How to breed canaries?
Have you thought about dedicating yourself to raising canaries? These animals are very sensitive and the reality is that raising them is not difficult, but there are several things to take into account, since if you are not knowledgeable about these aspects, surely, you cannot achieve your goal.
In this HOWORWHAT article, we tell you how to breed canaries and all the tips you should know if you want to increase your family of these birds. Also, remember that, before you start to breed canaries, find out if in the area where you live it is legal or not to do so and under what conditions.
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How to breed canaries?
Breeding season
If you want to know how to raise canaries at home, the first thing to take into account when putting together a couple of these birds is the breeding season for canaries, which is in spring. This happens because the days begin to be longer, with more light, and they take advantage of this moment and mate at this time of year because by the time the chicks are born the climatic conditions will be optimal for their growth, avoiding too cold times.
How to build canary breeding cages
Another point to consider is the cage and the nest. The cage must be spacious, at least 50 cm long, and there must be a separator so that the two canaries located in the same cage get to know each other slowly, instead of suddenly bringing them together. They, through singing and other types of interaction, get to know and socialize.
Don’t forget to include a suitable nest in the cage for when it is time to lay the eggs. In food and animal care stores, they sell ready-made nests for canaries.
Choice of partner
A month or two before the breeding season, you should be clear about the pair of canaries that you are going to breed canaries. Also, there are different types of canaries and it is not recommended that they be of different colors or crossing song canaries with colored canaries. If you wonder at what age canaries reproduce. We clarify that canaries should be one year old when you put them together. After which they can continue to breed until they are 4 or 5 years old.
In conclusion, you should choose a partner that is as similar as possible and make sure you deworm them, administer vitamin complexes and go to the vet if you suspect that a disease may appear in either of them.
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Meeting and mating of the canaries
When a few days have passed you will notice that the canaries are more comfortable and will interact more with each other. The male may offer food to the female, this will mean that you can remove the separator so that they are together. If you remove the separator and the canaries are not ready to breed, they may live together normally but fights can also arise, in the latter case it is convenient to separate them.
You will surely notice after a few days that the male is excited and excited, as he jumps the width and length of the cage singing with a higher pitch than normal. When it is time for mating, the male will approach the female, normally producing her song, and she will bend down and lift her tail to facilitate copulation, this action is repeated several times a day to ensure the fertilization of the eggs.
Laying the eggs
It is necessary to be attentive to the laying of the eggs, since if your female canary lays one egg a day they will not all hatch at the same time and it is convenient that they go together, to avoid problems. What you should do is remove the eggs from your female and replace them with fake ones, while the real ones should be kept in a box with cotton and wait for the last one to lay.
When you see that your canary has laid all the eggs, which are usually two to five eggs, remove the false eggs and place the original ones, in this way they will all hatch at the same time and you will avoid that one is too large and asks for a lot of food or on the contrary, let it be too small and not survive.
Care of canary pups
Surely you are wondering how long it takes for a canary to hatch from the egg and the answer is that about 15 days after the mother began to incubate all the eggs. When they hatch from the egg, they will be blind and covered with down, since the feathers will begin to hatch after 10 days of life. It will be better for you to leave them alone during the first week after the birth of the young since otherwise, the mother could abandon them.
From 20 days of age, the chicks will be ready to jump from the nest and until after these days they will be fed and cared for by their parents. It will be after this when you will have to act and give them a diet destined to feed for the breeding of canaries, which usually comes in pasta format, in addition to a piece of fruit and vegetables. The vitamins that usually come in drops are also useful for the chicks to grow healthy and strong, it will be enough to add a few of these in the water.
Nest abandonment
When the chicks jump out of the nest, the canaries can re-breed 3–5 times more during the breeding season. That is why it is important that you have a cage large enough to raise the new members and that the couple continue to have their space.
Originally published at https://howorwhat.com on September 17, 2020.
