Shama pair's 4th clutch of the 2009 season hatched

Three eggs hatched on June 16th, and the fourth one hatched the next day. I'll try to document the growing process of these babies from the time they hatch until they fled their nest 12 days later. I will only post some of the hightlight of the day and will try as much as I can to document their growing process so we can learn and understand more on the bird's behavior.

First day of hatching:


Second day of hatching part 1:


Second day of hatching part 2:


Third day of hatching: Too lazy to do it! :D

Fourth day of hatching part 1:


Fourth day of hatching part 2:

Pair of Hwamei

Few pics of recent pair up of the two Hwamei. So far they seem happy together :) Both this male and female Hwamei is only average quality, but since I want to try my hand on this favorite bird, I don't need high quality bird to enjoy their company.


The female Hwamei is on the right hand side




Male Hwamei is on the left hand side


The male Hwamei

22 days old baby white rumped shama (chich choe lua)

Two out of the three babies. Pictures were taken by camera phone so the quality is not so good.

The Hwamei is one of my favorite bird ever since I was a child, but never have a chance to keep it until recently. Here is the pair that I want to try my hand on breeding them.

Shama pair's 4th clutch of the 2009 season

Like clock work, 3rd day of the month is the day the female shama laid egg for the last 4 times in this 2009 season. Early morning of June 3rd, one egg appears in the nest. Hopefully this clutch doesn't have the issue like the last two clutch of early incubation on the 2nd day by the femal; thus resulting two out of five babies died in the first 3 days due to too much different in size.

Daily feeding schedule include one big feeding of crickets and small roaches early in the morning before I go to work. In the afternoon, another big feeding same as in the morning but also add some mealworms and/or giant mealworms. Liquid multivitamin and liquid vitamin B complex is mixed with crickets one feeding per every other day. During the first twelve days period before the chicks leave the nest, I usually also feed guppies 3 times, small earthworms 2-3 times (dig from my backyard) with the hope that those food can bring enough level of calcium and protein for the chicks need to grow without any issue of weak or deform leg/wing. After the chicks left the nest, I only feed guppies and small earthworms once a week or so until they can eat for themself then I feed like once every two weeks or once per month depend on whenever I like to go out to buy some guppies.

Water is provided new daily. Calcium powder is mixed with water every other day and using the concentration from manufacturing instruction. On the other day, I only provide regular drinking water. Calcium is provided during the period of egg laying and about 2-3 days before and after the event.

Clip of the female inspect the nest to prepare for laying egg:





Clip of the female lays her first egg of this 4th clutch:

3rd shama batch left the nest and 1st batch starts to molt?

After 12 days of incubation, like all previous batches, the 3rd batch babies left the nest on Friday 5/29/09. All three shama babies are very healthy without any defect.

On the other hand, I notice that the male from 1st batch has molt couple wingfeathers few days ago but haven't see any additional feather since. Also, the female from the 1st batch has one of her primary tail feather drop on Sunday 5/31/09. Measure the primary tail feather from tip to end is 3.5in or close to 9cm.

Shama 3rd clutch hatch today

Recap: 1st egg laid on 05/04/09. Second and third egg laid on May 5th and 6th. The female skipped one day and laid the fourth and final fifth egg on May 8th and 9th. She started to incubate eggs at night on 2nd egg.

Update:
Around 11AM on Sunday 05/17/09, two out of the five eggs hatched.
Early morning of Monday around 6:30AM, the third egg hatched.
Afternoon on Tuesday around 5:00PM, the fourth egg hatched.
Looks like that the last 2 babies died on Thursday afternoon due to too small in size compare to the other 3 chicks which is older by 2 days.

Yorkshire Canary

This is my newly acquired canary. He is Yorkshire type which is much bigger than normal canary. His body shape is ok for this type of canary, not a show piece. And since I'm only interest in the songs, his shape form is not really important and don't have to be in perfect shape of Yorkshire type. My young male shama will benefit from the song of the canary and hopefully he can incorporate canary's song into his song.

Shama pair with 3rd clutch of 2009

Again, 5 days after the second clutch babies left the nest, the female starts to lay egg on 05/04/09. The femals also starts to incubate at night on her 2nd egg. First 3 eggs are laid everyday in the late morning; however, the 4th eggs are laid on 05/08/09 at very early in the morning (around 6:30AM). On this 3rd clutch, the female skips one day after the 3rd egg are laid and resume laying egg again on the 5th day. This maybe is the result of not enough calcium in her system? or with some other reason that I can't explain. Hopefully all the eggs will hatch.

This is the clip of possible the female in the process of laying eggs:




Update on 05/09/09: The female shama laid another eggs bring the total of eggs in this 3rd clutch to 5 eggs in 6 days.