Chirping a canary

Canaries are contented to live by themselves and are perfectly happy without a large amount of interaction from other birds or their human caretakers. This trait makes them a great pet for a working person who doesn't have a lot of one-on-one time to devote to a pet.

If you do have a lot of time, it is possible to hand tame a canary. This takes patience, as canaries are instinctively cautious, and you look like a big predator to them. Slow movements, and soft spoken words will start the process of gaining their trust. You can read many testimonials from folks who have hand tamed canaries, even allowing them to fly free out of their cages periodically.

If you want more than one canary, you need to consider their housing needs.

You can enjoy having more than one male if you cage them separately. When one starts singing, the other one will chime in to make his presence known, and you'll have endless duets. Keeping them in the same room is fine, but you should place their cages where they cannot see each other. Never cage two males together, as they are very territorial and will fight. Even a male and female cannot be caged together outside of breeding season, so if you purchase a pair, keep in mind that you will need two cages for most of the year.

Keeping more than one hen in the same cage is usually fine, but choose a cage that is large enough for them. Each bird has a different personality, and you may have one that simply does not like the others. Watch their interaction and be ready to intervene if you see prolonged bickering. I routinely cage several hens together in one flight cage for most of the year and they all get along quite well. The key is to have plenty of room in the cage, a variety of perches, and be watchful of the food dish. If one hen is dominating the food supply, the others will suffer. You can remedy this by having more than one food dish in the cage. Keeping multiple hens is a nice way for someone to collect the different colors of canaries and enjoy them in one environment. Hens usually have sweet personalities, so don't overlook them if you're wanting a pet. During breeding season, they tend to become more territorial, so be prepared to separate them.

The male canary is the singer. Hens chirp a few notes or calls, but nothing compared to the male's song. There are a few rare hens who do sing, in fact, one of my first hens was initially thought to be a male by her breeder when he was separating his young males from his young females. He thought this because she was singing softly, as all young males will do as they are first learning their songs. Breeders usually pull the young males and cage them together with an adult male tutor, which really helps their song development. After being in a flight with the young males for a few weeks, he noticed her being picked on by the other birds and that her song was not becoming stronger. He pulled her from the flight, which rescued her from the feather pulling, and placed her with his young hens.

I purchased her because of her strong background (both her father and grandfather had won Best in Show awards for their song performance). Since it is said that a hen carries the song of her father, I wanted her for my breeding program. It was intriguing to watch and listen to her when she was in the flight cage with my other hens. This unusual singing hen would sit on a perch and twitter her song, which contained quite a variety of phrases and notes. She was a pleasure to have in the normally quiet cage. She taught me to never say that hens cannot sing, as she proved to me that there are some who can sing, and do sing very well.