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Hi Clayton,
Getting the song out of the American Singer is easy. Feed 1/2 teaspoon
bee pollen per bird each day. Soak hemp in the refrigerator. After two or
three days some will sprout. Pick out the sprouted ones and feed 3
sprouted hemp seeds each day to the competition males. Keep the birds
fat. If they lose too much weight, they stop singing altogether. Offer a
saltine crackers every other day. Offer some plain hard boiled egg no more
than 1/6 of an egg per bird twice a week. Listen to the sound and adjust.
To make it more roller like in quality, more rape less carbohydrate.
For American Singers, also order some wheat germ oil and superpreen
coated seed from Walls Seed 1-800-8782473.. Mix this with your seed.
Start off with about 1/4 Walls mix and 3/4 yours. Listen everyday and
adjust how much of Walls mix you feed. Probably about a week and then
stop but decide based on how your birds sound. This is very lightly
coated with wheat germ oil and excellent mix for American Singer
competition and also for feeding other birds during breeding season. On
this mix, you can not shut them up!! Remember to balance that against
sound quality.
The total hours of daylight for song competition birds is 11 hours. It
must be consistent with no variation or they will quit singing.
Train the American Singers with white sheets covering the cage. Keep the
cage cover except for the front in subdued light and then turn the light
on when you take off the cover. Do this twice a day. Keep a tutor
uncovered near them. Keeping the lighting subdued and the singers covered
will shut them up so they will listen to the tutor. This will train them
like the tutor. If they will not be quiet and listen cover three sides of
the cage with card board over the sheets. Take them for rides in the car
and show conditions.
Every five days put them back in flights for a day or two and then cage
again so that they do not get cage weary.
Do you mind me putting some of our correspondence on my web site and
using your name? Maybe a new section on American Singer.
Linda S. Hogan
Tuesday, September 08, 1998
Good evening Linda,
The first AS show is Sept. 12 in Detroit. Our first show is October 3 in
Pittsburgh. We went to Detroit last year, but it is just too far. There
are about 32 AS shows a year. But, you can't ship AS to shows as is done
for rollers, one has to take them. AS must really be trained well if you
want them to sing in front of the judge. I think it is because we are
fighting the nature of the bird. Eight to ten birds are lined up, side
by side, in front of the judge. The birds are all strangers to one
another, as a fancier only has one bird in a class. It is rare for an AS
to do its very best in a show. Many times a bird will do well at home,
but will jump around and sing short songs in a show because it is uneasy.
The old Germans knew what they were doing when they developed the cages
and showing system. In my very limited experience, it seems much easier
to train rollers than AS. I'm just talking about getting them to the
point where they reliably sing for the judge, I'm not talking about the
fine tuning someone like yourself does.
One of the new AS members, whose hand I have been holding over the phone
the last several months, lives in Brownsville, TX , and works in Mexico.
Bee pollen must be cheap in Mexico, as he sent me a kilo of it. I have
it in the freezer. How should I feed it? Give them about a 1/4 teaspoon
in a treat cup every day?
Any time I can help you with a question on AS, just ask.
Clayton C. Beegle
Comments? Please e-mail to: canarytales@juno.com
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