Any canary experts out there?!

[kellyanna]

Hey! Just wanted to ask some questions about my canary, Oscar. He is now 8 and has been perfectly healthy all his life. However, for the past year, he has been moulting practically permanently. As soon as he's finished, his feathers stay put for a few weeks and then they start dropping out again. It is only ever the soft feathers from his front and back - he only loses his flight feathers once a year. I understand that this is known as soft moult and might have something to do with light and temperature levels, but I don't understand why it hasn't affected him before now as we haven't changed the position of his cage or started to feed him different things. Could it just be a consequence of his age? Also, is there anything specific I can do to stop him moulting as he doesn't seem partcularly happy whilst his feathers are falling out and the abundance of yellow feathers all over the carpet is driving my family mad! Any help anyone can give would be most gladly appreciated.


Thanks everyone,
Kelly

[Shirley]

Hi Kelly,

I moved your post over to the Canary and Finches forum...

Is he still singing? My canaries lost feathers all the time all over the carpet and their cages, but I had several, so it was hard to say who lost the most... but during their moulting season, they lost many many more, including their flights, and they of course did not sing during this time.

No, it's not due to his age. If it's truly a soft moult, then it's likely due to diet, light, temperature, and health, or one or more of those factors.

He may just be losing the usual feathers they lose, and not in a "light moult". I'm not sure. I highly recommend you get this Canary guide book:

Canary Tales by Linda Hogan
available here:
http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Valley/6364/

She goes into great detail regarding diet, recipes, and such, as well as lighting as you already mentioned. She does not discuss "soft molt" much, but focuses more on the serious problem of failure to molt or a complete molt during the winter due to too much light. She does recommend keeping the temp lower to prevent soft molt or to bring the birds out of a soft molt, and to refrain from high protein food and high oil/high protein seeds until you are sure they are not going into a soft molt. High carb diet will bring them out of a soft molt. High carbs push them toward breeding, which brings them out of a soft molt, but that can also cause hens to lay eggs prematurely. (paraphrased from p. 123 of Linda's book)

She addresses molting, care/diet during and before molting, and molting problems in 3 or 4 different sections of her book.

We have several Bourke's Australian Grass Parakeets... and while they molt a couple of times a year, they lose little downy feathers all the time, sometimes more than others... you cannot avoid feathers all over the floor imo when you have birds.

Diet: In addition to seed, we feed fresh chopped veggies (corn, carrots, peas) and sprouted seed mix for small birds (see Elements of Bird Care and Practical Links forums and see drop down box to go back to beginning of forum dates for my posts on that topic.)

Hope this helps!

:wub:

[Shirley]

Here is another site I just found that might be helpful...

http://www.americansingercanary.com/molting.html

[kellyanna]

Thanks very much for your help, Shirley! He has now stopped moulting (for the time being!) and has started to sing again. He also seems much happier in general.

Have a great Christmas, and thanks again!

Kelly

[Shirley]

Great news! Thank you for the update! :thumbup:

[bird236]

Hello Kelly,
Can give you the answers you nead if you will tell me the following questions
Where do you keep the bird in the house,do you give it a bath,do's it get the sun on it's cage,how often do you clean and give fresh water,is these a house plant near it's cage,do you have a cat or dog,a lot of there's question have now a lot to do with has
or age,is this bird a cock or hen.

PS. You can get a cover for the bottom half of your cage which will stop the abundance of feathers on the floor

[scotty]

Kelly, Hi...my canary "Storm" is over 20 and never had that experience, but I can tell you that he loves his baths as all canarys do, so if your canary is not getting the chance to bathe I would put a simple seed dish next to his food dish and let him bob in and out to his hearts content, that may help him. I do know that it's not his age,and my Storm loves "DELICIOUS" apples the red ones,also scrapped carrots.
Scotty