12 Months of Philippine Bird Keeping by Greg Howell

      I’ve just come back from 7 weeks in Australia during which I visited the Kimberly region of Western Australia which is the home of most of the Philippines favourite finches.  I’ve got some nice shots of wild owls, gouldians, masks, shaft-tails and others that you don’t see here.  I’ll write that post later but my first duties are to house keeping and the house-keeping jobs that we need to be mindful of as keepers and breeders.

 I returned to mind that despite the best efforts my helpers my aviaries were looking dishevelled and in need of  a “spring clean”.  Day one (July 30) had to remove one fat vine-snake from the main aviary – I captured it and it vomited up an almost fully fledged cut-throat.  Also missing are a pair of shaft-tailed finches, and a hen Gouldian.  This is a second snake that I know of , so I obviously have a hole.  This is not surprising given the quality of the work done to construct my main aviary.  In the Philippines gaps and holes should be less than 6mm in order to exclude all rodents and snakes.

 Checking the nests I found plenty of abandoned eggs (including the missing shaft-tails) and that two boxes are co-inhabited by black ants and cut-throats.  These birds must be particularly tolerant – much more so than me.  I’ve exterminated one lot but the other will have to wait until the young are gone – if they survive.  If they were the much smaller light brown fire ants the birds would be eaten by now

 I found that brush branches (Callistemon viminalis) I use to line my aviaries for shelter and nesting sites have lost their leaves now that the wet-season has started in earnest and will need to be renewed.  This year will know to hang it upside down and dry it before I place it in the aviary as it droops if it’s put in fresh and allowed to dry in situ. 

 Another thing I noticed is I got quite itchy entering the aviary due to the build-up of dander.  Dander is a collection of dead skin and feathers which by itself isn’t too objectionable but it provides food for dust mites. Proteins (largely digestive enzymes) in their excreta are a powerful human allergen and it’s probably not too good for the birds either. In Australian we commonly use a residual pyrethroid (Coopex by Bayer) to wash down the shelter areas of aviaries and breeding cabinets to reduce the incidence of ants, bedbugs, carpet beetles, clothes moths, cockroaches, fleas, spiders, silverfish, houseflies, mosquitoes, biting flies, hide beetles and seed harvesting ants.  I hope that it or something similar is available here.

 It is important to not let these jobs build up and if you have a number of cages this can be easily done by rotating cages/aviaries while you clean and refurbish.  I only have two aviaries and so I will have to compromise.  Hopefully the Java sparrows in the smaller aviary won’t kill my expensive finches while I do this work in my main aviary.  I know I theoretically condemn collecting but I couldn’t help purchasing the Javas to “complete my collection” and now I may pay the price but if I don’t my mail aviary will become unsable.  So as you can see I have some major repair, cleaning and refurbishment ahead of me and hopefully I can enjoy another 12 months of Philippine bird keeping.