Bird Supplies

Nests, nest boxes and egg food for a breeding pair:

canaries and budgies nest in completely different ways, and the kit follows the bird. A canary hen builds in an open cup nest hooked to the front of the cage, and she needs loose material to line it: coconut fibre or jute. Budgies and cockatiels build nothing: the hen lays in a closed wooden nest box with a round entrance and a hollowed floor. Lovebirds sit between the two, carrying strips of paper or bark tucked into their rump feathers and building a nest inside a box. Cages and flight cages for the pair are in birds. Once the chicks hatch, egg food, the soft rearing mix the parents feed to them, is the supply that runs out fastest.

Loose canary seed by the pound and mixes in a sealed bag:

both end up in Guatemalan cages, and they are judged differently. Loose seed weighed out from an open sack lets you see and smell what you are getting, but a sack that has stood open for weeks picks up dust and damp. A sealed bag of mixed seed carries a date and says what is in it: canary seed with a little rapeseed and linseed for canaries, a millet base for budgies, larger seed with sunflower for cockatiels. To test any seed, soak a spoonful and leave it on damp paper: fresh canary seed sprouts within a few days, and seed that never sprouts is old, whatever the label says.

Perches, baths and toys a parakeet will chew:

turn a cage into somewhere a bird can live. A natural branch with its bark on, thick in one place and thin in another, works the feet better than the smooth plastic dowels most cages arrive with. Canaries ignore most toys but bathe eagerly, so a clear bath that hooks over the open cage door earns its place. Budgies and cockatiels need things to destroy, untreated wood, cardboard and palm leaf, or they start on the perches. A tube drinker keeps water clean longer than an open cup, which a bird soils within hours, but the tube needs scrubbing before a green film settles in.

A second-hand nest box, drinker or swing:

tells you its history if you look closely. Open a wooden nest box and check the floor: dark staining, soft wood or a sour smell mean droppings have soaked into the grain, and no scrubbing brings that back out. A box with an inspection lid is worth more than one without, because it lets a keeper check the eggs without lifting the hen. Plastic cup nests and drinkers wash clean and are sound buys; old fibre liners and used nesting material belong in the rubbish, not in the bag with the nest. Hold a drinker up to the light for cracks and a stain that will not shift, then fill it to see whether the spout drips. On toys, look at the hardware: chain links and split rings a toe can slip into, and bells whose clapper works loose, are the parts that injure a bird. Vitamins or mite sprays should only change hands sealed and in date.

A breeding set from a keeper who has stopped raising chicks:

sells best as one listing, nest boxes, dividers and the unopened egg food together, because whoever needs one piece almost always needs the rest. Say which birds used the nests and how they were cleaned, photograph the inside floor of each nest box, and say whether the seed bag is still sealed. A canary that slipped out during its bath belongs in animals lost and found. Whoever drives in from Chimaltenango or Retalhuleu to collect a set should bring a closed box for the nests and a separate bag for the seed, so nothing from a used nest box ends up in the food.