Newly build aviary and some update pics of my collection

After 3 weeks of planning, buying, and building, the new aviary for the birds are almost complete. There is total of 7 small aviary (4ft deep x 2 ft wide x 6ft tall) all connect together and divided by a sheet of plywood. The goal is when breeding season come, all i need to do is take one of the divided plywood down and two small aviary become one 4x4x6 breeding aviary. I still need to finish the last mini aviary and clean up.



Close up one each mini aviary:



My H2N1 female: a mom of 14 babies this 09 season. She is starting to molt.



My H3N1 male: a father of 14 babies this 09 season. He is starting to molt.



My H5N1 male: He is born this year 2009 from one of my best friend DV & Andy. Currently is near the end of molting. Tail is about little over 7.5in





My H1N1 male: He is born last year 2008. I acquired him from my best friend Andy. First molt is 8in long tail from tip to end. He is curently on molt.



My H32N2 female: She is born this year 2009 from father H3N1 and mother H2N1






My H4N1 female: She is born this year 2009 also.




Cockroach egg sacks. Cockroach is another souce of food that I feed my bird. I try to raise them instead of buying.

Molting pics

Some pics of the bird that are currently molting

Baby female shama hatched on July 08




Baby male shama hatched on April (I think). This one is from one of my good friend and hopefully he will be my breeding stock for years to come.








The father of 14 babies is about to enter molting:




This is the first shama I have since the beginning of this year. Next year he will be 2 years old and will be my main breeding stock.






Here is a pair of Hwamei that I plan to breed next year:

Breeding Season of white-rumped shama is Over. Time for Molting

Last egg batch of the season did not yield any babies. No hatch due to unfertile eggs. He he, the male shama did a great job as a father of six batches. He's a father of total 14 babies and feeding them non-stop every batch; however, the female shama did a spectacular job as a mom. She laid like 30 eggs total this season and also care and feed all her babies very well. Most of my shama are currently molting or about to enter molting season. Feeding schedule with large quantity of insect such as cricket and cockroach (approx. 40 to 50 crickets per day) and supplies with multi-vitamin will be the main thing I concentrate on during molting season. Beside cricket and cockroach, I also feed them occasionally with earthworm, guppy fish, and small mealworm.
Within few weeks, I'll re-build all the aviary to be able to care for them little easier and move them to new location (facing East) with the hope that the aviary will be little cooler in the Summer and has morning sunlight instead of afternoon sunlight (facing West) as of current.

Shama pair's 7th clutch update

It's been awhile since I update this blog. Fifth batch is a total loss. 2 out of 4 eggs hatched but the parents throw them out on the 4th day. I think the reason is part of my mistake to leave 2 unhatched eggs still inside the nest with 2 hatched babies. I think the parents throw those two babies out to continue to incubate the remain eggs per their instinct. Sixth batch has 4 eggs but only one hatched and the remain three eggs has chick develop inside but could not hatch. I don't know what is the reason for this but I assume part of it is the egg laied in late season which didn't have enough substance to develop a strong baby or partly due to super hot weather during those incubation time.

Here is a little clip of 7th batch of 08 season. Eleven days and no hatch yet so far. Hope I can some babies out of this batch.