I've been asked to talk to the local bird club in Manila in August about finches and canaries. I haven't kept canaries since I was a kid but I don't remember any problems other than remembering that they need egg'n'biscuit mix to feed their young. Here however the daylength increase in "spring" is insufficent to trigger breeding. I've made a slide of this to shown this by comparing daylength in Brussels, Manila and Darwin (to show the home range of most of the finches that Filipinos keep). To overcome this lighting deficeny in the tropics, dedicated canary breeders here increase daylength from 9 to 14h by manually adjusting the lighting by 15minutes/week. Blackouts as so common here that even with mechanical socket timers it is a laborious task. The electronic ones with a battery back up are OK but still have to be advanced by 15 mins per week.
Does anyone know of an electronnic photoperiod timer that will automatically and smoothly adjust photoperiods for you? Even better would be a picture and a website for such a device.
GregH
