Catching and keeping songbirds: species, description, feeding and care

2024 Author: Sierra Becker | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-02-26 03:45

Most songbirds do well in captivity, but only for this they need proper and competent care. This will allow a person to listen to beautiful singing every day. In captivity, these birds are known to live for many years and reproduce easily.

Which birds are best kept in captivity

Catching and keeping songbirds requires a competent and correct attitude. Still, it's worth getting a little familiar with the rules that will enable birds to exist in captivity.

Thus, some species of grain-eating birds are distinguished by the most beautiful singing: siskins, finches, goldfinches, crossbills. To enjoy the beauty of plumage, either greenfinches or bullfinches are placed in a cage. It is known that crossbills, bullfinches and siskins get used to a person easier and faster. But the chaffinch and oatmeal are very difficult to accustom to captivity.

Different wonderful singing and some insectivorous birds. For example, bluethroat, nightingale, warbler, redstart, thrush, robin, starling, tit and lark. Of themstarling, titmouse and robin very quickly get used to life in captivity and to humans. The rest are scared for a long time, so it is even recommended to hang their cages higher so that they see people less often.

Species of Songbirds

It is known that the authors of the books "Catching and Keeping Songbirds" claim that mostly birds that can be trained to captivity belong to the passerine family and are divided into 4900 species. In the home environment, you can most often find canaries, which have more than a hundred types of color and varieties. In second place in terms of distribution in the home environment are finches, which in nature can only be found in Australia, Africa, South Asia, and Micronesia. Red-breasted finches and rice finches are especially popular.

In third place in terms of keeping and breeding in captivity are finches, which have a huge number of subspecies. The most common are the Butterfly Astrild, the Australian Finch.

Physiological characteristics of songbirds

Depending on the shape of the beak, all songbirds are classified into two large species: granivorous, which have a thick beak, and insectivorous, which have a thin beak. The subtleties of keeping a songbird will depend on the type of feathered friend.

It is known that birds do not have a diaphragm, so their lungs are inelastic. Their breathing occurs by filling air sacs with air. As soon as there is a movement of the chest itself, these bags begin to fill with oxygen, which first passes throughlungs. Therefore, when a person picks up a bird, care should be taken to ensure that the bird's breathing is normal and its respiratory movements are not limited.

Songbirds are usually very energetic and agile, so they require a lot of energy. You should also be careful about what to feed these birds in captivity. It is known that if a bird is not fed during the day, it can easily die

Catching forest birds

Today, there are several methods of catching birds: on the water, on bait and on bait. Catching songbirds in the spring is usually carried out in the most common way - this is bait fishing. To do this, you need to choose a good place and place a bird of the same species in the cache. For example, if there is siskin fishing, then it is necessary to hide the female siskin. It is considered to be the best bait for all kinds of songbirds.

Catching songbirds in autumn is most often done for bait. To do this, you need to find a place where grains, berries, various seeds and even ant eggs are abundantly laid out. Branches are stuck along the edges of such a huge feeder, on which herbs, loved by songbirds, are necessarily placed. There must be plenty of water in the feeder. The stretched mesh will work by actuating the cord. But you need to have endurance and experience to catch a bird in this way

Catching birds on the water is very interesting and entertaining. It is often difficult to find a place where a bird can sit, but here it is necessary to put more bait. To catch a bird at a watering hole, you needuse a large network.

Maintenance and Care

Songbirds of the woods are a sociable population. In order to properly keep them in captivity, it is necessary to start pairs, and even better whole groups. It is known that catching and keeping songbirds requires special knowledge, so you should first study a little the material that is in this article, and then make feathered friends.

It is recommended to choose the right cage for such birds. High and narrow cages should not be used, since the bird usually cannot exist normally in such conditions. Both round and angular cages are not suitable for keeping songbirds. A cage that uses a stainless steel grate and a pallet made of any artificial materials will be considered ideal. The pan should be carefully inspected each time it is cleaned, as it should not have cracks or cracks.

Catching and keeping songbirds always requires preparation. First of all, you should take care of the room and the place where the cage should be. The room should be ventilated and bright. It is desirable that the cage should be near the window, but one of the walls of the cage should adjoin the wall so that the birds can snuggle up to it at any time and calm down.

If the cage is very large, then you can make small houses from plants in such an aviary, but you should only select non-poisonous flowers. You can set the cage so that the shadow on the cage falls from a shelf or from a tall flower. Birds are sensitive to light. If the change of day and night is notoccurs naturally, care should be taken to cover the cage with a dark blanket at night.

It is worth taking care that there are sticks in the cage. They should be of different sizes and different sizes. They can be made from a variety of non-toxic woods such as birch or maple. Most often, birds use them either for perches, or sharpen their beak about them. There should be no glass inserts in the cage.

It is worth taking care of the bird litter. It is better to use a sand bed, but it is desirable that the grains of sand be of different sizes. The sand should be coarse, and the pebbles in its composition are often eaten by birds to improve digestion.

The cage also needs bathing trays that can be hung directly on the walls of the cage. Bathtubs for bathing, like drinking bowls, need to be cleaned every day and always monitor their cleanliness. It is impossible to put drinking bowls and baths under sticks, because then litter will fall into them. The cage should have houses for breeding offspring.

Feeding

The content of forest songbirds requires a competent and correct distribution of the feed ration. The diet of such birds should consist of three parts of grain, one part of soft food, which is enriched with protein, and green food. If you do not take into account protein supplements, then this can lead to the development of protein deficiency.

It is best to use pre-sprouted grain feed as it is high in vitamins and nutrients. It's easy to prepare:you need to take the grain and soak it for a day, then leave it covered with a wet cloth for another day and wait for green seedlings to appear. But you can’t keep such grain for a long time, as it quickly deteriorates. It is necessary to try to purchase the grain mixture for germination that has not been irradiated.

You can not cook it at home, but buy ready-made food that has enough protein. Cabbage is forbidden to songbirds.

Uragus content

Every person once begins to be interested in how the catching and keeping of songbirds goes. Uragus has recently attracted a lot of interest. She sings well, but still the bird attracts more attention with its color and behavior. It is interesting to observe not only the crest, but also the constantly moving tail. Uragus moves completely silently. Such birds feed on mountain wormwood.

Mental disorders

Songbirds kept in captivity often suffer from mental disorders. The most common are depression and feather plucking. This is most often due to loneliness, poor maintenance, lack of exercise, or obesity. To cure a bird, it is necessary to establish the cause and try to change the conditions of keeping and feeding, as well as add a couple to it.