF THE CAMERA. While screaming to be fed.
July 13
The babies have definitely fledged! Last night I put them to bed in their usual nest bowl. When Kevin woke up this morning he checked on them, and all 7 were crammed onto one perch. “Like shish kebab” he said.
Of the seven new chicks —
today I saw 4 of the seven, along with their older siblings,nibbling on soaked seed. It may be a while before they’re willing to eat the (hard, boring) pellets, but it’s a start.
The three holdouts are the 2 youngest (one fawn, and Chip, the tiny “runt of the litter”) AND the Creamino. She seems more hesitant to fly and explore.
Of the older clutch–
There are two definite males (Bert and Billy Bird) who have been singing (well, squeaking and twittering randomly) for quite a while. Today Gibson started up. That means 3 of the 4 fawns in that clutch were male!
News —
The bottom-most cage has a single, two-day-old chick. The parents are Euros (well, more Euro than the other finches I have) and seem more nervous. Their previous clutch they tossed their 2 hatchlings. (I should double-check that) and the one before that, 2 eggs pipped but did not hatch.
I’m excited about the idea of hand-raising an “only child” — since that’s the way Pelly was raised (all those years ago) and she was the tamest finch we’ve ever had.
…However, I’m not getting my hopes up. There’s still a lot that could go wrong.
So far so good, though — they seem to be feeding the little tyke well.
July 16 — feathers everywhere
The starlings are molting like crazy. The breeding season is over, and this is their chance to grow a new set of feathers for the coming year. Many of their fresh feathers have white spots on the tips. As the winter goes on, much of the white is worn off, so that by springtime they are in their darker breeding plumage.
This is a very nice illustration.
I don’t know the original source of this illustration, but I found it here:
http://www.paulnoll.com/Oregon/Birds/Home/birds-Starling-European.html
July 16 — Thanks!
Kevin helped me for an hour and a half this evening. It has been in the 90s and I’d like to get the AC going in the aviary. But in order to move the AC unit to the window, we had to move this, which means we had to move that, which means…
July 16 — No more lap babies
I spent a lot of Sunday afternoon re-reading a Peter Wimsey mystery while holding 4 napping Society finch chicks on my lap. “Greg, could you get me a soda please? I can’t get up, I’ve got babies on my lap!” When Greg rolled his eyes I said “It won’t be for much longer…”
Well, that was indeed the last day. Today after feeding them I sat them on my lap as before. They snoozed and let me pet them for maybe a minute, then looked around very excitedly and flew off!
Quoth the Raven
End of the Summer 2013 – A summary
The main accomplishments for this summer, bird-wise —
- bought tile for floor
- bought wood for ceiling
- installed new shelves in aviary
- hand-raised 14 society finch babies
- kept an eye on the wren nest by the back door
- collected lots of eggs from the chickens
- got the aviary’s air conditioner running smoothly
- prepared some bird skeletons using dermestid beetles
- removed all bird cages from the house EXCEPT one
Here is the one cage left in the house, and the hand-raised babies!
September 9 — Bree the Chicken nearly breaks her leg
About a week ago Greg reminded me to check on the chickens before bed. I’m so glad I did. Brianna was missing! It turned out she had caught her leg in the picnic table and had been hanging almost upside-down for a couple of hours. Fortunately her leg is not broken, but it is very badly damaged. For several days she couldn’t walk at all. The leg dragged behind her. We put her in a small cage and kept tucking the injured leg under her, in the correct position. After several days she was feeling much better. Her leg stopped dragging behind her, but she still couldn’t extend her toes. Gradually, this has improved even more. For the last few days she has been able to walk and control her toes! But she still has a terrible limp. Brianna continues to spend her nights in the “hospital cage”, and I’ve fenced off a small part of the yard for her for daytime exercise. I can’t put her with her 2 flock mates — when I tried, they started to beat her up. She was unable to run away from them.
I think this bullying is normal chicken behavior. The girls have to re-establish pecking order after Brianna’s absence. After a few more days, I’ll try again. In the mean time, they can see each other through the fence.
I’m so thankful that Greg reminded me to check on them! I don’t know if Brianna would have survived a whole night hanging by the leg like that.
Chickens can fly!
More chicken issues….
We have a 4′ fence around most of the back yard. Today Loreena and Liddy escaped! After scolding them (which they ignored) and luring them home with raisins (which they did pay attention to), I looked at them a little more closely. Apparently, they had recently re-grown their flight feathers. These are the long feathers on the edges of the wing which provide most of the lift. We had trimmed their flight feathers about a year ago, and I hadn’t noticed when the short feather stubs had molted out and the nice new LONG feathers had grown back in.
So the girls got a “haircut” today. This is a painless process, though it did require more raisins.
Illustration found here: http://www.backyardchickens.com/a/how-to-clip-trim-the-wings-of-your-chicken-to-prevent-flight
September 23, 2013
Poor Brianna! — the chicken with the leg injury. She’s acting a lot more cheerful, eating more and pooping more. (The latter being a mixed blessing, because she’s spending most of her time walking around the aviary.) Even though she’s moving more confidently, it looks very strange. Every time she uses the injured leg, she lifts it up very high and places it down very carefully.
I wonder if I could find crutches in her size?
No, this isn’t really Brianna — but it was the only picture of a chicken with crutches that I could find 😉
More about chicken locomotion
Watch this commercial to see an amazing thing that chickens can do.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLwML2PagbY
This phenomenon is discussed over at the website COGSCIdotNL
As you can see in the video above, chickens are remarkably good at keeping their head still while their body is moving. They are able to do this when someone else moves their body, as in the video, but also when they move themselves. This is why a chicken’s head (or a pigeon’s head, as in the video below) bobs back and forth during walking: The chicken keeps its head still with respect to the environment by moving it backwards to compensate for the forwards body movement. This continues until the head cannot move back any further, at which point it rapidly snaps forward, momentarily breaking the otherwise near perfect head stabilization.[…]
So the obvious question is: Why has the chicken evolved this remarkable ability to keep its head stable? An ability that surely requires a sophisticated neural apparatus.
In fact, this phenomenon is not limited to chickens, or even to birds. Almost all animals exhibit these types of stabilizing reflexes. Some engage their entire head, just like chickens do. Other animals, including ourselves, stabilize only the eyes. This allows us, for example, to keep our eyes fixed on someone throughout a conversation, despite the fact that we regularly nod or shake our head.
But why? Why the need to stabilize the head, or at least the eyes? The answer lies in the way that the eyes work…..
(More in the article!)
http://www.cogsci.nl/blog/bird-brains-and-fish-eyes/177-stabilizing-vision-do-the-chicken-head
A book for chickens
http://www.amazon.com/Teach-Your-Chicken-Trevor-Weekes/dp/0898157404
Here at last are complete and elegant instructions to train any chicken to fly. This ingenious book is based on the material developed in 1940 for the Society for the Rights of Inferior Birds. Color illustrations.
I think my girls must have read this book already.
March 5, 2014
This is the coldest, snowiest winter we have had since the “Snowmageddon” of 2010. After a big melt last week we now have snow on the ground again — and record low temperatures. However, the days are definitely getting longer, and the birds outside know it. The mixed flocks of “blackbirds” (red winged black birds and grackles) are starting to cluster in our big trees again, whistling and chack-ing. I’m seeing more flocks of robins, and even heard a tentative song from one. Our friendly neighborhood Carolina Wren (the same one who built the nest on our porch last summer?) is even noisier than usual. I keep seeing tiny footprints in the snow heading up the stairs to the porch. The familiar bird sounds and activity lift my spirits as this winter draws to an end!
Our chickens DO NOT LIKE the snow. However, they are also very tired of being cooped up. They have lots of fresh straw to scratch around in, and we wrapped their enclosure with plastic to protect them from the wind. But it’s not enough, and whenever I visit them, they complain. I’m not sure, but I think it’s boredom.
