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Question:

November 2, 2020

Female canary sleeping


Hi, I have two female canaries and one male. It is spring and they have mated and each of them has laid 4 eggs. They are nesting the eggs these days, have been very active until lately and all of a sudden one of them started sleeping in day time (more like napping) she sings while her head is under the wing and remains in her nest for hours on end. Hasn’t been eating or drinking much and stopped bathing completely which she used to enjoy daily. I am not sure what changed, all day she remains puffy and hides her head under the wing and peeks out to look every once in a while. I am not sure why has her behaviour changed so suddenly. Could she be ill? She seems to blink a lot now. The second female was fine until today but now has also started to puff up in the nest and take little naps. Is this normal behaviour of canaries after laying eggs? They are on a good seed diet, having greens, boiled egg and apples. Please help, I am very concerned for her.


Answer:

Hi Saroosh,

It does sound like she is sick and needs to be taken to an Avian Vet as soon as possible. Since the other female is also acting off, I would take both birds. You didn’t mention if these birds are all in one cage? When you breed birds, you should have one pair of birds per cage. Both the male and female help with the incubation and raising the chicks. One male can’t help two females, so they are having to do everything and this is too hard on them. They may both be exhausted and malnourished because they aren’t eating enough since there isn’t a male for each female to either feed her, or sit on the eggs while she eats. Once both females are well again, only keep one with the male and get another male and cage for the other female.

Thank you for asking Lafeber,

Brenda

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