My Paranoid Canary
When my cat died few months ago it was very rough for me to accept his death and move on, I needed something to help me cope and fill that emptiness… The first thing i’ve done is building a medium sized aquarium (fish tank) which i discovered is not that hard to do! you just need glass, glass cutter, silicone and that’s it! (Tutorial) then i started to wonder what should i put in it and i was thinking either some Goldfishs or i go with smaller fish like Betta or Molly, There’s other options as well but i settled with Guppies because they’re easy to maintain and not that aggressive, also they’re very colorful and pretty.
After that i needed something to play and interact with. like something i can pet, I thought about hamsters but i figured out they don’t live that long (2-3 years), nor i wanted other mammals like dogs or cats because they require a lot of maintenance. So i went with birds, smaller ones, specifically a Canary. because i used to have two of them when i was a kid, i thought about Goldfinches but they’re very expensive here in my country for some reason. Plus canaries are considered finches as well that what a lot of people don’t know! check it out.
So i did a quick research about buying a Canary because i didn’t want to get ripped off and I WAS RIGHT because i found out female canaries don’t sing, only males and they have to be taught at young age by mimicking other canaries or just listening to a audio/video of a canary singing. I went to the closest pet store and i picked a very yellow/goldish young male canary who was already singing when i met him, he looks like tweety from looney tunes (lol), the only problem is that his VERY PARANOID! he will watch and track every movement of me he will freak out when i get closer and he will never let me even touch him or near him, other than that he can be very normal, like eating/drinking, singing, i even let him out of cage almost everyday to fly freely and take a bath. I got him in past february and it’s been months already but he still afraid of me.
I think it’s a taming problem! i need to tame him without starving him or hurt his feathers, because this is how professionals do it and i find it little bit harsh.
Here’s couple things i learned so far:
- Canaries are Finches which makes them: Passerines.
- Passerines have a very high metabolic rates, Higher than either Non-Passerines or Mammals (humans) by 30-70%. Which means they can see faster (around 40hz more than us), that’s why they move very fast and hard to catch. they see you as a slow moving thing, if you move slowly enough, they don’t notice that you are moving at all!
- Birds in general are Tetrachromats, which means they can see in four different colors UV (Ultraviolet), RGB (Red, Green, Blue) unlike us which we see in 3 colors (only RGB).
- Canaries LOVE bathing! mine baths everyday, just make sure to buy them a Birdbath or use a small glass/plastic basin.
- the food you buy from the pet store is not enough (seeds, pellets), you need to include some fresh vegetables, greens and a small amount of fruits…etc at least twice or more a week.
- If your canary keeps making clicking noises with his beak that means his infected with something called Air Sac Mites and he needs to be treated immediately, you can find treatments at the pet store.
- Let your canary out of the cage at least 5 or 6 times a week, but make sure you do it in a room with closed doors/windows. and don’t let him out immediately after you get him, wait until he gets used to the cage and place (about 3 days).