Whose The Daddy?

[FrogsGoMoo]

Day 10:

The baby is starting to get some tail feathers coming in. They started coming in yesterday, but they're definitely becoming more prominent now.



Brown Sugar gave me an angry face as well today.



I've also noticed an interesting phenomenon lately. So I'm pretty certain Oreo is the daddy of my finches, I saw him and Peanut Butter mate, and then a few days later eggs appeared, and well, babies appeared. The only other male placed with Peanut Butter is Cookies & Cream. Oreo still sings and dances since the eggs hatched, but Cookies & Cream doesn't. He's very quiet. And he's usually the one who's the loudest! So it's very odd to me that the non-father isn't singing, while the one who has a mate, is. Certainly very odd..

 

[Pat H]

GREAT OBSERVATION ! ... I'll have to access you if I EVER get into Canaries! Thanks!

 

[FrogsGoMoo]

Day 12:

Wasn't able to get a photo of the baby yesterday since we were gone all day and I have the lights set to turn off at 7, and I wasn't going to disturb the birds to just take a photo. But today the baby is covered in so many new feathers! She should easily be fully feathered by week's end. Excited to see what colors start to show in the upcoming days.



Also it's eyes are fully opened at this point as she starts to observe the world around her.

 

[FrogsGoMoo]

Day 14:

Couldn't get photos again yesterday due to being busy that afternoon and night, but got some good photos today.





Not sure if the yellow belly is due to Brown Sugar having a yellow belly as well, or because she's Sherbet's baby. There's some yellow on her pin feathers, but I'm not sure if that's due to them being pin feathers, or because they'll actually end up yellow. We're sure to find out any day now!

Gave her a bit of a bath since the nest was getting nasty and poop was getting stuck in the feathers. Plus I'm attempting to potentially bond with it and see if I can get it somewhat "tame". Tame as in, doesn't scream and run around the cage like Paprika still does. I've tamed my finches to the point where I can feed them spinach from my hand, but they won't fly to me, which is exactly the type of bond I'm going for. So I fed her a few times today, the first time was difficult, but after that initial feeding, she excitedly took food from me. We'll see how well it works out since the only truly "tame" birds I've had are House Sparrows I raised from babies after a cat killed their mother in a tree by our house.

 

[FrogsGoMoo]

Day 15:

Bonding with her has been a lot easier than I honestly expected. I simply look her direction and she immediately perks up chirping at me. Hopefully, I can keep up this bond as she gets older cause I'm really enjoying it so far. But we'll see.



She's certainly getting darker than Brown Sugar, close to Paprika's darkness. But today I caught Paprika trying to make a nest in the food bowl, so who knows what gender he is at this point. But she's almost completely covered in feathers at this point. Some spots here and there like her neck, but for the most part she's a fluffy little bird now! The belly is so yellow/white and soft I absolutely love it! It's crazy to think that 14 days ago as of this morning, I found her in the nest looking like this:



They grow up so fast..

As for my finches, they got some beautiful bright white wings coming in. I was taken back by how white they are, which makes sense since their parents are bright white and black/brown, but for some reason on them, it looks bleach white. Maybe it's because they're brand new feathers, but either way, they're gorgeous!



So far it looks like I'll have 2 black and white, and 1 brown and white. Maybe brown, black, and white..? I had a hard time finding any info on color outcomes from breeding their 2 color schemes, so who knows. Should find out by the end of the weekend their final colors.

 

[Britnicorn]

Babiesss!!!

 

[FrogsGoMoo]

So Brown Sugar seems to be in a frantic mood right now. I keep finding her with nesting material in her mouth as she frantically tries to find a place to build a nest. Based on what I understand, this is pretty typical for once the babies of the previous clutch start to fledge. My only concern is health. She laid 4 eggs in early May, 4 more late June, and laid 4 late July. Of all 12, only 1 egg hatched. Should I let her lay a 4th clutch? Based on what I've come across, the major health concern with letting them lay so many eggs is due to the energy spent taking care of babies. So if she only had 1 baby, of which I've been doing a lot of the feeding the past 4 days, she should be fine right? I have them on a mix of egg food, fresh veggies, and pellets. So I feel diet wise she shouldn't be nutritionally deficient. I just like to let animals be themselves and not restrict their behaviors, so if she wants to lay eggs, I'll let her. But only as long as it doesn't harm her in any way.



Tried to get a better photo, but everytime I walked closer she dropped the nesting material like I was busting her with contraband lol.

 

[finchly]

I wouldn’t let her breed again.

 

[FrogsGoMoo]

Day 16:

Her colors are coming in much more profound now! She's beautiful!



Those yellow/orange accents are just absolutely stunning and I can't wait to see what she'll look like full grown in a few weeks, cause I'm in love with color accents like this on birds.

She's also starting to perch up better. Yesterday whenever I'd feed her she had to be propped up with my finger on her back to prevent her from falling all over the place, then this afternoon she started to hold herself up with just slight fumbles.

I'm also expecting her to probably take flight (or at least attempt) this weekend. She's starting to flap her wings randomly and those wings are nearly fully developed, so I wouldn't be surprised if by Monday I'll have to worry about the 2 predators (dogs) that lurk the household.

But she also loves to sit on my hand for some reason. Either she thinks I'm her mommy, or she likes the warmth. Today she crawled over to my hand, curled up, and slept for 2 hours. It was adorable, but I was trying to work and my hand was majorly cramped by the end.

 

[finchly]

Enjoy the hand sitting! It may not last after she starts flying.

I agree, she is beautiful

 

[FrogsGoMoo]

Enjoy the hand sitting! It may not last after she starts flying.

I agree, she is beautiful

When we had the House Sparrows they were the same way. Hung out perched on my shoulder all day. But the moment they could fly they wanted nothing to do with me. Was heartbreaking. So definitely enjoying every moment while I can! At least she's able to perch a lot better, so holding her for the last 3 hours has been less painful!

 

[FrogsGoMoo]

Day 18:

When I thought I concluded Paprika was the father, some more yellow came through. I'm still leaning more towards Paprika, since I feel if Sherbet was the father, she'd have more yellow. But Brown Sugar could have strong genes.



Got some somewhat better photos of Brown Sugar and Paprika for comparison. They get very finicky when I hold my phone up to their cage, so it's hard to get a good close up.

Brown Sugar:



Paprika:



The yellowness could easily come from Brown Sugar, since she has yellow in all the same spots the baby does, and the baby is darker than Brown Sugar, resembling Paprika. That's at least what's supporting my theory on Paprika. It's still just crazy to me to think they mated within 3 days of meeting each other.

And my finches have got a vast amount more color the last few days.



I'm really liking the one on the left. I love how white it is. Easily my favorite so far.

Also, the one on the right gave me a heart attack today. When I woke up this morning and did my morning check, I found it on the bottom of the cage on the opposite end of the cage from the nest. I have no idea what happened, but I was petrified it was dead. Thankfully it was fine, shook up, but fine. It's still in the nest now, so hopefully, it wasn't intentionally thrown out.

 

[Pat H]

@FrogsGoMoo ==I think you'll begin to like the one on the right soon... that combo of red and white is pretty. [but I do like the Left one].
ps-- interesting ring on your finger.

 

[FrogsGoMoo]

Day 19:

I was spending some quality time with her today hanging out on the couch playing some Canary music on the tv, and she started to frantically start flapping her wings. I don't know if she was just trying to get something off of her wings, or if she was stretching her wings to prepare for flight. I tried to get a video, but of course, by the time I started recording, she stopped doing it.

And funny enough, it feels whenever I post updates to this thread about a certain behavior from my birds, they do it as I'm typing it up lol. She started to flap her wings again, but as I tried to get a video, she stopped. But she's eating the millet I put in her carrying cage I keep her in whenever she's on my desk with me. So that's a nice first! I just fed her, so I guess she's wanting dessert now.



But here's some feather updates:







She's starting to lose her angry old man look. I'm gonna miss it..

We're also experiencing a major rainstorm right now (monsoon season), and I never expected to have to comfort a baby bird during a rainstorm.

I'm also trying to come up with names, we tend to like food based names based on their color schemes. So any ideas would be nice.

We were kinda joking around naming her "Gir 2" since one of the House Sparrows we rescued we named "Gir" and they look almost identical.

 

[finchly]

What a cutie!
Here’s one of mine, complete with attitude

 

[FrogsGoMoo]

What a cutie!
Here’s one of mine, complete with attitude

View attachment 391324

Reminds me of scrambled eggs with pepper sprinkled on top. What a cutie!

 

[FrogsGoMoo]

Finally got some footage of her attempting to fly.

http://imgur.com/8MSncR7

Shortly afterwards she crawled onto my hand and fell asleep. Guess it tired her out.

 

[FrogsGoMoo]

Day 21:

She's starting to get into her fluffy baby Canary stage! I love it!



Still no flight yet, she tried again today, but no lift off. I assume there's not much of a reason for her to want to fly considering she gets room service and delivery to her front perch. Unfortunately it also looks like she lost those yellow accents along the feathers. Was really hoping those would stay since they were beautiful. I love her either way.

As for the father, Paprika sung for the first time since we've had him (46 days) and the baby looks a lot like him, so since Paprika is now confirmed a male, I'm officially declaring Paprika the daddy. All the yellow the baby has I'm assuming she got from her mother, since Brown Sugar has yellow in all the same spots. Again, shocks me that they got it on within 3 days of meeting each other, but who am I to judge how fast bird relationships progress.

 

[zoo mom]

What a cutie. I like Spice for a name. Or Nutmeg.

Or Lemon Zest. He/she looks like they were sprinkled with lemon zest.

 

[FrogsGoMoo]

Day 22:

So she's acting a bit weird the last 2 days. It's kinda worrying me. So I'll prepare her food the exact same way I always been, for every baby bird I've hand fed, and she's been very hesitant after a little bit. She used to eat probably around 30CCs, and be clearly full based on her crop size, but now she'll eat maybe 10CCs, and nibble on some of the bits that's falling out. Thankfully I fed her the full amount before bed tonight, so at least for tonight I'll sleep easy, but it's still weird to me. She's starting to eat more on her own with the finch pellets and millet I put into her cage, so that's the only thing I can think of that makes her more hesitant. I tried making a mix of fruits and veggies to see if that would make her want to eat more, nope. She'll nibble on them a bit freshly cut up, but making a little smoothie of them and she doesn't want anything to do with it. Hopefully she was just being weird, but I'll update tomorrow on that since it still scares me.

But on a brighter note, this morning while I was working she was chirping for food, and I was going to finish a call I was in and then feed her, but she I guess was too good for waiting. So she decided to fly straight into my face scaring the crap out of me. So that was nice..



Her head floofs are nearly nonexistent now. But she seems to be very attached to me still which is nice. She even chirp whines whenever I put her back in the cage for the night like a puppy with attachment issues. It's pretty cute.

As for the name, my girlfriend decided on "Lemon Pepper".