Bulletin 1996 - 1997

T - NOTES

Here it is, finally! At last! A few months late, but the 1996-97 Bulletin is complete with the 1996 membership list. I apologize for the delay, however, as most of you know my wife and I changed addresses twice this year. (By the way, all ANS correspondence should be sent to us at 113 Murphy Rd., Winter Springs, FL 32708. Phone (407) 696-1003 or call me at work 1-800-869-0007 ext. 4762).

As you will see, several members have contributed articles to make this newsletter interesting to read. Many thanks to all who took the time to write! Please keep it up, I think this is one of the better Bulletins thanks to our many contributors!

According to the latest information we've been given from the folks at the National Cage Bird Show, the Type Judge for the Denver show will be ANS member, Sal DiPasquale. The correct date for this year's show is November 20- 22, 1997. I have seen the show dates advertised incorrectly recently and wanted to be sure you had the correct information. It will be held at the Denver Airport Holiday Inn.

We are currently trying to build a web-page for ANS. It should be up and running by the end of March. We will try to get a list from the NCBS of the past winners of best Norwich so that we can include them on our web page.. There will be an e-mail address for anyone to send comments/questions to us. We'll publish the address when we send out the summer newsletter.

We'd like to try something new for 1998. We'd like to give out a trophy and possibly a cash award to the individual who does the best at several different shows including the Nationals. Here's the plan: It's a derby and there will be points awarded for wins at various shows across the country, and points awarded for wins at Nationals. The goal is to do well at local shows and also place 1st, 2nd or 3rd at Nationals in the Norwich section. The winner will be someone who ends the show season with the highest score. Currently we are looking for shows, other than the Nationals, that bench at least 30 Norwich from at least 3 different exhibitors. We will need someone who attends that show to report on the winners (1st-3rd). Ideally we like to have approximately 5-10 shows around the country which meet these qualifications. A winner at the local level might receive 10 points for a 1st, 5 points for a 2nd, or 2 points for a 3rd.. A winner at Nationals would get 50 points for 1st, 25 points for 2nd, and 10 points for 3rd. Please let us know ASAP of the shows that we can include in the derby. Elections: There were none. No one submitted any names, no one volunteered to run for office. So the current officers will continue. The current officers remind you that this club is only as good as what you put into it, so we will continue to ask for your help. We encourage you to take action - when there is something you think needs doing, just do it! For example, ANS member Patsy Strickland has designed the new ANS pin. The design was previewed at our meeting during the Detroit Nationals and we hope to have them available sometime this year.

Finally, Roy Aplin, artist and bird breeder from England, is working on what will hopefully become the new visual standard in England as well as America. This picture will be submitted at the Annual General Meeting of the clubs in England. This new model is a bolder bird and more accurately reflects the characteristics we strive to breed towards today. Both Keith Ferry and Steve Hailey are visiting with Francis Martin in March and will give him their opinions of this new model.

The breeding season is about to commence at our house. I hope all is going well in your bird rooms. I hope many of you are planning to bring your "bumper crop" of Norwich with you to the National this year so that we can bench over 100! We came close in '96 (with 92) but we still need your help to succeed in '97!

Finally I would like to congratulate Dr. Francis Martin on his win at the 1996 Nationals. In case you haven't heard Dr. Martin won the Scannell for best bird in show!

-Will Burdett, Treasurer ANS

AMERICAN NORWICH SOCIETY

REGIONAL REPRESENTATIVES REPORT

Western Region:

Early in 1996 at one of our monthly club meetings (American Canary Fanciers Assoc.) one of our members, who has a background in nutrition, recommended feeding papaya to your canaries. The purpose of feeding papaya was the digestive enzyme contained in the fruit. This enzyme would be beneficial in that it would help maintain a healthy digestive tract therefore preventing problems such as "pasted vents" and "going light". Having experienced both of these problems I decided I would give it a try.

It wasn't long before I found that cost and availability of fresh papaya was a big problem. The next step was to try and find this enzyme in a tablet form, which I was able to do. I bought two 50 tablet bottles for $1.99 each. I put the contents of both bottles into the food processor and turned the tablets into a fine powder. The tablets were the same consistency as chalk so this process worked well.

The next question, dosage? The bottle recommended 1 to 2 tablets per day for an adult so I felt that was a good place to start for approximately 150 canaries. I sprinkle the equivalent of 1 to 2 tablets over one day's amount of nestling/condition food and mix it in.

I started using papaya enzyme when I was conditioning my birds for the 1996 breeding season and had the best season ever, I had excellent health in the bird room, no "pasted vents", no "sweating hens" and only one hen went "light" while on the nest. Good bird room hygiene is the most important thing we can do for our birds but for a few dollars a moth this papaya enzyme is worth a try. Good luck!

Brian Allen - ANS Western Regional Representative

Chuck Galusha has volunteered to cover the news from Arizona. We would like to thank Chuck for this and look forward to his first report. We would also like to mention that Chuck won a Best Norwich Certificate in February of 1995 at the Florida State Fair's bird show. We neglected to mention this in our previous awards listings. Congratulations Chuck!

We are still looking for Regional Representatives. We haven't heard a peep from the Eastern half of the country. Anyone?

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WHO WON AT NATIONALS ?

The following are some statistics from the 1996 National Cage Bird Show in Detroit. First of all, there were 92 Norwich entered at the 1996 National representing 16 different exhibitors from Ohio, Illinois, Maryland, Iowa, New Jersey, Arizona, California, Pennsylvania, Florida and Canada.

Overall Winners were: 1st - buff c/t old cock - Francis Martin 2nd - yellow lt. var. young cock - Francis Martin 3rd - buff, lt. var young cock - Beverly Lee 4th - buff c/t old hen - Francis Martin

Buff clear/ticked: old cock (4) - 1,3 F. Martin; 2 L. Sheldon

young cock (7) - 1 B. Milkowski; 2 B. Ridzinski; 3 L. Sheldon

old hen (2) - 1 F. Martin; 2 R. Jackson

young hen (7) - 1 W. Burdett; 2 P. Kane 3 R. Tepedino

Yellow clear/ticked: Old cock (1) - 1 F. Martin

young cock (3) - 1 W. Burdett; 2 P. Kane; 3 J. Eslamieh

old hen (3) - 1 F. Martin; 2 R. Tepedino; 3 H. Olszower

young hen (2) - 1 P.. Kane; 2 L. Clack

White clear/ticked: young cock (1) - L. Sheldon

Cinnamon/fawn: young cock (2) - 1 P. Strickland; 2 L. Sheldon

young hen (1) - L. Clack

Buff lightly variegated: old cock (2) - 1,2 W. Burdett

young cock (5) - 1 B. Lee; 2 W. Burdett; 3 P. Kane

old hen (2) - 1 W. Burdett; 2 F. Martin

young hen (2) - 1 L. Sheldon; 2 W. Burdett

Yellow lightly variegated: old cock (1) - W. Burdett

young cock (7) - 1 F. Martin; 2 W. Burdett; 3 L. Clack

young hen (2) - 1 W. Burdett; 2 L. Clack

Buff variegated: young cock (4) - 1 B. Ridzinski; 2,3 P. Strickland

old hen (1) - B. Lee

young hen (4) - 1 L. Clack; 2 L. Sheldon; 3 W. Burdett

Yellow variegated: young cock (4) - 1 L. Sheldon; 2 B. Lee; 3 L. Clack

young hen (3) - 1,2 W. Burdett; 3 L. Clack

Buff heavy variegated: old cock (1) - R. Tepedino

young cock (3) - 1 B. Ridzinski; 2 V. Turco; 3 L. Sheldon

old hen (1) - B. Lee

young hen (3) - 1 B. Ridzinski; 2 L. Clack; 3 R. Jackson

Yellow heavy variegated: old cock (1) - B. Ridzinski

young cock (3) - 1 V. Turco; 2 L. Sheldon; 3 H. Olszower

White heavy variegated: young cock (2) - 1 R. Tepedino; 2 B. Lee

Buff green self/foul: old cock (1) - R. Tepedino

young cock (1) - B. Ridzinski

young hen (2) - 1 L. Clack; 2 L. Sheldon

Yellow green self/foul: old cock (1) - G. McGinnis

young cock (2) - 1 B. Ridzinski; 2 H. Olszower

Blue self/foul: young hen (1) - L. Clack

For those of you interested in coincidences here's a bit of trivia...At the English National in 1986 Norwich fancier Keith Ferry won the Supreme award (like our Scannell), exactly 10 years earlier then Francis Martin. Francis had been in Keith's bird room that year and had predicted the winning bird. 10 years later ANS member Steve Hailey, also from England, visited Francis' bird room and predicted the 1996 win! Francis' winning bird was bred from Norwich carrying that winning English bloodline.

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BREEDING SEASON

BY HUGO RUIZ

Once again the breeding season is here and the need to prepare for success is imperative. Let us suppose that our beginning breeder has been fortunate enough to obtain well matched and healthy stock. Here are some excellent guidelines from The Norwich Canary: Keeping, Breeding and Showing by Joe A. Bracegirdle which will lend to a productive season for those who are new to the breeding process.

Make sure your hens get plenty of flight.

Keep your males in a good sized separate cage.

Conditioning food should be fed to birds 2-3 times per week.

On other days, give birds fresh leafy greens such as kale, chicory, or spinach.

Let us not forget grit and cuttle bone! Have an adequate supply readily available for your hens.

Egg food should also be fed once or twice a week so the parents will be acclimated to it before the arrival of their chicks.

Make sure that your birds have sufficient lighting. If your birds do not have access to natural light "Vita Lights" are an excellent commercial product to provide essential light.

Observation is critical and often overlooked by beginning breeders. Make sure that your birds are ready to mate before pairing them.

Only pair a yellow ground bird to a buff ground bird.

Besides the above breeding tips, giving your canaries sprouts will help them to reach optimum health. Sister Shiva Kumari, a breeder of finches, developed a wonderful technique for making sprouted seed which can be used for all types of birds. Her method utilizes honey and salt, which are age old preservatives and alleviate the problem of sprouts becoming moldy or sour. She fully explains the process in an article which can be found in "American Cage-Bird Magazine" from June, 1987. It's worth looking up if you are interested in refining the art of growing sprouts. I have condensed the basic technique presented in the article for you here.

Use ABBA soak seed and mix in mung beans (sold at health food stores.)

In a bowl or pot (Kumari emphasizes using bowls or pots rather than jars because of their larger surface area which provides more air) mix one half teaspoon of sea salt with one tablespoon of honey and a small amount of hot water (to help dissolve) for each cup of seed to be sprouted.

In a second bowl, cleanse the seed in a mixture of one teaspoon of Clorox and plenty of lukewarm water. Let the seed soak in this for five minutes. Then, rinse the seed thoroughly.

Add two cups of room temperature water to the above honey mixture. (Note: the basic ratio is 1/2 tsp of salt to 1 Tbsp of honey to 2 c. lukewarm water to 1 c. seed. Kumari suggests sprouting three cups of seed at a time to create layers which aid in sprouting.)

Place seed in honey water and leave to soak for 15 hours.

Rinse well, put seed in a bowl or pot, cover with paper towel, and place it in a warm spot which receives plenty of air.

Aerate the seed every four or five hours by mixing the layers so the bottom layers get a chance to come to the top. (This step is most important to follow when the seed is still wet.)

At the end of the second day place them in the refrigerator.

Serve daily to your birds and they will love it!

I hope that the above breeding tips will aid towards a rewarding 1997 breeding season for beginner and veteran breeders alike.

(Hugo Ruiz is an ANS member from New York. In an upcoming issue he will be writing a complete review of the Bracegirdle book mentioned in the above article. We appreciate his contributions to our Bulletin! -Ed.)

RON & CANDY'S EGG FOOD RECIPE AND OUR FOOD TIPS WHEN REARING AND WEANING NORWICH CHICKS

BY RON AND CANDY PEZZUTI

To prepare hard boiled eggs:

Salt the water and cook three dozen eggs for 30 minutes at a slow boil. Leave the eggs in the shell and they will last up to a week in the refrigerator. Use as needed. (The cooking time of thirty minutes and the salt will kill any type of bacteria that the egg may carry.)

To prepare corn bread:

Prepare in advance any type of corn bread recipe. (We use Marie Callanders mix in a can. On sale, it's approximately $1.59/can. Just add water and bake.) You can add poppy seed or caraway seed. to the batter. This also helps encourage hens to feed.

The egg food recipe:

In a food processor chop approximately 1 cup prepared corn bread and place in a large bowl; chop about 1/2 cup cleaned broccoli florets and add to bowl; chop about 6 hard boiled eggs, with or without shell, and add to bowl. Mix together with two forks. You can add dry vitamins, ground hemp, poppy seed, etc. Mix thoroughly. Keep the mixture in the refrigerator in an airtight container.

Note: For hens that aren't feeding well try adding frozen peas to the mixture. Put a couple of hand fulls of frozen peas in a strainer, run hot water over them until soft, and shake until fairly dry then add to corn bread mixture. We believe that this helps chicks from going light and reduces mortality rate.

Weaning/Rearing food:

Add any or all of the following ingredients to the basic mixture.

Canary seed, niger, hulled oats, oat meal flakes, Rice Crispies, spray millet, corn bread, whole wheat bread, brown rice (rinse well to remove excess starch after cooking), shredded vegetables such as broccoli stems, cabbage, carrots and fresh corn. (Be sure the carrots are fed only to birds you want to color feed!) Always give some egg food in the morning. Also try giving slices of apple, seeds removed, once a week.

Tips:

Always serve egg food in a flat dish. It won't sour as fast as in a small cup.

Add antibiotics to water when you first separate the chicks from their parents; do this twice a week.

Add lactobacillus to egg food for at least 4 weeks while weaning. This helps reduce chick loss. Always keep an eye on your chicks the first few days. Some chicks need more time with their parents than their clutch mates. My Norwich don't like leaving home until they are about 6 weeks out of the nest or longer. We breed in a cage big enough to allow them to stay even if the hen goes back to nest. We put in a divider so they can still have the father feed if need be.

Remember to Color feed if you're planning to show. You can put the color food in the corn bread as well as in the water, but watch the color of the droppings. They should not be more than pink in color.

We place feeding dishes in different areas of the flight because some chicks are more aggressive than others. We also place swings and toys in the flight so they can play. Some breeders separate chicks to small, individual cages while weaning until show season. (We don't.)

These are just some of the things we found to be helpful and usually work. We have experienced less mortality after weaning with this method. Hope you have a good breeding season. See you at the National! -Ron & Candy Pezzuti