Tiny Serama egg

One of my Serama hen laid a tiny egg yesterday.  It would be interesting if this egg develop and hatch, but I doubt it will.  The other two eggs are normal size egg of Serama hen.

First shama thrush chick of the 2011 season

Only one chick hatched and left the nest yesterday.  All other eggs are non-fertile.  This one looks like a male to me.  Maybe better luck on the next clutch (fingers crossed).

 

Update 05/16/11: Both long tail pair and their children pair had some eggs hatched on Sunday 05/15/11.  Not sure how many eggs hatched but I'm sure there are at least one in each nest.

Canary

I adopt a male white canary last month.  He sings very well and I love him.  Because the shama thrush breeding season is late this year, I decide to get him a mate.  There are few nest inside the aviary (used to breed shama thrush), but the female canary choose the food cup instead.  Five days of incubation and hope to have some canary chicks soon :)

Finally I have shama baby(ies)

First clutch got abandon by the mother due to heavy traffic around the aviary during the first few days of incubation.  First egg of second clutch hatched today morning.  Hopefully there will be few more hatch in the next two days.  One other shama pair should have babies mid-week next week.  Yay, so happy!

Update:  04/22/11:  It seems that there is only one egg hatched in this clutch.  It's a sad thing but I'm still happy.  Maybe next clutch will be better, finger cross! :)

Audio of white-runped shama(s) sing in early morning :)

Below is the audio file (approx. 10min long) of shama birds sing their songs in early morning in my backyard.  This is what I have to endure every morning in Spring/Summer time beginning when the sun starts to rise :))  They sings almost non-stop for about an hour, and throughout the day.  Enjoys! :))

Woot, one pair might have eggs!

  One of my female shama begins to sit inside the nest tonight and possible to start to incubate.  This is the pair that most pride in my collection as they produce nice long tail babies last year.  The weather this year here in So Cal is very wet and cold.  More than a week into Spring season yet the temperature here is still around upper 60s F in the morning, and upper 40s F/ low 50s F at night.  Hope other pairs of shama start to lay eggs soon.

Introduce male and female shama together

Originally, I plan to introduce male and female shama together at around end of March, 2011; however, with my current work travel schedule to the East Coast in early March and with too many birds for my brother to take care of, I decide to introduce 3 out of 4 pairs together during this weekend so that my brother won't have to spend much time feeding them.  After few days of letting the male see the female through separate cage, I introduce the male into the female breeding aviary on morning of Saturday.  By the end of Sunday afternoon, two pairs out of three seems compatible with each other and the last pair is instantly fall in love with each other :)).
This year I will do inbreeding for two pairs to see if their offspring will have desire or bad traits.  Plus I also introduce new blood line which supposedly came from Taiwan.

Recapture a spotted dove (Chinese laceneck dove)

I acquired a pair of spotted dove (Streptopelia chinensis chinensis) about 2 months ago from a good friend of mine and keep them in a wired cage 30in x 24in x24in.  I plan to build an aviary for them within this month with intention to breed them again in the Spring as I had successful of breeding spotted dove before.  Few days ago, while open a door to put in the seeds, one of the spotted dove sudden flew around and escape the cage.  As I watch the female spotted dove flew away, the male spotted dove starts to call.  I thought that I lost that female dove and have to find a replacement if I want to continue with the breeding project.  I put seeds on the feeding tray right outside of the cage just in case the dove decide to come back.  The male dove calls frequently during the two days his mate is missing.  Two days later, yesterday afternoon, I saw the female spotted dove eating on the feeding tray that I put outside the cage.  I wait and wait and I can see that the female dove did not want to fly away any more and just stay outside right in front of her mate's cage.   When the sun is completely down, the female dove stay on top of the cage and sleep there. About a hour after dark, I walk slowly toward the dove and using the net, I finally caught her.  It's a joyful moment for me :)  I wonder if the male happens to fly away in this case, does the male dove come back?

2011 white rumped shama breeding season is near

Here in beautiful SoCal, the breeding season for songbirds/ softbills is about to start in just about a month or two.  Conditioning the birds to be ready for breeding is very important and for those who interest in breeding white rumped shama or any other tropical songbirds, it should start now.  Of course, if the birds are feed with high quality diet all year round, then just provide the birds with a bit extra nutrients than normal would be suffice; otherwise, this is the time to improve on the health status of the birds before the breeding season begin.
This year, I probably start the breeding season for white rumped shama a bit later than last year due to busy with work schedule and kind of weir weather here lately.  Plus, I start on concentrate on quality than quantity, hehe....