** All Rights Reserved - Copyright 2003, revised 2012 **

Color Feeding Mosaic Canaries, article by Daniel Griffin

A Red Factor canary will only get as red as its genes pool permits, regardless of how much color
feeding you do. Based on this fact, selective breeding is essential to produce a good quality show
bird. Two additional facts that I must address concerning Mosaic Canaries, first when you start
conditioning them for breeding you must change their seed diet to exclude rape seeds; this is to
address the yellowing flight and tail feather which is a fault on the show bench. Also, you must
stop feeding any nesting food that has color oat such as ABBA 1700 because this will also yellow
the flight and tail feathers.

I start color feeding my Red Factor canaries (excluding Mosaic) two months before I pair them. It
is imperative that the coloring agent is absorbed into the egg yolk of the laid canary egg so when
the babies hatch, their tail and flight feathers will be red. This color feeding practice is only
applicable to USA birds, in some European countries the flights and tail feathers of an Unflighted
Red Factor contains no color.

I have been using Carophyll Red to color my birds for many years and have seen no harmful
affects. Carophyll Red is used in the zoos around the country to maintain color in zoo birds; the
zoos do animal research to maintain the health of their birds at all times. On the subject of Paprika,
this coloring agent was used many years ago, but Carophyll Red is a much better and acceptable
product. I have been breeding Canaries since 1978, and I have never used Paprika in preparing my
birds for the show bench. I have used many of the other products on the market to color birds but
none can compare to Carophyll Red.

The only exception in my coloring regiment is my mosaic birds; I don't give them color until the
babies are 6 weeks old and only to the babies. Judge Geoff Walker of England, in a response to a
question on the canary list (CANARY@LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU (Internet e-mail chat)),
had suggested color feeding mosaic babies at 21 days. I called several mosaic breeders and they felt
that 21 days was too soon. They suggested 30 to 42 days to be better. These disparities in opinions
on color feeding mosaics made me do research on my own flock. I normally separate the baby birds
from the parents at 21 days with a partition. When I examined each baby the flight and tail feathers
had blood tips. If you were to feed at this point (21 days) the color would appear in the flight and
tail feathers via the blood source. Because the feather is still growing, these feathers would be
unevenly colored resulting in the mosaic bird losing points on the show bench. I examined the
same mosaic babies at 30 days and found that the flight and tail feathers did not have blood tips.
This would be a better start date to start color feeding mosaic babies. Taking the result of my case
study into consideration, I waiting an additional 10 days to build in a safely factor considering that
all birds in a nest dont grow at the same rate. My conclusion, based on starting color feeding
Mosaic birds at 42 days or 6 weeks of age resulted in Mosaics with flights and tail feathers devoid
of red color. Based on this article, others conducted the same analysis in their bird room and got
the same result confirming my finding. Another thing to consider is if you are breeding Mosaics
in the same room as other Red Factor they should be placed in your top row of cages so no red
nesting food can fall into their cage by accident negating your show preparation efforts. Another
important point, if the shoulders of the Mosaic birds molt before you start color feeding, pluck the
feathers on the shoulders so they will re-grow with the correct color.

** All Rights Reserved - Copyright 2003, revised 2012 **
Unfortunately, extensive research is not being performed on canaries in the same way that research
is being performed on chickens and pigeons. So, canary breeders that can and do perform research,
document your findings so we can help fellow canary breeders grow in our endeavors to breed
show winners. This color feeding time line should work for both Lipochrome and Melanin Mosaic
birds.