for us its the start of what we hope to be a better year in all breeding and showing.today is the East Anglia show this is a show which we love to do,but this year we decided not to because of not enough birds to show and in our eyes the birds we had where not good enough,but hopefully this year will be different and to all that entered today i wish them all the best of luck,this year we start off with having new stock from Gerald Spencer,we bought in a hen from him last year and to add to that a trio of 2 hens and a cock this year,this gives us 3 buff hens and a yellow cock to start with a new line,to that we have 3 buff blues a clear buff hen which all are of Geralds bloodline,plus there are a few hens we bred from a cock of his bloodline to a few cinnamon hens that we brought in so they are part Geralds bloodline,to this we have another yellow cock plus another buff cock which are 100% Geralds bloodline coming in,so hopefully we will be off on the right track this coming breeding season,even if it means taking a few years to create another stud of our own making.the one thing i will be doing in the future is not being so quick to get rid of birds when problems crop up like we did last year,this was having loads of clear eggs and us blaming the hens in which i took to the pet shop when it was the cocks that where infertile.
The hens are still in there flight cages but a bit of squabbling has started but nothing major so they will stay as they are for as long as possible.Most of the cocks are coming along nicely except for one that still has not come into song yet i suppose it all depends on how late it was bred its way behind mine that is for sure,i am going to find it hard as all of the cocks are all last years breeding seasons birds i have no over year cocks to put the hens to,i find with young cocks they seem to come into there own a lot later than over year birds putting them to the hen and when she squats he just stands there looking stupid,i hate that when it happens but you need the patience of a saint and he will gradually do his bit.Well i was talking to a friend a couple of days ago who said he was getting some supplies at a pet shop and the bloke in front was buying loads of red mite stuff,on talking to him he was a chicken keeper and he says he is running alive with the little devils and reason being we have not had the cold enough weather to kill the mite off.So if there already out there and its only February whats it going to be like come April or may when it starts to warm up.Well it seems we are not the only ones having problems with there hens i have been told that other people are also having problems as well and have had eggs been laid in the bottom of there cages,these people have no extra light or heating either so it seems the milder weather is taking its toll.
2nd March
the hens are still in there flight cages and although nothing major is happening some of the hens will persist in trying to pull out tail feathers from there cage mates,they hold on for deer life to the tail you would think they where in a tug of war match,what with the bird involved screaming her head off,apart from this there are no other problems,the hens are now on mixed canary seed but egg food is still not being given as of yet.baths are still being given as well as broccoli twice a week.the hen that was put on her own was so intent on pulling her feathers out with a vengeance was actually hanging upside down on the front of the cage grabbing hold of her tail feathers that much that she frayed all the feathers we have let her go to nest,we was in 2 minds on if we was going to use this hen or not so if nothing comes of it i am not to worried she had her 4th egg this morning the cock did his job up until the 1st egg and then she did not let him near her again so if there fertile time will tell.
19th March
The birds are all moving along nicely but its still a problem trying to hold them back, i do not want to start breeding till the end of the month at least so yesterday to try and hold them back i front lined them all both as a precaution and to hopefully knock them back a bit. next week i will clip there nails in preparation for breeding plus i will separate all the hens off that will give them a couple of weeks in there cages before the start.The hen that we did let go to nest stopped at her 4th egg,i checked her eggs this morning and 3 out of the 4 look full i am quite surprised as the cock bird that she was put with was one of the very last birds out of the nest from last years breeding season yet that bird was a lot more forward than all the earlier bred cocks,the eggs are due next Saturday so will let you no next weekend if things turn out alright.
22nd March
well the eggs all hatched last week got up on the morning found one of the eggs gone looked around on the cage floor and found the chick dead on the floor,the other 2 hatched that same day but both young died the next day,so the hen went to the pet shop like she was going there in the first place,we have now started with some of the other hens as they now show signs of wanting to go to nest i am adding the nest pans to the cage.i will not waste time with hens that do not prove them selves if they muck about they will go,every year come breeding season i always say things will be better and things will run smooth but it never happens ,every one that you speak with over the years always say that its the most stress full time and its true.
6th April
since our last entry out of 16 hens 6 have built and laid but 3 out of the 6 had clear eggs the other nests of the other 3 are all full,the other 10 hens are not showing any signs of interest 5 of these are all blues the others are mainly clears which was brought in and a couple of variegated birds,there is a cinny hen and a variegated hen which was showing signs of wanting to go down carrying material and arching on the perch every time they heard a cock bird sing but although they have been trod regularly for the last 2 weeks they have shown no signs of building nests or laying eggs.a lot of people i have spoken to have had the same problem as us building nests and being trod but with no eggs being laid so maybe its becoming more of a problem in canary breeding.
13th April
As always the breeding season is proving to be just the same as most years,i said that this year would be better or should i of said hoped that it would,personally i think that fifes are getting harder to breed as every year passes, and its not just us i believe that line breeding and breeding to close could be a lot of the problems some people that breed every year bringing in loads of unrelated birds do not seem to have the same problems and there birds are breeding like mice,the trouble with breeding with unrelated birds is its more of a hit and miss on whether you breed good show standard birds,its not just us but up and down the country i am hearing of the same problems from top fife men.from 4 hens that have laid we have 9 chicks that have hatched 2 nests of 3 a 2 and a 1 not a good start,another 2 have built nests and are laying but i am not going to be to sure if the eggs are going to be full as the hens would not let the cocks near them after being trod a few times.
20th April
a lot of the hens are still mucking about they started to show signs of wanting to go to nest so i put cocks to them and they where trod but still show no signs of building a nest,they persist in just throwing the nesting material all over the cage floor or trying to put it in there water.reports are coming in that a few good fife men have had a really bad start to the season with red mite and heard of 1 case of northern mite,one of them has lost over 70 young already and is still losing,he said that he had got rid of the mite but is still losing young,just because you have not seen any more mite do not mean to say that they are not there,you need to go into the bird room an hour or so after its gone dark armed with a torch,look around the nest pans,the ceiling of the cage the walls,the cage front every where if they are there you will see them.also reports are still coming in that a lot of people like us are struggling with breeding as well.one good thing that has come true last year we run a normal cock to a cinnamon hen and i kept one of the cocks from that pairing hoping it would be a cinnamon carrier,well it proved he was as this year i put him to a self cinnamon hen and true to form 1 of the young is a full cinnamon a good result.
27th April
things are still very slow in getting the hens to go down still 5 hens doing nothing,have had another nest of 3 hatch out yesterday bringing the count to 12 at the moment,some of the chicks have started to venture from there nests now going back when they want to,this is the time i hate because the hens want to go to nest again and this is when i try to watch for feather plucking the youngsters its always a problem at the 16 to 21 day mark,had 1 hen that i ran as a pair she only had 1 young one that was not hers anyway,she showed sign of wanting to go down again so i added another nest pan and she soon took to it and has built another nest so now waiting for her to start laying again ,the youngster is being fed by the cock bird so no worries there only hope that she has full eggs this time round.have had reports in that another pair of well known judges have had a disastrous time with red mite losing over 100 young so far, this year already has started with a vengeance with the little vampires my heart goes out to them knowing from experience on how they effect your birds.have today ordered our rings,i have gone with avian id this year reason i am fed up with the numbers on the rings wearing off and not being able to identify the ring number this happens sometimes after only a couple of months of being on the bird, have always used a c hughes in the past but when you say something about this nothing seems to get done,its not only us but i no of many people having the same problem,so we can only see if avian id are any better time will tell.
4th May
As i said in my last post we ordered our rings from avian id this year, i ordered them online last bank holiday weekend and it took just 2 working days for them to arrive got them on the Wednesday being the Monday was a bank holiday so how bad is that, shame as i had to send them back my fault i ordered closed rings instead of split for us,but on speaking to the lady at the other end of the phone she did not hesitate to say send them back and we will split them for me at a cost obviously.things are still a bit slow but improving have now 9 on the sticks with a further 9 young in the nests at all stages and a few with eggs due over the next week.still reports coming in of people losing large amounts of young due to red mite,others having the same problems as us with hens building nests being trod but not laying and pulling nest apart and some just not interested at all oh the joys of breeding season.
10th May
well the rings from avian id came back split this time but i cant say that i am keen on them the numbers do not stand out very clear to me,i could not read them very well off the bird but they are even worse once on and the birds in the cage,the first 9 of the young that we weaned off 6 of them have had there tails pulled out by there mothers,again things just do not go right. but the total now stands at 9 weaned and 12 in the nests and eggs due off over next week,one of the hens which never showed any interest has now built a nest and has been trod once but still a few hens that are not doing anything.i have noticed lately that more and more hens prefer to nest on the floor so i went to my local wood place and brought some wood to make my own boxes for the floor of the cage and here are the end products pictured below.
and the reason they prefer nesting on the floor is i think because of the cat litter,the hens always seem to shuffle a hole in the cat litter usually in the corner of the cage, i have tried taking the cat litter out and putting in the usual nest pan on the back wall of the cage but they wont even go up to it and as soon as i put a box in the cage they start building in it.the proof with one of this years hen with young picture below.
i made 4 of these boxes in about 1 hour and i will make another 6 over the next couple of days.
17th May
another week past and another week of crap had a nest of 5 hatch out last week and over 4 days lost the lot,looked after the 2nd day there was only 3 found the 2 dead ones on the floor of the cage next day found another in the seed pot and the next day the other 2 was dead this was a green to blue pairing of my original bloodline and was really looking forward to her rearing these young ,but its always the way i was so gutted, i noticed with the hen bird that her breast feathers where all sweated up it looks to me that she was sitting to tight all the time i kept making her get off the young but she just kept doing the same again,i wont be letting her go to nest again.have now 14 on the sticks and a further 11 at different stages in the nests, another 2 nests of eggs set this morning and a further 3 hens laying and another nest of eggs due off in 3 days time.things are moving on but it is still hard work.have heard that people are still having a worse time than us with 2 people having lost over 200 young between them and others who have 30 plus hens who have not got chicks into the double figures yet,so it goes on.
25th May
18 on the sticks now a further 3 will be there over the next week,there is a nest of 4 hatched about a week ago this pairing is the only hen i have left a cock bird with reason because the cock was a bit on the big side not size but heavy he was in a flight cage but never seemed to fly around the cage a lot but never seemed to lose it and the 1st time i see him try to tread a hen he was so clumsy he fell off her onto the floor so that was the reason,it proved me right in doing so as after her eggs where set i checked them on the 7th day and they where all clear,i gave her 3 eggs from another hen that was ill and stopped sitting,only one of these hatched and being both the cock and hen where feeding it progressed very quickly on about the 17th day i put another nest pan on the wall of the next cage and opened it up as she was showing signs of wanting to go down again,soon she was building again and laid five eggs,the cock bird brought up the chick that was with them,well 4 of the five eggs hatched and i have never seen chicks grow as quick as these,both parents are pumping these youngsters all the time,so he has proved himself to be a really good bird,have had a nest of 5 hatch this hen is on her own,she is on her 2nd round after rearing a nest of 3 but they do not seem to be full of food like i have seen her do with the first round young but its early days yet hopefully she will improve.set another nest of eggs this morning bringing the total to 3 hens sitting.Have been speaking to quite a few people over the last week and all have birds doing the same building nests being trod and not laying a single egg,all these hens do is sit in the nest all day long but never lay an egg,i had this problem last year and i have it again this year with 2 of my hens,what i did i put a dummy egg under her 1 a day for 3 days if she has sat tight on the 4th day i give her a clutch of eggs to bring up i did this last year and it worked,well its not a broody bantam but a broody canary and at the moment i have a broody hen on her 3rd dummy egg and tomorrow i will give her a hens eggs that i no only 2 out of the four she is sitting on are full there is only a week to go before they hatch but i no they will be ok. During the week i had a nice talk with Dave Shelbourne who not only kept canaries but had pigeons it was so nice talking to him and look forward to meeting him in the future,
1st June
i was saying last week about broody canaries who sit in the nest all day and do not lay eggs, i was going to give her some eggs to rear but it never happened i looked at her one morning and she was fine 2 hours later my other half went to the cage and found her on the cage floor dead that is the 1st time its happened this year.the hen with the nest of 5 chicks did not seem that well and was sitting on the perch asleep a lot during the day so we took it to hand feeding the young as much as possible over the next few days yet she still went up and covered them in between topping them up, and all through the night she covered them as well,she has since recovered and has took over her duties with gusto.we have weened another 3 chicks off today they are 25 days old and have seen them eating on there own between top ups from the mother so last night moved them to the cage next to her,this morning all i have heard one of the young calling for the mother to be fed,your minds telling you to put it back to the mother but i am not going to give in to it at 25 days old it should be fending for itself,those 3 will bring the total to 21 on the perches.
4th June
the young that was crying for its mother to feed him stopped its crying in the afternoon and started to feed for itself.we had a hen lay 5 eggs and on the 5th put them back but she decided not to stop there and laid 7 altogether,i decided to under sit 3 of the eggs under another hen that laid only 2 eggs,turned out 6 of the 7 where full and have hatched giving them 3 each the 2 eggs that where with the hen where clear,another nest of 4 young are now rung and on the perches bringing the total to 25 with another 15 at different stages.
7th June
another nest of 4 has started to hatch out this morning,have now only 2 hens on eggs and one building and 2 not doing anything at the moment all the rest are with young,the partnership of g&b fifes bill gammon phoned me earlier tells me he is now over the 100 on the sticks and is beginning to wind down his breeding hens,that will be the day i bet he still goes over the 150 or more,i had a young lady from america her name Janet Echeverria email me she searched the canary websites online to let people no over here that she has show cages for sale and this is what she said with links below
I found your website while searching online for potential interested parties in the show cages I have for sale. I have several Fife and Border canary show cages in very good condition which I am selling at wholesale price. If you might be interested, please feel free to visit the sale pages I created on ebay:
Fife show cages
http://www.ebay.com/itm/171324650071?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1555.l2649
Thank you for your time, I hope this was not a bother.
she then went on to say
Hello Terry, thank you for your prompt reply! I have 14 show cages available with the top hat drinkers. I would also provide a carrying case to store them in.Please let me know if you have an interest in these cages, if you do not, I would appreciate it very much if you passed along the information to anyone you might know to be interested in them. Thank you very much.
so i thought i would share this with you that read my site happy reading.
8th June
this little youngster is 19 days old and still with its mum but it has caught my eye, i think its because its unusual with its dark tail feathers.
15th June.
firstly i would like to tell all that read this website and to all that no bill gammon that he is at the moment in hospital after undergoing major surgery to his liver and after being on the operating table for over 6 hours he is now back on the ward,when i find out more i will update to let people no, lets hope he makes a speedy recovery.have now 30 on the sticks and a further 13 at different stages.with 4 hens on eggs plus one that all through the breeding season has done nothing but build nests and just sit in it, i thought i would give her one last try and i left the cock with her all the time she was building her nest, for about 4 days after she finished building her nest she laid nothing so i took the cock away 3 days later she laid her very 1st egg so i put the cock back to her and have left him with her she laid her 2nd egg yesterday but did not lay one this morning so what will come of it we will have to wait and see.i hope to finish with at least 50 young this season.
21st June.
good news about bill he is home after such a bad time with op having caught pneumonia as well,he is well and home and vows to stop smoking as well.have now 37 on the sticks and another 9 at different stages plus 3 hens on eggs one being the hen that had done nothing but she laid a total of 3 eggs over 5 days so we will see what comes of them and whether they will be full or not,finally if you no some one is infested with red mite do not take a trip to there bird room chances are you will end up with it in your own bird room as a friend of mine found out after visiting a friends bird room.
26th june
i cant tell you just how peeved i am with the rings that we purchased from avian id they are the biggest load of crap putting it mildly,some of the rings have not been on the birds a month yet and i cant read the numbers already i no that hughes rings can be bad but they are so much better than what we got.to date we have now 42 on the sticks and a further 3 left in 1 nest plus 2 sets of eggs due off on the 28th that is the last of them and then we will be finished.the hen that had the 3 eggs over 6 days they where all clear so she has gone into a flight cage with the rest of the finished hens.
28th June
it never ceases i took a liking to a nest of 3 they where about 17 days old and dropping in and out of the nest of there own accord i looked them over in the morning and thought they really do show potential come home from work on the evening and every single one of them has had there tail pulled why do the hens have to do this totally ruined for showing this year,my final 2 nests of young started to hatch out yesterday and this morning 1 hen had 5 eggs the other had 4,the nest of 5 have all hatched but the nest of 4 only 1 hatched and the others where all dead in shell,i will now after a couple of days even the 2 nests of young out with 3 in each nest,i have already moved 1 of the 5 under the other hen and will see how things go over the next couple of days,the one that only had 1 hatch still had the cock bird with her,i did this because she is a 3 year old hen so i thought if all her eggs hatch it would take the strain out of rearing them herself,but i have noticed the hen on her own seems to come off and feed more than the hen with the cock bird with her the next few days will tell.
6th July
well i did even the 2 nests out making 3 to a nest but i wish now i should have given the pair together more as the hen that had 5 eggs hatch lost 2 of the young and has been left with just the 1,i could not give the last young one to the pair as it was quite a lot bigger than the 3 in the other nest so hoping it will survive,she reared a nest of 3 on her 1st round so i cannot understand why she lost 2 of the young.have no more on eggs now so once the last of the young are weaned off that will be the end of breeding,a lot of the young have started to moult now and cage training will start soon.
13th July
have weaned another 3 young off this morning leaving 5 to go that will bring the total to finish the breeding season with 50.the breeding hens most are in a flight cage but still persist in trying to pull there own feathers out and that of other hens in the flight plus still finding eggs scattered on the floor of the cages seems they just cant turn off from breeding.the training cages have now started to go on the cages letting them get use to going backwards and forwards into there cages,and Joanne likes to try to settle the youngsters down getting used to being around us by trying to get them to feed from a seed tray while she holds it picture of her doing just that below.
with a little bit of patience the young get inquisitive and start to come and feed from the pot while she holds it.the bulk of the young that we have bred this year are heavily variegated and variegated,the 2 buff hens that we got from Gerald this year 1 lightly variegated buff and 1 clear buff one did not breed which was the variegated the other the clear on both rounds i ran to our self green yellow cock the one in the picture on a past entry from 2 rounds she reared 7 young which up to now i am pleased with only time will tell once they have moulted out. the hen a variegated that i got from him last year i also ran her to the self green on the 1st round and then to the cock i got from Gerald this year but the 2nd round only produced 1 young the others where dead in shell,up to now i am pleased with both of these pairings.so these 2 cock birds where the 2 main birds used in running with hens.the other cock birds that where used was a cock bird that i bred from Geralds hen last year this i paired with a hen of ours of which had good type,from this pair she reared 4 young of good type.another a cinnamon carrier buff cock again of good type which i kept to a single hen a self cinnamon yellow hen from this pairing she reared 5 young of which 3 where cinnamon and the other 2 where heavily variegated all these young where feather plucked so would be no good for showing,the hen was given away to a pet shop shame because she was of good type taking best novice cinnamon at the southern england in 2012 last year she did the same with her young but i thought i would give her another chance to redeem herself,lastly i used a clear yellow cock bird that was given to us by bill gammon i ran him to 3 hens taking 1 round only from each rearing a total of 13 youngsters from him sadly he had a fit and died a couple of weeks ago,from these 5 clears where bred all the others variegated some look promising but only time will tell.from the 13 bred i will not keep any of the cocks only the hens and that they would be kept on a separate breeding program from my main stud of birds as they would only have 50% of our bloodline they will be run to 1 of our cock birds next year.
20th July
we are now on the last legs of breeding there are just 5 to wean off the young are all out of the nests and still being fed by there parents as soon as they are picking up by themselves i will separate them off to a cage together.some of the people i have spoken to most are winding down and some are finished yet some people are still setting eggs,we will finish with 50 this year some will be going soon i want to get them down to 40 as i have 20 cages to work with i can then put 2 to a cage,as cock birds are rattling on i will try to take there ring numbers if they have not worn away,avian id need to sort there rings out,i will then try to put 1 of each sex to a cage, i would rather put 2 hens together than 2 cocks as a lot of bickering and fighting would occur especially around roosting time even pairs seem to bicker a lot as they argue over who is going to roost where.i would of liked to have started them with training cages a lot earlier than we did but its hard when you have got birds with eggs and young in cages and training cages would have been a distraction i think.but we have started and will now step it up more once the last 5 are parted from there parents.
27th july
just 1 more young one to wean now should be over the next day or so,but as with a few of our young this year she has plucked it the one thing she has not done is pull its tail out she has pulled the soft feather around the bottom part of the bird,i would rather them do this than the tail i have had some real nice birds ruined over this as even when they moult out the feathers do not grow because the follicles have been damaged. Yesterday i spent a lot of time accessing the young putting them into training cages and just taking note and i must say i feel a lot happier this year with the birds and what has been bred the only down full is the youngsters that have had there feathers and tails plucked its a shame as some where really nice birds of good show material,i will not keep the hens that did this because they will always do it, i did give a hen a second chance as she did it last year but she did it again this year, even leaving the cock bird with her did not help as she tried to pull his tail feathers out,i gave her away to our seed supplier and she is now in a aviary with access to indoor roosting, a few others will be going there as well.
3rd August
our good friend Gary Macbeath came around yesterday and spent a couple of hours looking at our birds and generally talking about past and present shows and whats going on at the present time,it was a most enjoyable couple of hours spent and will have to go and visit his shed.the birds are really deep in moult and its so hard to make decisions on whats going to be kept,i really have made my mind up on how rufeless we will be even if it means not having a big show team,at the moment my thoughts are on what we have bred and what needs to be done to go forward in our breeding next year,cage training is done as much as possible at the moment.
10th August
the birds are so into moult now its hard to see past feathers the hoover is going so much now at the moment but its always nice to see past the feathers and see the end product,as regular readers you all no how i feel about the rings we got from avian id this year,on a forum i go on there was other people like us that where as peed off with them as we where so i thought i would do something about, after talks with them and them asking me to send back rings that i have left this i could not do, i sent them photos of how some of the rings on the birds feet had gone as the picture below
we all need to be able to read the numbers on the bird as needed for keeping good records, and that is the most important thing being able to look at the ring on the bird and identifying the number to your records,this you cannot do if the numbers worn away,the owner of avian id Jim Reeves got back in touch with me and assured me that being a bird keeper himself and knowing about keeping good records is a must that he was on the case with the issue of the rings and he would sort it out,not good for the people this year but hopefully better for everyone next year.
17th August
Another week gone by and the feathers are still dropping like snow, today will be a day of cleaning the seed and grit pots and general maintenance of the cages.i spent the day yesterday looking over the birds and putting the ones i think at the moment we will not be keeping in a flight cage together,i am sure that i will be changing my mind a few times by the end of the moult.It was nice to see the partnership of Gary Wilson and Gordon Murdie in the cage and aviary this week,i have got to no Gary mainly at the shows but we do keep in touch by phone,he is such a character and must say its never dull around him,but the partnership has been so successful over the years and i am sure things will only get better for them and i look forward to meeting up with them in the future.i wonder if anyone noticed the mistakes made with Gary and Gordon in the interview if you did let us no its always nice to talk to you all.
24th August
the birds are still heavy in moult but there appearance keeps on changing,this year we seem to have bred more yellow feathered birds than buff,but as for cocks its hard to tell have had a few rattle on but nothing outstanding at the moment,the young have all been put 2 to a cage now except for 10 that are in a flight cage,i did this last week leaving the ones that i think will be going but i have changed my mind already and 4 will be staying,some have already gone and the rest will be going soon,these i no for sure as much as they will change i no they will not be show potential birds.have not done as much show cage training as i would have liked due to so much work,even Joanne who usually does it during the day has not had the time herself to do it so things are slow there but will be done when possible.
31st August
the birds are still very much into there moult now and we are spraying and offering them baths on a regular basis,cage training is at the moment slow as to not stress them out while they go through the moult.As some of you might have read on the forum i with my good friend Gary Macbeath have taken on whats going to be the new fife federation website,and its going to be an information website,if all the clubs send in all there particulars about there show dates and everything people need to no about schedules and who to get in touch with,booking in either the night before or on the day,hotels nearest the show,each club will have there own page,and what that page will hold will be the details of there show,the results of there show plus any pictures they send to us we will do our best to publish as much as possible,its only going to work if we have the cooperation of all the clubs and you wont have to wait to see if its going to be printed in the weekly cage birds paper and that is if they print it,i have started to build the site and its coming along nicely,but please remember on building websites its not easy and i can only do my best,a lot of people have been wanting this site up and running for a long time now so the information we receive is whats going to hopefully make it the best information site on the web.
28th September
sorry to all you out there that follow our site but i have been really busy with the creation of the new fife federation website,which is now live,as for us our birds have come along nicely with the moult,but as of lately they have lacked show cage training,now that both me and joanne are working long hours the birds have suffered when it has come to cage training but apart from this the birds are showing promise if we get a show team of between 10 and 20 birds we will be happy,show schedules are now coming through the door so it begins.
5th October
the birds are changing all the time as every week goes by,on assessing them individually i have noticed a few of them have got the dreaded pigeon chest these birds i will not keep for breeding next year, the mother of these young will also have to go.cage training is still given at every possible moment.A lot of you will already no that the fife federation website is now live and have had really good feedback from people,but as i said previous it will only be a success if people put them selves out to give us information and results of there shows,the link to the website is on the home page of this site and the london fife fancy website.
12th October
have now finished accessing the birds and must say i am not pleased with the end result, we new starting a new line would drop us back this year and it has,but for some reason a lot of the young that we have bred are to fronted and i need to look at records to find out whats going on,from the fifty that we have bred i dont think we will get into double figures for a show team,the federation website is coming along but people are still slow in sending in particulars of there show,have had a few people send in but not as many as would have liked,but have had a lot of feedback from many people on the site itself,i have had last years show results come to me from the federation in which i have added to the federation website,i have also asked for any results for 2011 and 2012 to be forwarded to me so as to bring the results up to date.
3rd November
well have now finished sorting out the birds and the problem of to much front on them and going back on the birds from both last year and this years breeding have found that they have been bred from a hen that was given to jake 3 years ago,there was a few fronted birds last year but let it go as was not bad but this year it came out with a vengeance through that related family,so the whole of that line is going,six went over the weekend with a further 16 birds going over the next couple of weeks hopefully this is the last we see of it.as for the show season its been another let down this year,you always hope for a good seasons breeding so as to have good birds for showing but every year seems to bring nothing but set backs,the line that is going there where far more hens than cocks but with my other 2 lines i have bred far to many cock birds,so over the next couple of weeks i will be looking to try to get a breeding team up with whats left.
16th November
yesterday i spent cleaning all the cage fronts, being there all plastic fronts i just drop them in the bath and give them a good scrub with a brush giving them a good scrub getting all the build up of dirt and muck off them,its very time consuming but worth the effort,cage training to some of them went ahead yesterday with some more today,our good friend terry hardie will be visiting this morning after we paid him a visit last week,i must say his birds have come on leaps and bounds,since the start of his changing over from borders to fifes his birds have improved with each years breeding season and have proved themselves on the show bench,i could not be more pleased for him,and with a few more shows left for him to do lets hope he has the same success,i have been going over the birds over the last couple of weekends on whats left and there are some nice birds still so hopefully will get a small show team up for a couple of shows.still have couple of birds to go from the family of fronted birds but i have held them back to show terry and gary what they are like because overall the birds had quality apart from the bad fronts.i said gary as of gary macbeath as he may turn up this morning but will wait and see.
30th November
well our morning with terry hardie went well and had a nice time looking at our birds and talking of shows that he has done this year a really great morning was had.i was not going to show this year i just have not got enthusiastic with the birds that we have left, but i will put some out at our london fife show,i have been busy going over records and matching half brothers and sisters for breeding next year,when you think of it its not that far away 4 months it will fly by.
14th December
Well its the week after our london show and it was a very busy weekend for the club,but a really good one also for me it was the only show that i will have done this year,i entered 9 but only took 7 and out of them i had 3 in the cards taking 4th in a class of 9 with a self blue hen,4th in a class of 12 with a 3 parts dark yellow hen,and the best one taking 3rd in a class of 21 with a clear buff hen,it would have been a lot better if i never made a mistake and wrong classed the best bird i took,i have been keeping fifes for over 8 years now and its the 1st time i have made a mistake in the colour of a bird,she is a little hen but she is quite long feathered showing quite a lot of light feathering in the wings so i classed her as buff but the judge said and showed me there was no frosting around the neck so she was actually a yellow bird,a not to good photo of her below.
as you can see there is quite a lot of light feathers. The judge told me that if i had right classed this bird it would have gone a long way,so goes to show even i can make a stupid mistake even now.at the show the judges Tony Carline and Richard Evans stayed on after the judging till late in the afternoon,they answered some questions for me in which i thought was really good,its nice to see the judges stay on and not rush away even with the long drive they both had to make to get home.
21st December
i have now got the young that we bred this year from 5o+ to 23 and as it gets nearer to breeding season it will come down more when i make the final decision on whats left to keep,i have gone through the remaining young to find all the best possible pairings.i have bred some nice birds from the spencer line also crossing his cock bird that we brought in last year to my hens that i have bred from previous years,sadly i lost the cock bird but have bred a couple of nice cock birds from him a yellow and a buff so they will be retained as the main breeders going over most of the hens which are half sisters.
29th December
this will be my last post for 2014 and hope that every one had a great christmas and would like to wish every one happy new year for 2015.I am now down to 20 hens and 8 cocks for next years breeding season,and i have still to come down a lot more,its now so hard to let go of what is left but its got to be done.i have 2 more hens coming in plus 1 cock bird that i have to allow for on my final count on what to keep back for breeding i am finding the last push very hard.next week the hens will all go into flight cages until about the 2nd week in march so as to get fit.today baths have been offered to all the birds but still a lot of them prefer to try and bath in there drinking water.the seed has now been changed in its mixture to 50% mixed canary and 50% plain canary this i will keep as it is till the end of February.
Below is a weeks summary of how the federation website is doing on visitors viewing the site.