Four babies shama

After 12 days of incubation, there are four babies left the nest on March 28th, 2009. Looks like that there will 2 male and 2 female due to different intensity of feather color. Both parents are very protect their young. The two presume to be male almost make constant chip sound. It seems that both parents try to feed the young almost constantly to the point that sometimes the young still full that they didn't want to eat. The father when ever he brings food to his young, he pecks at the side of baby's beak to stimulate the baby open its beak or peck on the head. All four babies seem healthy and strong.

The father carries waste sack to dispose:

Babies:

Eggs hatched

After many days of waiting and constantly feed them plenty of insects, on Tuesday morning March 17, 2009, discover 4 empty egg shells on the floor of the aviary. 3 empty egg shells are from the bottom end part of the egg (the pointy side) and 1 empty egg shell is from the top round part. So I can conclude at least 3 eggs hatched. Few hours later in the morning, observe the father catch small insect and fly to the nest, possible feeding the babies. Looks like that the female incubated for 11 days. Outside temperature during the incubation time is pretty low with the high around 75F, and low around 50F. Here are the pics of empty egg shells. The one in the aviary is too far for me to reach in and take it out.

First Pair of Shama

This pair is acquired soon after the young one in Dec. 2008. The male is probably at least 3-4 years old, while the female is about the same age. Introduce them together in the aviary (6ft H x 6ft L x 3ft W) in mid Feb. 09. At first, the male chased the female around the aviary but soon he relax a little and allow the female flied out of the bush to come to the feeding dish to eat and drink. Around March 3rd or 4th, first egg is laid. Observed incubate the eggs on Friday night. I'll keep both my fingers cross hope my first ever breeding experiment in this type of songbirds will have good result with many babies, hehe......

Shama gathering from few aviculturists

Some of us, an avid aviculturist, with the same interest in breeding captive white rumped shama to maintain good population of this type of songbird have a gathering together on Feb. 01, 09. This gathering is a chance to us to get together and sharing information, experiences with each other on the art of keeping, breeding, and training this songbird. The meet is fun and full of information. We are all excited as the breeding season is approaching and our goal is to develop a bird who sings well with full of stamina, and long soft tail. Most of us have decent birds as breeder with tail is between 7in to 9in long.