02/17/2010: The pair is introduced to see each other the first time. The male is in bamboo cage and he can see his mate in her aviary.
02/27/2010: Introduce the male into the aviary.
From 02/27 to around mid 03/2010: The male dominates the aviary. He is the first one to eat, first one to take bath. He also chases the female once in a while and competes with her for food.
After mid 03/2010: The female is begin to get easier life and I can say that both birds are beginning a so called form pair.
04/02/2010: Observed the female starts to carrying materials to build the nest (coconut fibers, dried bamboo leaves, small twigs, etc...)
04/10/2010: Could not find the female at her usual sleeping spot tonight, so she laid some eggs and started to incubate her eggs. Expect hatching date is April 21st and April 22nd if the eggs were fertilized. The mystery is how many eggs inside the nest right now? :)
04/21/2010 : As with other pair of shama, no hatching on eleventh days of incubation. From all publication (books, internet, research papers, etc...) that I read, the incubation period of shama can vary between 11-15 days with an average around 12-13 days so I'm still ok and still hopefull that chicks will start to hatch within one or two more days. If there is no hatching beyond 14 days, chances are that this batch is not successful. Keep my fingers crossed! :)
04/22/2010: Great news! At least one egg hatched today from this pair. I'm so excited as this pair is the pair with greater potential to produce long tailed shama than my two other pairs.
04/25/2010: After 3 days out of town trip, I delighted to see all the birds are fine. Seems that the chicks might be little hungry on the 3rd day as I found lots of dead crickets inside the food container, and the chick's fecal size is little smaller than normal (which means that less food intake). Hope it would not effect too much on the chick's development. Seems that there are also two chicks inside the nest.
05/02/2010: Only eleven day since hatched, the chick is out of the nest and it's a male. I'm little disappointed since there is only one chick, but I'm still very happy that this pair is able to produce and raise the baby successful. Can't wait to have more chicks from this pair! :)
05/06/2010: Observed the pair mating this morning. Hope that the pair will produce more babies in this upcoming second clutch. ;)
05/12/2010: The female is sleeping inside the nest today. I don't know if she slept inside the nest since yesterday or not (I didn't come out to check), so I just assume that first incubation night is today. Expect new batch of babies hatch on 05/23/2010.
05/22/2010: One egg hatches today around noon time. WOOT!
05/23/2010: Another egg hatches today but for unknown reason, this chick die immediately. From the picture below, it seems that large piece of shell got stuck to the body of the chick cause the death. Don't know the sudden change in weather temperature (a drop of more than 10 degree F in night time temperature yesterday) contributed to this fatality or not.
Top right is the two half of empty egg shell from yesterday hatched. Bottom is the dead chick with shell stuck to the body.
06/02/2010: FOUR chicks come out of the nest today. This means that on the second clutch, five eggs were laid, one died right after hatch, and four are healthy. It also seems that this pair produces chicks that are stronger than other pair that I have as all chicks are left the nest at 11 days after hatched instead of 12 days as normal. It happens to two clutches already.
Picture of one of the chick:
06/23/2010: First egg hatched.
07/04/2010: Total of 4 chicks left the nest, but due to inexperience of the caretaker while I were away, only one survive by the time I come back from a four day out of town trip.
07/10/2010 The last chick also passed away due to some kind of disease (wet eyes)
07/23/2010: At least one chick hatched in this fourth clutch
08/04/2010: Total of 4 chicks hatched. Two died and got throw away within the first 2 days. The other two survive on eleventh day and also passed away.
08/09/2010: The female is incubate her fifth clutch. Expect to hatch in the next few days.
08/18/2010: First egg hatched on 08/16. Seems like second egg hatched on 08/18.
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