Santa Clara Valley Canary & Exotic Bird Club
Peterson Jr. High School
El Camino and Ham Streets, Sunnyvale
Next Meeting: Sunday, June 10, 1984
Pot Luck - 1:00 P.M.
Meeting - 1:45 P.M.
A - G Main Dish
H - P Salad
Q - Z Dessert
Please bring your own table service.
IN MEMORIUM: Pearl Davis, widow of Frank Davis and one of the founders of this club has died after a long, full life filled with loving family, friends and many, many beautiful birds. She was ill the last couple of years but never lost her interest in birds or in this club and enjoyed having her family read the newsletter to her. A contribution will be sent in her memory to the A.F.A. Conservation fund headed by Bob Barry.
JUNE PROGRAM: Slide/Tape Show from A.F.A. on Canaries ... whoops! Talk about timing. As I typed that last line, the phone rang and Marge Sharpe (A.F.A. Home Office) regrets that "all the canary shows are out and not expected back in time for our meeting." I'm working from an old list and was under the impression that AFA only had one slide show on canaries. Will try to get an up-to-date list. Meanwhile, well have their slide/tape show on "Bird Keeping." If the quality matches the one's we've seen so far, it should be well worth seeing and something to be enjoyed by all members. We'll follow up with a round table and some birds brought by Board members for demonstration.
YOU COULD BE A WINNER!
Remember the Xmas and Valentine Raffles? This month will be another SURPRISE raffle. There will be several special items beside the regular items donated by individual members. Please bring YOUR contribution and let's make this a BIG success. No one has signed up to bring birds so if anyone can donate a bird or two PLEASE do so.
COME PREPARED TO JOIN IN THE FUN!
JULY BBQ BBQ BBQ : JULY 8 11 AM to 4-5 PM at Lakewood Park, as usual, we will be attending "The Joe Gordon Family Reunion." Old rules apply. Two FREE steak dinners per family membership, FREE hot dogs for the kids. $5.00 each for guests or for kids who eat steak dinners (assuming Mom & Pop are eating the freebies.) Board members will supply bread, salads. Members whose last names start with A thru M, please bring desserts; Those from N thru Z please bring snack type things. Call in reservations to Ron Mercer NO LATER THAN July 4 (but, how 'bout calling him before the holiday?) Joe Gordon & Leonard Quieto will help Ron with the cooking. Coffee is furnished but please bring your own cold drinks, plates and tableware. Map will appear in next newsletter. BE THINKING ABOUT WHAT WONDERFUL THING you will contribute for our traditional BIG BIG RAFFLE.
Bill Pickett writes from England that a canary breeder who lives near him is going on holiday at the latter end of the season for 1-2 weeks and if any of us happen to be going over there around that time, we can use his place as home base while in England. If anyone has such plans, give Bill a call ... and remember the time difference. His number is in the roster addendum that appeared in the newsletter. If you call him about midnight our time, you'll catch him just about the time he's getting ready to go feed his birds in the morning. He also reports that the weather stayed cold, rainy and miserable late into spring so he didn't put his birds up (thought they refer to it as putting them 'down' over there) until 2nd or 3rd week in April. Sends us all best wishes for the season. And the best to you too, Bill & Sheila, hope your season goes better than mine is so far!
FOR SALE: Cherry-head Conure named Peter. Extensive English vocabulary. Sings Happy Birthday. $350 including cage. Call Bill Cooper.
THANKS to Margie Zeller for the donation of 3 canaries for the raffle last month. Margie has been ill and has to give up her birds. Naomi Cisper will be selling them for her. Naomi also has some canaries of her own for sale so anyone in the market, call her.
FOR SALE: Blue Front Amazon, female, 15-18 mos old, tame, $325. And Bronze wing pionus, very young, tame $225. Cages $50 and $60. Phil Mortanson.
FOR SALE: KAKARIKIS, 8 weeks old. Yellow fronts, very intelligent, active, playful, will learn to talk. $175/pair (unrelated) $90 each for singles, including information book by English breeder. Also, 2 Roller male canaries, 1983 $40 each. Call Ruth Indiveri.
SAVE THOSE MOULTED FEATHERS ON THE BIG BIRDS. Bring 'em to the meeting for me to send on, if you don't feel like mailing them yourself.
Now, ABOUT this season... Anyone else having problems? In absolute numbers, I'm not doing too bad, but the statistics are AWFUL and I think I know why. Listen up again, novices. #1 rule in raising canaries (probably other birds, too) is CONDITIONING IS EVERYTHING. I was busy with bird club stuff during Jan & Feb. and didn't do the usual careful job of giving the prep foods and minding the light and it shows, in hens who make beautiful nests and then sit in them and play "lets pretend," in hens who lay clutches of 5-6 eggs and then decide it is somebody else's job, they want no further part in it, in clutches of 2 to 4 babies when I've been accustomed to clutches of 5 to 7 babies for the last 3 years. Proper conditioning goes on all year long but intensifies in December and up thru set-up time. If you don't do it, you blow your season! Also, I find that the clutches that were being layed (or freshly set) at Quake time are producing a whole bunch of dead in shell or clear eggs. The birds didn't seem to be particularly disturbed by the quake but I wonder if the tension in the earth prior to the quake itself and the aftershocks had anything to do with this? I've been accustomed to a few clear eggs from first time hens and no others. Now, this batch produced a whole bunch of eggs that were either clear or were obviously fertile but didn't develop after the first 4-5 days. Anyone notice this? I remember speaking with Debbie Blackwell last year right after the Big One hit in Coalinga. She had been standing in the middle of her aviary when that one hit and reported that the birds didn't seem particularly bothered by it. I never asked her if she noticed any other effects later on. How 'bout it, Debbie, what do your records show? At present my flock has laid 208 eggs, out of which I have 79 chicks, 8 dead in shell, 48 clear or fertile but didn't develop, 7 chicks have died and the rest are either still under incubation or are in short nests for the chicks to lean on.
Aside from that, the great god of Perversity reigns supreme in my bird room. I decided I wanted a self green male of good size, so arranged a breeding loan of a 7/8 Border cock, put him with a buff, 7/8 green hen and got a nest of 4 yellow ground birds. Two clear, two with a few brown feathers. If I'd been trying for clears, you know they'd have popped out greens all over the place. Lots of brown showing up this year. Going to have to spend a lot of skull time in culling. But, decided to go with the flow, I like fawns. If this is my brown year, why not? Put a white (tiny tick) hen with a cinnamon opal carrier, you guessed it, THEY gave me 3 little bronzes! Variegated, unfortunately, couldn't give me self's! (That white hen happens to have a green sister, but why she's white instead of blue, if she has the green gene, I'll NEVER know!) More lessons later, no doubt!
See you on the 10th.
Pat