orange canary turning yellow!!

[cardi88]

my bright orange canary is in the middle of moulting ( i think - im new to this canary keeping!) and is turning more and more yellow every day! im not at all bothered just wondering if it will stay orangey yellow / turn completly yellow or go back orange when moulting is over - i got some coloured seeds from a petshop and he's mad on these! is there anything else i should be doing during the moulting period? any advice on keeping canaries very welcome

[les saisies]

You have to feed a colouring food in order to make the colour of the feathers change to red, Read some articles about red factor canaries. to find out exactly what you have to do.

[wildwood]

...and I am afraid you're too late to keep the orange colour for this year. If you start feeding colour in the middle of the moult you'll get a some orange feather and some yellow. If you want the orange colour you need to feed the colouring food before the moult starts till after the head (the last to molt) is completely molted out.

You should have been told that it has been colour-fed when you got the bird.

Canaries are easy to look after. Just the basic canary seed mix is excellent food. Clean water daily and a piece of cuttlefish bone on the side of the cage. Canaries don't need grit because they shell the seed. Whenever you are preparing veges, just stick a little bit between the wires - and remove any that's left after 12 hours, so that it doesn't go bad.

Management is mostly common sense. No full exposure to the full sun unless half of the cage is covered with a dark cloth so the bird can get out of the sun when it wants to. Be careful of any draughts, they are lethal to small birds.
Canaries can easily live for 8 years.

[cardi88]

thanks both - i love the colour its got going on now - half orange half bright yellow but it's all very symmetric so looks very exotic!! so if i didnt feed it the colour seeds at all during moult woud it turn all yellow?

[wildwood]

yes.