The current count for chicks in my bird room is 38, with another nest of 5 fertile eggs due to hatch on Wednesday morning. Another hen was set up in a cage with a male this morning.

In the morning I will be moving several chicks to a weaning cage with an older hen. I find that having an older bird to model feeding behaviors in the weaning cage helps a great deal. I have several older hens who regularily pull weaning cage duty - they are too old to breed, but are very patient with active, clumsy weanlings.

Some of the hens I am allowing to have a second clutch- the others will make room in the breeding cages for hens who are currently in the walk-in flight. Those hens were either slow in coming into breeding condition or had infertile eggs their first time around.

I am looking at raising over 60 birds this year. I hadn't intended to have that many, but the birds are really doing very well this year. They should produce at least 60 birds without a problem- in some years past I have worked hard to get 40.

Ths appears to be the year for dark birds in my breeding cages- I will likely end up with a large percentage of green and medium to heavy variegated birds. In the opinion of many, birds of these colors tend to be the best singers- lighter colored birds win once in a while, though. I also appear to have three cinnamon birds- one is likely a hen as her father is a cinnamon carrier and her mother is green. The other two could be either male or female as their father is a cinnamon carrier and their mother is cinnamon.

Ideally, a breeder who is truly serious about American Singers should be colorblind. The song should be the overriding concern of the AS breeder who exhibits.

 

I definitely agree with you on the colorblind thing when it comes to showing/breeding these birds. Of course, those of us who are looking at an AS more as a companion than breeding stock do appreciate a pretty bird to go with the pretty song. ;)