From Wonder to Weiner...........

A few short weeks ago I was writing and posting pictures of the wonders of canary breeding. Things have changed.......... I bought a few more birds in my quest to have a Canary Empire going. (I can't be content to have a pair of canaries and watch them breed and feed and raise their babies. If one pair is good then 5 will be orbital!) At the present time I now have a few pairs going and some stragglers I have given up on. Actually, I have 4 females who have layed eggs and 2 of those have hatched. Out of the original 5 babies only 1 made it, and is now in his own cage. This fiasco can only be blamed on me. Once again I thought I knew best and moved the cage location and actual cage more than once. I actually had a professional breeder warn me not to do such a thing! That same female, Patches, layed and hatched again and only 1 even hatched and was dead a few days later. My other female, Sunshine, hatched one baby two weeks ago. This was also my fault, as I did not get her man, Gatorade, in with her soon enough and only 1 egg was fertilized. I was trying a new "hands off" approach with her and it has backfired. I have been feeding and watering her and basically leaving her completely alone. Today I finally decided to look in and see what was up. Her baby is 2 weeks old and should be coming out of the nest soon. I was horrified when I saw it. The baby is skeletal, barely feathered and minute. I think it's legs are splayed. Many times it is not good when only one baby hatches. The mothers' have a tendency to barely feed them and they also sit on the nest too tightly and too long. I could not bear it so I got the nest out and mixed up food and fed the baby twice, til his little crop was full. This is tippish at best. Hand feeding is time consuming and chancy. The mother is no longer sitting on the nest and this poor thing is barely feathered. Not a good feel at all.... That brings us to female number 3, Puff Puff. She was with Butterball, who has taken a bad turn. I also played a hand in this situation. I bought a male who was very questionable. He look a little sickly right from the start. He has something wrong with his eye and had to move to a hospital cage for isolation and closer observation. This leaves Puff Puff alone. Actually this may not even be a problem, as I am not sure if her eggs will even hatch. She is not sitting on them the right way. She is always kind of standing and mildly panting like she is having a heat stroke. She needs to have her breast and stomach pressed on the eggs to keep them warm. She is rarely doing this. Now female number 4, Juliet and her man, Romeo. They are beautiful Red Factors. So far all looks good with them, but let's face it this season has NOT been going my way. I am in a darkened room with the cages covered as I type this. PLEASE HELP ME.......I think I just heard a sneeze from one of the cages!