20th April
5 nests have now hatched over the last week so things are moving along nicely now,the nests that have hatched are all cinnamon related pairings,i have paired 2 self cinnamon hens to variegated cinnamon cocks and both have young,the other 2 matings are a self and a variegated yellow hen to a lightly variegated buff cock so all young hens from this pairing will be normal and all the young cocks will be cinnamon carriers.the last pairing was a fawn hen that was given to joanne a couple of years ago,this hen last year would not let any cocks near her she would batter them as soon as you put them in the cage, i have seen her pin a cock bird upside down on the floor pulling his feathers out at the same time,we where down to the last cock bird in the shed and low and behold he battered her and they mated, i only see them mate a couple of times but all her eggs where full and they reared 5 chicks all where normal hens and cinnamon carrier cocks but never liked any of them so was sold on,this year we have managed to get her to pair to a cinnamon cock,she had 4 eggs of which 1 was clear and 1 was dead in shell the other 2 hatched but sadly on the 3rd day joanne came home from work to find 1 of the young on the bottom of the cage,she phoned me at work to tell me the news,knowing that she had a phobia about the young i asked her to pick it up and cup it in her hand and blow on it but she just could not do it so she just picked it up in a plastic spoon and blew on it but it never happened so she is down to a single chick,joanne has been wanting to breed a fawn of our own for a few years now but the chances of this chick being one is 50-50 so we will have to wait and see...
28th april
well the fawn hen with the 1 youngster its colour turned out to be a fawn on looking this morning it had jumped the nest, i think the mother turfed it out wanting to go down again because she just sits in the nest half of the time,the youngster kept jumping the nest every time i put it back up but with patience its now sitting on the side of the nest pan.all the other cinnamon chicks are coming along ok, but the problems with my lights/variegated and darks still persist with clear eggs and hens laying and not sitting,1 hen has built and been trod well for about 3 weeks now and has not laid an egg so i put dummy eggs in her nest this morning and she started to cover them so this afternoon i put some eggs that i had just set that the hen just was not sitting on them under her and she has been sitting tight on them ever since,still having problems with clear eggs but as i said before its not just us but loads of others having same problems,heard this morning that another fancier binned 19 eggs this morning all dead in shell,but its not only canary breeders that are having problems was speaking to a pigeon fancier yesterday and from 20 pair he had only 8 chicks with loads of clear eggs,pigeons only have 2 eggs but he has been having 1 to a nest hatching and others with dead in shell,said that he has never had anything like it before.
29th april
the last of our cinnamon hens eggs have hatched today that 6 nests of cinnies or cinnamon carrier young, its strange that we have had little problems with them but all problems with the clears greens and darks,but still not good with 2 nests of 4 plus 2 nests of 3 a nest of 2 and a nest of 1 total = 17 not a good average at all.
5th May
all the cinnamon young are progressing nicely with 3 of the nests coming up to 19 days old and the 1 in the nest a little fawn a single reared bird the mother is back on eggs and the young fawn sitting by her side,thats the trouble with single reared birds they are very lazy in feeding themselves but while the mum is feeding it i will let things be until i see it picking up for itself.finally we have broken the spell with a nest of greens hatching a couple of days ago, but i am not building my hopes up yet as she does not seem to be a good feeder and i have been topping them up a couple of times a day,still nothing going on with the clears and blues i had the blue lay a clutch of eggs and after setting them 3 days later i noticed she was not sitting on them,she is getting on a bit now being on an orange ring 2010 but i really want this last year from her so will be patient and hope she comes good as that was the second load of eggs she has had this year as the first lot were all clear,her daughters have built nests and are being trod but have not laid eggs as of yet.the clears first round eggs were all clear 1 of them is back on eggs and the other seems to have lost interest.as like every year breeding seasons come and go and all the stress that you go through at this time of year it sometimes makes you wonder why it happens,it seems that no matter how much time and preparation you put into preparing your birds for this time of year its never enough,every year different complications seem to want to try you but we soldier on and do our best.as for another breeder i have spoken to the mite have started to show there ugly faces..
12th May
the hen that was like a broody bantam and that i undersat some eggs that where cold because the hen stopped sitting 1 has hatched this morning i am not convinced that the others may hatch but the way i look at it if the hen was not going to lay her own eggs if she rears just that 1 chick that has hatched its a bonus.have now 12 young on the sticks and rung,one of the hens had started to lay eggs she had a second one this morning so i will let her finish laying and give her a week and let her go down again, have another couple of nest of chicks that are nearly ready to come away in the next day or so.the sad part during the week we lost a little self green buff hen she took best novice this year at the east anglia ffcc show which was pipped by gerald spencers self green bird what a loss she laid her 1st egg and the next morning came down to find her dead on the floor of her cage.still hearing of reports that people are having a bad time not only with northern mite and red mite but a lot of breeders even as far up as scotland and down here in sunny essex have got hens that are showing no interest in going to nest, a freind of ours has over 40 hens and still has over half of them that has not even attempted to build a nest we have at least 5hens doing the same as well.i am sitting here watching the young that we have just weaned from there mothers not 3 days ago having there 1st bath,it goes to show that under 25 days old and they are doing what comes naturally,i no some people do not offer them baths until they are over 30 day old but if they want a bath i am not going to deny them it.
19th May
the weeks are flying by now and there never seems to be enough time to do all the jobs that need to be done,today was spent cleaning and spraying all the cages and making egg food.and speaking to other fife keepers on the phone,and there are still reports coming in of hens leaving chicks at a couple of days old and of course the dreaded red mite a friend of ours who has had red mite last year and after such a bad season became obsessed with being so particular in everything to do in the bird room such as cleaning all drinkers/seed pots/ perches / cages and continually frontline all birds has got it again this year, lucky he checks every chance he gets and has caught it in the early stages so he has not got it bad but its there and he needs to stay on top of it.have now 15 on the sticks with a further 3 due away the next day or so with a further 12 at all different stages,some of the hens that were not doing nothing have now started to show interest and another 5 nests of eggs have been set,things have started to now develop for the better we honestly thought that it was going to be another bad year,if we finish with 50 i will be pleased. on what we have on the sticks so far i cant say i am overly impressed there are a couple that i like but being we lost a lot of our best birds we are struggling with the shape we require and clear birds are still non existent..
26th May
we have now 19 young on the sticks with another 9 in the nest at different ages with a further 7 nests on eggs set and another 2 nests laying, have now 2 clear young and from an unusual pairing,we paired a cinnamon variegated yellow hen to a lightly variegated buff cock which resulted in 2 clear birds and 2 heavily variegated all the young cocks from this pairing will be cinnamon carriers,it would be nice if one of the clears was a cinnamon carrier.a fellow fife keeper had a bit of a disaster during the week he was having a bit of a clear up in the bird room and knocked over a tray of eggs with over 30 eggs in it from 7 hens what a disaster, i no a lot of people have like an egg box holder fitted to the wall which is the sensible thing to do,we on the other hand use separate containers with the cage number and as they lay an egg we mark the label as they lay one until the 4th egg and then on the 5th egg put them back, i then put a label on the cage giving the date the eggs are due to hatch so as to make it easy on us all to watch for signs of egg shells,the day before they are due off i usually do a jug of warm water and float the eggs to see if they are all ok looking to see if the young are kicking about in the egg you will see tremors around the egg,plus it also helps to soften the shell a bit making it easier for the chick to break through.
29th May
at the moment its in its early stages but it is fact and it is going ahead and its going to be called THE LONDON FIFE FANCY CANARY CLUB Talks have been going on and the club had its first A G M and a committee has been elected.At the moment we are still in the early stages and there will be no show this year but we are looking for a hall for 2014 that will be as close to the M25 as possible so as to make it easier for people to get to the show,a suitable date for the show will have to be arranged as of course so it will not clash with any existing shows,plus we will also apply to join the fife fancy federation plus elect 2 members to represent the club at the federation annual meeting.At the moment the committee are as follows and we could not have asked for a better start for a fife keeper plus judge to agree to take an active role in which i am sure every one knows
Club President Mr Gerald Spencer (Barnsley)
Club Chairman Mr Terry Cockburn (Essex)
Club Secretary/Treasurer Mr Gary Macbeath (Essex)
Club Show Secretary Mr Terry Hardie (Essex)
for the record there are other committee members there names are as follows Ryan Wood from Scotland,Bert Smith from Essex and Bill Gammon from London, the only one that has not been covered is show manager and that will be covered by the committee on the day.we no there is existing fife federation clubs in the london and essex area in which we all like to show at such as the East of England,the East Anglia and the Kent and Sussex all great shows that we enjoy every year and hopefully they will look forward to taking part and exhibiting and supporting another fife show.there will be a website for the club that we will hopefully get up and running in time to keep every one posted on the progress of the club.
2nd June
21 young on the sticks a further 9 in the nests a further 5 due off tomorrow and 15 eggs at different stages.a lesson to learn a fellow fife keeper stated on a forum about how great one of his young is and that he thinks it could be a show stopper he even put the ring number of the bird on the forum and the colour of the bird,straight away its a marked bird, judges that could browse and use that forum could remember the colour and the ring number of the bird and be judging at a show and watch out for that bird,never put pictures of your show team on a forum or your own website, people i no have done this before and on going to the same show i have seen that same bird knowing it belonged to that person.
11th June
26 young now on the sticks should have been 29 but lost 3 due to going light,it seems so strange when you have a nest of young all the same but one never seems to be right from the day you wean them you just no that they are not going to make it, for over a week i watched these young forever with there head under there wing sleeping tail bobbing only waking up to feed then back to sleep yet every other chick from the same nest would be bouncing on the perch, but you just have to get over it and carry on.have a further 16 young at different ages in the nest, a further 3 hens on eggs and 1 hen just laying her 3rd round i have let her go again for the reason being that she only reared 1 on her first and 3 on her second so she has not been pushed hard and she started to pull the young ones tails out because she wanted to go down again, i hate it when they do this,last year i had a hen do this to a nest of young and there tails never grew back properly some only grew a couple of tail feathers,these young last year looked so promising as well but alas could not be shown.
16th June
yesterday Saturday we went to look at a hall for the London fife fancy canary clubs first show,another border federation club use this hall and tell us it has scope for at least 600 birds maybe a bit more which i think maybe big enough for our 1st show,the hall is close to the M25 with its own car park and with everything you need close by hotels, pubs and shops so you have something to do while judging is on, we will be having our first meeting 30th of this month to finalize the date of the show which is now on for this show season coming and its going to be the 5th January 2014 and you will be able to put your birds in on the night before if you so wish to do so, so will tell you more after the meeting.another well known fife keeper and judge has joined the committee and we are pleased that he wanted to join us his name is Colin Hart from Colchester .yesterday i did what a lot of people have made a mistake in doing, i have always cleaned the nest pan of the young in the nest and never have had a problem i usually do this up to when i think its safe and then stop for fear of them exploding out of the nest pan, these looked like they would be ok but it happened 1 went and the others followed all day i tried to get them back in the nest but it was a waste of time the mother is feeding them so i will now let them be,
23rd June
i have news that the judges for the first London Fife Fancy Canary club show will be K& S Roberts and Bill Bannister the show will be held at aveley village hall on the 5th January 2014.have heard that the great man himself Gerald Spencer has had a slow start to the breeding season himself with a lot of hens not doing nothing but things have now picked up and young he has bred have improved with quality again this year.in total to date we have 41 young on the sticks and in the nest and 19 of them are cinnamon or fawn young.plus we still have a fawn on 5 eggs so the balance will be tipped to more cinnamon than normal bred plus half of the normal birds if cocks could be cinnamon carriers being some cinnamon hens where put with a normal cock birds,have kept good records so it is not a problem.
30th June.
tonight the first meeting of the london fife fancy canary club will take place and i must say i am looking forward to meeting up with all the committee talking over the issues for the new club and to see how others have progressed with there breeding season.we have now 36 young on the sticks a further 4 young at about 12 days old and a nest of 4 hatch 3 days ago a further 7 nests of eggs to hatch,most of these have only 3 eggs to a nest but that is now it and will be the final count if we end up with 60 its will be enough, its been a hard slog this year we did keep more hens than normal but we have not bred nothing from 3 of them and 2 of them that had nothing but clear eggs i have used as feeders.the thing with breeding indoors is that you are hands on all the time where you leave the shed and go indoors you have closed your doors on them so to speak,i no you do not stop thinking about what you are going to do with them and a lot of planning is going on,but when you are with them 24/7 its so completely different where you sit down and watch the box i sit there and watch the birds and you see everything first hand,i have found that its never to early for the young to take a bath yesterday i was watching a nest of young which are still 21 days old and being fed by there mother i put a bath on the cage for her she did not get in it but all 3 of her young did and they totally enjoyed it then she had a bath herself,some of the young have started to moult now, and cage training has now started putting training cages on the cages for an hour a day.
7th july
we are now on the last legs of the breeding season with just a few hens on eggs the rest are now in a flight cage,as much as some of them would go down again its now enough,for what we have bred we have worked hard for and i believe its getting harder every year.we have bred 3 clears this year from a mating of a cinnamon variegated yellow hen to a lightly variegated buff cock so if any of them turn out to be cocks they will be cinnamon carriers how unusual is that,the next unusual one is a mating of a fawn hen to a cinnamon variegated yellow cock, first round one young one a fawn,second round two fawns and a cinnamon,third round what looks to be 2 clear whites a clear bird and a variegated unless the eggs got mixed up which i doubt but i just cant get my head round it,from that pairing i am looking for cinnamon and fawns picture below.
the other white you can just about see its head between the variegated cinnamon and what looks to be a clear,how weird is that
27th July
sorry its been a while since my last update but my pc has been in the menders on my last update i showed the picture of a fawn hen come cinnamon cock pairing and i was truly baffled to as the outcome of what was in the nest at the time,i had honestly thought that i had mucked up with the eggs giving her some from another pair but i worried for nothing,the young 2 clear whites a heavily variegated cinnamon and the last i thought was a clear and that was where i mucked up turned out to be a cinnamon it has just the tiniest marking of cinnamon feather making it a visual cinnamon so well pleased with the outcome.no more eggs now only young with just 12 left in the nests then we are finished,the total we will finish with will be 55 and as i said before its been a slog to get there.the main problem with some of the young that we have bred is the mother stripping them of there tails and back feathers,where we dont run pairs i think that could be the problem, where the young get to a certain age and are starting to stretch themselves on the side of the nest.i have found that its usually about that time when it all goes pear shaped the young are to young to feed themselves so you cant take them away,even putting another nest pan in and giving her nesting material and cotton wool does not seem to deter her from plucking the young,another problem i have observed is hens will put nesting material in there water pots creating a waterfall from the waterpot to the bottom of the cage making the cat litter turn to sawdust,i dont no if other people have had similar problems and would welcome any feedback on these problems.
4th August
went to visit a friend come fife breeder yesterday and spent a couple of hours there looking over his birds and how he has done with this years breeding season,he started with fifes a couple of years ago ,he purchased birds from 2 well known fife men none being from Gerald Spencer,from one he purchased a clear line and the other his dark line, not mixing them on his 1st breeding season,the outcome in my eyes was that his clear line he bred nothing showable,his dark line however produced some really nice greens and variegated with success on the show bench with them.this year he again did the same but bought in a few pairs of dark birds to use in his dark line, what i saw was a vast improvement in his dark line again this year,but i never saw nothing in his clears,this he already new and had decided himself to concentrate on his dark line and dispose of his clear stock.At the end of the day it is his decision,it is the hardest thing to breed good clears and hopefully he wont give up and look elsewhere for a good clear line.As for us still have the 12 young to wean which will be sometime this week,as soon as we see them picking up properly,still 1 hen persists in pulling feathers out of her young but we will have to live with that one,cage training is an on going thing,with loads of feathers all over the place with the birds deep in moult.I cant believe that some of my friends are still putting there birds down to nest as most birds are dropping feathers,the one good thing i suppose is that the young hopefully come good for the late shows.
11th August
today i visited Bill Gammons bird room with Gary Macbeath,we spent a couple of hours there looking over some of his youngsters, and I must say he has some good birds there,its funny 3 people looking over birds and every ones opinion is usually different, what one person likes the others have different views as to why that bird is different in there eyes.The one thing that i brought back was a little variegated yellow cock,he bred the bird from a Gerald Spencer variegated yellow cock to one of his best clear buff hens he bred 9 youngsters from this pairing ,in his eyes the bird never gelled with his bird, and he did not like the outcome of the young, but I saw 1 that I thought was decent and i will use it in my breeding program next year. I now have all my young weaned off,and I can say we are now finished,I have been accessing our birds now looking at what we will keep and what we will let go,but its still early days yet and until they have moulted i will not let nothing go,still waiting for that ugly duckling that will turn into a swan.
17th August.
2 days ago got up at 5.30 am for work as usual went to the kitchen to make my cup of tea,looked out of the window it was just getting light and thought to myself that I would hear the sound of the 1st cock bird go into song in a minute,I walked to the front room door, as i opened the door all i heard was total chaos loads of birds just fluttering about,i walked over to the cages and before i got there looked down to total chaos,there where tail and flight feathers all over the table, there where feathers all over the flight cage ,there was blood over the birds and on the perches and on the walls of the cage, 1 bird was in such a bad way its wing was so bad in parts it was down to the bone.I can only presume that 1 of the birds had either fell off the perch during the night or a bird had a fit either of these 2 things that have totally spooked the rest in the flight cage,pictures below.
there was as many feathers in the flight cage as well.There were 11 birds in the cage, and in all the other cages the birds where fine,that day most of the birds that where affected slept on and off,the next morning they had perked up and I gave them vitamins in there water and put baths on there cage which they all got in and used, i came home from work and decided to have a look at some of the youngsters well words cannot describe what I saw only to say I was gutted.
26th August
yesterday we had Gary Macbeath and Bill Gammon come to us for a visit,as always there is the usual banter about birds and there views and bill taking some stick as usual but overall a good visit,bill liked a few of our variegated birds and was impressed with our cinnamons in which we will not be following that route of breeding so many next year,most of our young this year are cinnamon related with a lot of the young being cocks will be cinnamon carriers, so the cinnamon blood will carry a huge part in our breeding program next year, as a lot of my pairings this year was a normal cock to cinnamon hens the cinnamon link will be there, and this will show next year when the young from these pairings will be normal cocks - cinnamon carrier cocks - normal hen - cinnamon hens,and of course the one big factor to remember keeping a good record,there for treating all cocks as cinnamon carrier until proved differently,next year we will keep a couple of cinnamon hens but we will run them with the cinnamon carrier cocks as I think since running normal cocks to cinnamon hens has improved 2 things,one being the feather quality and the other being the shape of the birds,this year I used a lightly variegated buff cock to 3 cinnamon hens the first pairing a self cinnamon yellow hen produced all variegated young.the second pairing another self cinnamon yellow hen produced all variegated young, but the third pairing a variegated cinnamon yellow hen over 2 rounds produced variegated young and clear young,so the clears from this pairing if cocks should be cinnamon carriers,how cool is that,if you paired a clear cinnamon carrier to a normal clear hen you will get visual cinnamon hens possibly lightly variegated cinnamon hens but can you breed a clear cinnamon hen.I do not know fully how the genetics work but its a very interesting subject indeed.it would be nice to hear from any body who knows more of the cinnamon outcomes from the pairing of a clear cinnamon carrier cock to a clear hen,plus the pairing of a clear cinnamon carrier cock to a self cinnamon hen
31st August
last week I asked if any body knew the answers to the question of a clear cinnamon carrier cock to a clear hen and what the breeding outcome could be.I thought that all the fife guys there would be a few that knew the answer, but I never got a reply,but I did get a reply from a young lady her name Vicky who keeps and breeds Glosters as a hobby,she does not show her birds, but keeps them just because she likes them,she sent me a link telling me the answers that I needed link below.
http://webspace.webring.com/people/up/parakenings.geo/cinnamons.htm
over the next few days she asked lots of questions on the keeping and breeding of canaries in which I was only glad to answer.our birds are still moulting very badly and the hoover seems to be going all the time,cage training is still being done at every opportune moment,the bird are still being watched to find out what are hens and what are cocks,
7th September
well it happened again during the week got up to chaos in the cages,a flight cage containing all the breeding hens and something set them off in the night, so again a lot of dropped feathers and blood in the cages.the show season is fast approaching and its going to be hard to pick what shows we will do this year,the only dislike I have about shows is the ones that you travel to and put your birds in the night before,these are the one where you have more of a chance of your birds and your carrying boxes picking up red mite and returning home with it,unlike a lot of you guys who read this we do not keep our show cages and boxes on the premises, so when i come home from the shows I take them to another room I then transfer them to a training cage spray the bird and then take them to there cages and put them in there own cages.straight away the cages and boxes are cleaned and sprayed ready for the next show.where a lot of you guys keep your show cages in your bird room you have more chance of your bird room getting mite,the one thing I know is that if I knew that I had red mite I would not put my birds into a show until I knew for sure that my birds cages and home where free of them.only then would I put our birds into a show,I would not want other people going through what me and some of our friends have gone through over the last couple of years,still plenty of feathers going up the hoover,even the early bred birds have still to finish there moult,of the fifty odd birds bred this year there has been a vast improvement in quality,but the good outway the bad but even in some of the bad there are good qualities as well, its going to be a hard time this year once they have moulted trying to pick the show team plus breeding team for next year.
15th September
We can finally say the show season is here the 1st show schedule we received yesterday morning for what I believe to be the biggest show in the country, the Midland f f c c on the 24th November,2 of the judges I have not heard of until now, and they are Mr R Wilson and Mr R Purdie,good luck to all of the judges there going to have there work cut out for them.Although the birds are still in moult cage training is coming along.with the birds 2 to a cage you do not always get the less dominant cock sing, where as if he is in a cage on his own he will usually give himself away and come into song a good way of sexing them.I am giving them at least 2 hours a time in the show cages,I put out 8 birds at a time so that way I can do 24 birds in a day.Just recently i spoke to a fellow fife man who over the last year started with fifes with his stock coming from Matt Eld,his name is Steve Dominey he keeps Yorkshire canaries and is also a judge,he travelled up to the midland show last year to purchase his birds from Matt and take in the show in which I think was an eye opener to him,he has got his own website for his yorkshire canaries and has started a fife one on the same one and as his fifes progress his fife site will progress to link below.
http://www.stevedomineycanaries.co.uk/
Hopefully we will see him at shows in the coming show season.
22nd September
It happened again during the week got up to total chaos again there was feathers everywhere and blood up the walls of the cage,have now closed the flight down putting what hens there is left 2 to a cage.that way if it is a bird having a fit at least it wont effect all the birds and i have more chance of finding out who is causing the problem.Me and Joanne and Jake spent a couple of hours around Gary Macbeaths shed today looking over some of the birds that he has bred this year,being Gary started breeding late his birds are way behind and are deep still in moult but he has some very promising youngsters,have now received our second schedule this one for the southern england.
6th October
its been a couple of weeks since i last updated this site and work has been taking a toll to how much time i can either see or spend with the birds,its now dark in the mornings when i leave for work and its now getting dark when i leave work for home in the evening,some are now in the last stages of there moult but the later bred birds have a way to go yet,we went to a border show yesterday this show was well supported with around 400 birds entered,although i do not like borders you can see the overall shape you are trying to achieve with your fifes only on a miniature scale.and it was interesting to find just how many of the border men and women keep fifes as well,its just a shame that they keep them as feeders for there borders.A lady who i spoke to has now moved from borders to fifes but still supports the border show,she got stock last year from a man who many Essex and East Anglians know Chris Wilding.the lady had her border collection stolen,and Chris helped her start up again with some fifes.so hopefully we will see her showing her birds this year.finally there will be an update for the London fife fancy website today,
21st December
Sorry we have note updated our site to all our regular readers and followers but have been busy with work and my daughters wedding and shows, and also working on the new fife show but will be back to normal as of tomorrow mean while you can look at the london fife fancy website page to see whats new,
28th December
its been a funny 2013 for us in the breeding and the showing of our hobby it has certainly had a lot more downs than ups.Up and until now we have only shown twice and that was the midlands and the kent and sussex,the reason due to our poor breeding season and the disasters we had with the middle of the night mayhem we had with the birds being spooked and dropping all there tail and flight feathers which happened twice over a couple of months,we could only put this down to one of the birds having a fit and that spooked the rest of them in the flight cages,as soon as we put the birds 2 to a cage all of that stopped.had 1 bird in the cards at the midland a heavily variegated yellow hen which got 3rd in a class of 29,we have not been happy with what we did breed this year that is the reason we have not shown at all our usual shows.hopefully next year will be better.its going to be a hectic time over the next week with the london fife show on the 5th january,everything is now prepared and cant wait for the day of the show.good luck to all those that have entered.