|
yטרם תורגם
ולדוברי האנגלית שבינינו,
ניתן להצטרף לחוויה הלימודית בפורומים הבאים ביאהו:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ABBASEEDBIRDSQANDA/
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/COM_USA/?yguid=47202339
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ColorbredCanaries101Genetics/?yguid=47202339
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EuropeanGoldFinch/?yguid=47202339
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/GPA101911/?yguid=47202339
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/timbrado/?yguid=47202339
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NFSS/?yguid=47202339
|
Meet my old friend and successful Carduelan
Finch and Canary breeder in Coreggio, Reggio Emilia, Vito Bizzarri. Vito
is the gentleman on the left with the white t-shirt next to Franco
Gobbi, my guide and business associate.
Vito's breeding room is on the top of
the fourth floor home (in the attic). I climbed I believe about 80 plus
steps (poor old me). The bird room is located in an unfinished sort of
an attic, pretty hot and very dry. Adequate artificial and natural light
is available in his huge two breeding rooms. The cage set up that Vito
uses in his breeding room is not my preference. Lots of work to clean
and maintain those cages, but Vito obviously doesn't bother to clean too
much and his breeding result is obvious, babies everywhere. He has nests
of 4,5, even 6 youngsters being fed by their parents, including
Venezuelan black hooded red Siskins, European Goldfinch mutations, other
Carduelan Finches as well, and lots of Red Mosaic Canaries, and some
other types of Canaries.
He keeps certain types of Canaries as
back up in case a fostering of the more delicate species is necessary.
However, I'd like to emphasize that at the time of my visit, in his
adequate lighting but rather on the dark side, there were several nests
of various Carduelans feeding their own youngsters. I climbed the 80
plus stairs to Vito's breeding rooms, twice, around the 24th through
26th of May, at the time that I was in the area. I may add that Vito had
tremendous numbers of Carduelan youngsters and also lots of Canary
youngsters. Vito has been a rather mature gentleman and retired for many
years, he climbs those stairs several times a day. That is what keeps
him in good health and alert. He goes in fields gathering seeding heads
and vegetation for his birds. The key to his success in breeding
Carduelan Finches, I believe is due to two major factors. He doesn't
bother to clean the cages! Also, the gathering of seeding heads is a
vital source of nutrition for his birds. He also feeds a very simple but
well composed Carduelan Finch seed mixture. To his Canaries, he also
feeds a sensible, well composed seed mixture.
All his birds receive a well-composed
soaking seed mixture, which he carefully prepares and makes sure it does
not go sour or moldy. He blends the soak seed with a simple, but well
composed, unscented nestling food that he feeds a small amount, freshly
made a few times per day. A sensible feeding program using common sense
and a bit of filth, the success was obviously there.
Meet Mario Carrano, formally from the
Bayway area of Elizabeth, NJ, where he had a very fruitful pizzeria and
restaurant. Obviously he made a bundle of money? and he moved back to
his native land of Teggiano (Salerno, Italy). Mario has called me on the
phone in the past years boasting his and his associate's production of
Goldfinches. He was exploring the possibility of exporting some of the
yearly production of the Goldfinches. When I mentioned to him that
sometimes European Goldfinches imported from overseas are available in
bird flea markets in many parts of north America and especially in
Florida, where personally I have seen European Goldfinches for as low as
$20-$25 each. In fact, in one particular location, I saw an individual
purchase Goldfinches, 20 for $16 each. When I mentioned these prices, he
said "Oh no! Our birds are worth from 300-2,000 Euros each or even
higher." I replied to him, "Good luck to you in getting this kind of
money from the overwhelming majority of American fanciers."
Unfortunately, all over Europe, as I
mentioned many times in the past, I have seen many European fanciers pay
up to 8,000 Euros for a Goldfinch mutation. NOT ME DARNIT! I remember
one time that a partnership or two purchased a very rare European
Goldfinch mutation paying the equivalent of $5,000, and guess what? As
they left by taxi from the Reggio Emilia exhibition facility to the
railroad station, the bird died inside a comfortable carrying cage
before they even boarded the train! $5,000 down the trash bucket! Well,
I guess people have a lot of money, I work for my money and I work very
hard, I have to be careful the way I spend it too.
Mario's breeding facility was the most
photographic friendly establishment than most of the other places I
visited anywhere in the world. The situation of the aviary and cages
were positioned that the sun hit from the back toward the front, as you
can see the birds look beautiful and it is crystal clear. Also, it is
obvious that his birds are in a healthy condition. He lives on a small
farm in the valley of Salla Consolina, in a luscious, green, situation.
He has plenty of wild greens and wild vegetation to feed his birds. The
seeding grasses were plentifully available and it showed on his birds.
Unfortunately, at the time of my visit, his breeding program didn't
start yet. His Goldfinches were building nests. Maybe it was the
cleanliness of his bird facility that minimized the production of
youngsters? Well, I will communicate with Mario on a later date and
there definitely will be a follow up on his breeding program.
Mario's method of feeding is well
coordinated and sensible. Practically all the European Carduelan
breeders use a similarity of seed mixtures consisting of white Perilla,
white lettuce seed, black lettuce seed, small hemp seed (unfortunately
we do not have good, viable hemp seed here in the USA), a small amount
of the following: Canary grass seed, canola rape, Japanese millet, flax
seed, sesame, very small sunflower, rye grass, fescue grass, plus a few
other seeds I could not identify. This mixture is kept before the
Carduelans at all times. The wise and smart breeders make sure the birds
eat 100% of the mixture. Most of the European breeders, or at least all
the Italians that I visited, feed their birds soak seed especially when
the parents are feeding the youngsters, they blend the soak seed with a
good nestling food. I want to repeat that the filthiest breeders that
use a non-aromatic/non-sweet smelling nestling food blended with the
soak seed were the successful ones that produced lots of youngsters,
including Carduelans. The spotless clean that use sophisticated perfumed
nestling food, the only breeding result they were experiencing was ZERO,
only a clean, spotless breeding establishment, it was only pleasing to
the eye and to my camera.
In telephone conversations with many
fanciers in North America, many lamented to me problems with their
birds. Many experienced mortality of youngsters in the nest and already
weaned. Some indicated mortality of adult birds as well as youngsters.
This mortality has been happening in certain parts of North America.
Evaluating the situations, in most cases the public water system was
identified as the cause of some problems. Many water systems have hard
water that has a high mineral content; the content usually consists of
high levels of harmful metals, calcium, iron, copper, sodium, magnesium
carbonates, plus many other minerals. Many of these minerals are
essential in the diet of caged birds and humans as well, but in excess
they can be poisonous, especially to young birds. Also traces of
bacteria found in well water and sometimes public water can be harmful
to the birds. Some other problems identified traces of bacteria and
toxins in cultivated green vegetables and fruits. Personally, in my
family, we thoroughly wash and sterilize everything we eat ourselves. My
helpers and I sterilized everything that we feed our birds.
In personal e-mails, some have
questioned me about the method that I feed grasses to my Gouldians and
other birds. One mentioned to me that New Jersey is full of deer, which
have disease-carrying ticks and can be detrimental to our birds. I heard
that the ticks could be detrimental to humans and perhaps birds. For
years I have been cutting and gathering seeding grasses and seeding
weeds in fields, on the side of the road, on my property, etc. However,
before anything is introduced in my bird room, it is spread on the top
of a screen in my parking lot and all the seeding grass and weeds get
thoroughly sprayed with a solution of 9 parts of water and 1 part
bleach. We will let them stand and absorb the bleach for roughly a half
an hour, and then we thoroughly wash them with a high-pressure garden
hose. If there is any ticks or any impurities, it will get washed away
down the drain. Well, I never experienced any problems because of ticks
or bacteria in the greens.
If you are not certain about the quality
of your water, you can buy the water pretty reasonably at Walmart for 64
cents a gallon or you can use a simple filtration system for the birds'
drinking water. Personally, I just installed a pretty elaborate and
expensive filter in my bird room that is supposed to remove all the
impurities. We will see. In the last several days, because oh the
suspicion of the quality of the public water, we have been filling three
5 gallon jugs with very hot water, we let it cool and evaporate for a
couple days, we rotate it and sterilize the plastic container, then we
add one or two tablespoons of apple cider vinegar to each gallon of
drinking or bathing water. I believe the vinegar will neutralize some
impurities of the water and also be beneficial to the birds.
This is all for now. Lots more to come.
Go view the photos on the Abba web site @ www.abbaseed.com
<http://www.abbaseed.com/> , click on Euro photo, then click to each
individual name, such as Carrano, Bizzarri, and others. So I hope you
enjoyed reading this. Enjoy the photos.
If you are not a member of the following
groups, please join and be part of the learning experience.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ABBASEEDBIRDSQANDA/
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/COM_USA/?yguid=47202339
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ColorbredCanaries101Genetics/?yguid=472023\
39
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EuropeanGoldFinch/?yguid=47202339
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/GPA101911/?yguid=47202339
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NFSS/?yguid=47202339
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/timbrado/?yguid=47202339
Best regards to all,
G.A. Abbate
|
מגדלי
הפינקים
