Friends, I am overwhelmed with my personal
work due to my long absence from New Jersey. I am doing the best that I
can to share my modest contributions to benefit all the fellow fanciers.
Please do your share of posting information in the groups. Myself, as
well as, I believe many fellow fanciers will enjoy reading.
As of last night, while I was watching
the news on TV, still the airwaves are bombarded with the spinach E-coli
and other bacteria scares. In my house we have spinach on our dinner
table at least two or three times a week. Before we consume it, the
spinach or any other vegetables, which is purchased from the super
market, it is washed thoroughly. We soak all vegetables in a solution of
one gallon of water that we add ten drops of iodine for about a half
hour, and then we thoroughly wash and cook them. We also add the raw
spinach in our salads. To this date, we are healthy as we can be. No
sign of any kind of unhealthy symptoms.
I would never feed spinach to my birds
period, I rely completely on wild greens gathered from my own property
or from clean, uncultivated fields. In the winter months, however, at
times I must rely on the greens in the super market. Regardless of the
origin of the greens, either from the outdoors or the super market
shelves, my helper and I always soak the greens in either ten drops of
iodine in a gallon of water or a tablespoon of bleach in a gallon of
water. The greens are soaked for at least a half an hour and then
thoroughly washed. So far so good. My birds are all healthy and
thriving. Remember that birds are not goats or cows, they only need a
small amount of greens, for example a piece of green the size of a
quarter for each bird. Caged birds must not gorge on greens; they must
eat all the other good food such as dry seed, etc.
Now that the breeding season is a long
time over and the birds are molting, we minimize the feeding of soak
seed and soft food. The yellow ground birds receive a small amount of
soak seed and nestling food once or twice a week. Too much soak seed and
soft food can be detrimental to the health of the bird.
Because of the abundance of rain and
favorable weather conditions, New Jersey, The Garden State, is alive
with wild greens, including Dandelions, Chicory, even the Chickweed are
beginning to emerge again. Everyday we gather the necessary amount to
make our birds happy. I'm still managing to find a lot of seeding heads
of Chicory and other weeds and grasses. All birds love this nature
bounty.
Feeding Gouldian parents prefer soak
seed to the partially germinated seed. A couple of days ago, by error I
left a jar of soak seed for an extra day and therefore it began to
germinate. I washed it thoroughly and feed it to all the Gouldians and
other birds. The Gouldians did not even touch the partially germinated
seed! I know there are fellow fanciers bragging about sprouted and
germinated seed, but as far as I'm concerned, properly soaked seed have
a higher nutritional value than germinated seed. (Again, this is my
opinion, as I always say, to each his own).
Pretty soon the exhibitions will begin
to take place everywhere in North America. I urge every one of you to
participate in all the exhibitions that you can. Exhibiting birds is a
pleasurable reward of our efforts in breeding and keeping. My prospect
exhibition specimens are now placed in single cages, kept exceptionally
clean. Keeping exhibition birds in a filthy cage with dirty perches may
damage the prospective show winner chance at the show bench. A clean,
well trained, bird will make a good impression to the judges. So, let
all of us have fun in the approaching exhibition season.
I want to say thank you to all who have
given me suggestions to identify the male and females of the White Chest
Gouldians. I believe, thanks to your input, that I have a male and a
female. I will pair the male white chest to a yellow female and the
female white chest to a blue blackhead male. I hope I live for a few
more years to see what will be the end result of these pairings. Now as
you told me that the white chest is recessive, so therefore, next year I
will pair youngsters from each of the above pairing, so I should be able
to produce a male and female white chest?
In the last several days, I paired an
additional eight pairs of Gouldians. If the breeding goes as well as it
did in 2005-2006, I will have many beautiful, colorful, healthy
Gouldians. I'll let nature take its course.
The floor of my huge bird room is loaded
with feathers every morning. Everything is late this year. The breeding
season had a late start; the molting season also had a late start. In a
few days it will be October and my birds are still molting.
To this date, I still do not see much
bird activity in my area of New Jersey. Maybe they moved out of state as
did many manufacturers and people because they cannot take the high
sales taxes, high property taxes, and high cost of living in New Jersey.
Well, this is all the rambling I can do
for now. Hopefully I will get some inspiration tomorrow and I will think
of some things in my sleep and therefore I will post it.
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=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
Best Regards,
G.A. Abbate in New Jersey—The Garden State
מגדלי
הפינקים
