I have been seriously remiss in maintaining this blog! After being reminded about it numerous times, here I am at long last.

This past fall I experienced some serious difficulties with my health. With the stress and activity of the show season on top of my health problems, I was able to get the basics accomplished and little else. Now, due to the wonders of modern medicine and several weeks of rest, I am back to my old self and ready to spread the word about our amazing American Singers once again!

For those who are not aware of it, I also have an email group on Google to which I try to post something regularily. The website for that list can be found at http://groups.google.com/group/american-singer-canaries. It is open to the public and anyone is welcome to join, but it is moderated to ensure a good experience for all the members. Last time I checked, we had 176 members! That isn't bad at all for a group that is just a little over a year old.

Due to the problems I had with my health, I had to seriously consider my ability to keep my birds and, if I kept them, if I should breed this year. I have decided to breed again this year, but not the numbers I have in the past. This February I will pair up very select pairs and allow them only one round of chicks. My target date for pairing up is St. Valentine's Day, though there are usually one or two hens who are simply crazed and end up paired a bit earlier. This year, I am really going to make them wait.

For the month of January, the birds are just relaxing. The males are in tabletop flights and the hens are in the walk-in flight. As my target date for pairing approaches, I am very slowly increasing the amount of protein and fresh food being offered. By the beginning of February, the birds will be getting a very small portion of moist eggfood once or twice a week and fresh, finely chopped broccoli and carrot three times a week in addition to their seed mix, which is fairly rich. I offer a richer seed blend before and during breeding season as the oils contained in the darker seeds are essential to successful egg laying- and to the production of healthy chicks.

In the days to come, I will be adding much more to the website. I am hard at work writing new articles for upcoming issues of various newsletters and will be adding some of these to the site.

Yours in the American Singer fancy,

~Marie