Early January 2012 ; Not too much has changed except i've started giving a little eggfood mixed with soaked seed once a week...Still nowhere near as cold as it should be and it's got me thinking we'll perhaps have a nasty cold-snap just prior to spring again... Mid January ; Finally it looks like a decent cold spell is upon us , it's -5 outside each morning and about 3 degrees inside my birdsheds so touch wood "knock" no frozen drinkers yet..Cocks birds are now bouncing fit and singing for all they're worth , hens in flights are starting to dabble with ripping up paper ,they're keeping pretty active and hopefully starting to get fitter ready for the rigors of breeding seaon which now the weather has at last turned cold doesn't appear a million miles away.. I've still some cock birds to shift on but i've finally decided on the 25-ish hens i'm hoping will go down in trios/pairs so it's all up to nature and the birds getting themselves fit enough to raise a couple of rounds starting late march/early april... Started noticing magpies actively seeking food in pairs now as opposed to single birds or larger groups whilst on my daily travels across the country ,so it looks like nature's slowly starting to settle and warm to the idea of the run up breeding season too.. I've added a tiny red pygmy bulb nightlight into my shed which i'm pretty impressed with , its just light enough to allow the birds a lil extra help to find a perch again if they got spooked at night , but not bright enough to allow them to become active during the night , will be a blessing during breeding season whilst hens are sitting eggs/chicks during the night.. After decades of using newspaper as flooring for all my birds in cages i stumbled across Easichick bedding,1st impressions were good as the birds seemed to love the new floor covering,rooting through it and it smelt like fresh bark every morning when the sheds were opened..It was certainly dust free but i kept noticing little bits of blue wood chips which i'm gathering was bits of painted pallets etc,also the odd little bits of metal and what i think was plaster or plasterboard,anyways i didn't get a second bag..A trip to get some more seed from Leicester (Countrywide mixed canary seed NO rape) last weekend, i saw Goldchips on display and after grabbing a handfull i knew that was the bedding i should be using,the huge bags weren't cheap but the quality was there,i purchased 2 large bags and am using the flawless product now,dust free,very clean,and very very absorbant...
Early February 2012 ; At last the snow's arrived let's hope it doesn't stay around long..We had about 5 inches of snow overnight but still the water bottles in the sheds aren't freezing so all good..Below freezing temps and a further dusting of snow forcast this weekend should throw things back as they should be STILL winter..March 21st is the spring equinox and thats when i aim to be putting my earliest pairings down... Mid February 2012 ; The snow and sudden cold snap seems to have slowly faded out and we're back on track getting towards spring with temps averaging 6 degrees,still trying to windle down the amount of gold cocks i have so i don't retain any more than i need for my silver hens.Tried in vein to get hold of 1 or 2 very good silver cocks over the last month or two,so looks like the handful of silver cocks i've got are going to be busy uns' ... Just starting to prepare all my nest pans,sewing in felts and insuring my smallest birdshed is ready to take the youngsters i breed in what i hope will be a successful breeding season,all cages are being touched up where needed, disinfected and ardap'd so touch wood "knock" my mite free stretch will long continue... Hens are still in long flights housed in 4's .. they're ripping paper to pieces from under the goldchips bedding but not carrying it yet (thankfully) , cocks are bouncing from perch to perch and singing their hearts out all day long,lighting is slowly being increased to extend the hours ..Now on from 7am till 6.30pm so 11.5 hrs and increasing 15 mins twice a week , last week in March is pencilled in but nothings set in concrete,when they're ready there ready ... Next week will see me increase the softfood/soak seed mix an extra day and the greens will also be increased to twice a week.. I managed to get all the birds individually dusted with mite powder at the weekend and will do the same again in 3 weeks, if i get chance tomorrow i'll trim all their nails and just give them all a quick once over whilst hadnling them, trimming nails isn't a job i enjoy but one we have to perform once a year, dark nails on lizards don't allow you to see the veins like in most canaries but common sense and a lil know how tells you roughly where's safe ..Accidents do happen whilst trimming nails and the most effective way i've found of instantly stopping the bleeding and ensuring there's NO infection is to pass the nail under the flame of a lighter for a split second to cauterize the wound...a method i've used for decades and always ensure i have a lighter in the birdroom first aid kit... Over the next couple of weekends i'll finalise my trio pairings,and will introduce the hens to there treble breeding cages withe the chosen cock birds centered between them... I've ordered another 7 new Lizard showcages to be made prior to the 2012 show season,giving me around 20 showcages to ensure i give the best of my youngsters a chance to prove themselves on the bench this year...Hopefully i'll have a couple of showteams ( A & B or Golds and Silvers) so none are overshown like last year when i think some of my birds were starting to look a lil tired by the AVCS in January... 10th March 2012 ; I've now started to remove a handful of hens from their flight cages into treble breeders , i placed a cock between them and thought i'd try and see how far off ready my birds were , i knew the cocks were bouncing fit and up for it and expected the hens to show some aggression as the cock birds poked their heads through the holes at the hens. But within 2 minutes all the cocks i tried were feeding the hens eggfood through the holes in the dividers , i've replaced them with solid dividers not to rush them , at least i know my hens are fit too now...I'll finish off moving all 25 hens into their breeding cages this weekend and whilst moving them about in training cages i'll Ardap the treble breeders for the last time before breeding commences.. The earliest of pairs will probably go down in 2 or 3 weeks , hopefully i'll be able to put 5 or so pairs down at different stages so i've always got a few back up nests at various stages should my birds have any problems with eggs/chicks , i'm now increasing eggfood/soaked seed mix to every 3 days with a lil greenfood twice a week to bring them on nicely , the only thing that will throw a spanner in the works will be me rushing them , so if i think they're 101 % ready for breeding i'll wait another week just to be sure , nothing worse than a round of clear eggs... Early April 2012 ; Around half (12 -ish hens) are now either sitting full clutches of eggs or have made nests and have laid to start the 1st round, i've about 45 eggs due to hatch between 18th - 24th April so touch wood "knock" their 1st rounds are well under way ..I've still got a few hens starting to make nests and 6 or so that as yet have shown no interest in nesting just yet.. It's still early and a long way to go yet so i'm in no rush either .. All the cock birds that have been paired to a hen or hens have been removed from my main birdshed and will await the next round or hen that's ready for them..No cocks are left with hens whilst they have eggs or chicks as i feel hens do better alone without the stress of a cockbird trying to help her bring up a round of youngsters, and if he isn't around she won't rush to start a new nest so therefore the chicks will get her full attension needed to be weaned successfully ... Here's some photos of hens sitting awaiting their eggs hatching without the distraction of cockbirds being around.. 1-5-2012 ; Well it couldn't have gone any worse if i'd tried so far , it's by far the worst ever start to a breeding season in 25 yrs , i've lost 20+ chicks all at or around the 7 days old stage... One day they were being fed the next morning they were all dead underneath the sitting hens, almost every chick that reached a week old died..In the past i've had young mums who don't feed too well and you loose the odd chick in the 1st couple of days ...but normally after day 3 if they're ok they end up on the sticks..weaned and trained ready to access after the moult... I checked for mite (nothing) i checked for mice/rodents disturning the hens (nothing) ... i considered changed the seed , the eggfood, scraping the nightlight and even thought of getting internal cameras installed etc etc i was desperate to solve the problem and was running out of ideas... i've recently found out after a chat with a neighbour that almost every morning at 4am when he gets up for work he see's a black n white cat on my shed roof and it often claws at the wood between the apex and the felt .. wether or not it is/was the cause of stressing the birds to leave the chicks to go cold and then die i don't know, but i've took measures to ensure the cat cannot get on my shed roof now .. and touch wood "KNOCK" i haven't lost a chick since ... but only time will tell.. After losing 20+ youngsters , I've now rung 13 chicks and have about 10 left to ring , and around 30 eggs still due to hatch over the next week or so to complete the 1st round... Let's hope there's some light at the end of the tunnel after such a disasterous start to my 2012 breeding season...
After a dreadful start to the breeding season once the cat problem was sorted i ended up with 44 lizards on sticks in the 1st round, my blue hen brought up a nest of 3 chicks but none carry the blue gene and are all normals, she now has 5 chicks in round 2 and fingers crossed i get a blue or 2 from these 5 youngsters.. The 2nd round is now under way and i'll update throughout the second round..Here's a few pics of chicks from the end of round one (below)... tbc... 9-6-12; Well my second round has started much better than the nightmare 1st round due to a cat on the roof... I've not 3 chicks out of a nest of 5 carrying the blue gene so it's all good on the blue lizard front too ...My young normal lizard count is flying up now i've about 60 rung and many more to ring over the next few days, i've about 20+ due to hatch next week and still 6 hens to start their 2nd round, hopefully i'll have enough quality to produce a couple of small showteams so i don't exhaust one showteam like last year ... Here's some more pics of the start of round 2 including some pics of the 3 blue youngsters... 13-6-12; I've just finished work and just rung my 80th youngster for 2012 .. I've another 25-ish chicks left to ring over the next week and then there's a few hens still on or starting their 2nd rounds,and it'll start winding down then...Hopefully ... I know one thing i'm keeping Cede eggfood in buisness lol , almost 20kg a month and it won't ease up until the end of the moult ..Hopefully i'll be able to sort a couple of half decent showteams for 2012 and we'll see how they do.. Onwards n upwards ... 15-7-12; It's slowly starting to steady itself off now i've around 4 hens (late starters) on their last rounds now, i've started using my 3rd birdshed and have around 12 adult hens in a huge flight (5' x 3' x 2') just chilling out ready for the moult to take it's grip... I've shifted a few more overyear birds on to a friend in Leicestershire who is going to be showing lizards this year after the 1st 2 pairs i sold him a while back have produced youngsters for him, so looks like another novice is going to be at some local shows which is always a good thing... In all but my main birdrooms i've switched off all electricity and am now on natural light only to provide a lil darkness to my youngsters who are starting to moult..The colour is starting to come through nicely and all the young cockbirds are starting to warble a little and exercise their vocals...They've all had the odd hour here and there in training cages when time allows me to do so,when my final chicks are independant it'll be just over 120+ so after a bad start it turned out a good return from 25 hens.. One thing that has stood out from any other year since i was a kid is the fact that having only seeing 2 or 3 pairs actually mating , out of the 50 or so nests NOT ONE has been a clear round,something i've never achieved before so the different way i decided to use trios this year has deffinately worked well for me,also a new fitness plan i put in place for my birds this year must have paid off as i only used 8 cockbirds with the 25 hens, and even now they're still swaying,singing and bouncing fit even though they're in a smaller shed which contains no hens at all.. It's been hard graft and i'll be the first to admit at times i wished i'd started with less hens this year but i persevered and with alot of help from Manda bless er' it's all been worth it...Wether or not the quality in the youngsters shines through after the moult only time will tell.. I started with 4 very good lines and will line breed from the stud i've started keeping the lines seperate to see if any produce the type of birds i'm looking for ... it's a marathon not a sprint so as long as im patient and keep faith in Mother Nature i'm sure if it's meant to be it'll be... I've another 7 showcages being made at the minute by Richard at Riva Cages (lil plug there fella) so if i get any birds worth benching i've done my bit and put them in the best surroundings i could if i do decide i'm going to show my birds... I'm not particually looking forward to the show season as so many different agendas has got most of the lizard folk back's up and i think it's not helping the fancy at all , and tbh i'm sick of all the BS and am happy just breeding lizards , i'll still join all the clubs and help out where/when i can but if i don't show my birds i'm equally happy still being part of the lizard fancy ... tbc... |
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