Neurotic canary knocking all the seed out of feeder

[VinceS]

Yep, thought I had mice getting through the 6mm mesh / concrete floor somehow, but put cheapo cameras in there and soon found the culprit. A yellow canary turns up at the main feeder and spends 11.5 minutes just batting seed out of the feeder into the spillover tray below, except I removed the tray so birds can go in there too, quite the social event it is for them. The feeder is about 300mm square, 80mm deep and the bird will half empty one side in a couple of days, then nothing for weeks, then does it again.

It is a big aviary, an L shape about 8m x 3m ground area and 2m high. About 150 birds, half are gouldians (yay, finally breeding!); about a dozen canaries, mostly males (well, they sing noice), and the rest are assorted finches, but only non-aggressive species.

After the seed throwing exercise it never even had something to eat, either before or after. Of course this is just one bird, the first one I have seen doing it; there could be others. Has anyone observed such behaviour before and / or got any idea about underlying causes / ways to deal with it? Thank you.

[noah.till]

Chuck in a some dry dusty dirt, it obviously seems it wants to dust bath and the seed is the best option
Cheers
Noah Till

[VinceS]

This aviary is half concrete (where mice burrowed in before) and half dirt; there is an area where they can have a dust bath but only ever seen the quails using that. The bird was only getting 'beak action', so it was enjoying the neck resistance, or had some birdie idea to get all the feed out. Dunno, but not trying to bathe in it...

I'll see what happens, as the basic technique is to see when the level goes down then scroll back in the video to find out why. This was day 1 and it didn't involve a big depletion, so I am keen to see one of them and see if the little chap is just going at it for longer or has accomplices, or they all take a turn!

[finchbreeder]

Canaries are messy in their tendancy to throw food arround more than most finches. But they sing nice and I like them. Just possible it is looking for something that is not there? Is it a bird you bred or purchased? If the 2nd it may be used to and fond of something you do not feed.
LML

[Rod_L]

What are you feeding the birds?

Make sure they have a varied diet consisting of different seeds, green feed, cuttlebone, mineral grit, egg biscuit (preferably home made), and anything else you can feed them.

You can put some clean sand over the concrete slab to make the birds more comfortable. If you don't want to do that, get a large ceramic dish a couple of inches high and put some sand in that. The birds can have a sand bath there. Use clean sand from a nursery or clean part of your garden.

If your birds are getting coccidiosis, you need to replace the dirt in the open section and clear and disinfect the concrete more often. You should also replace nests every year or at least clean and disinfect them. And quarantine all new birds for a month before adding them to your main aviary.

[VinceS]

So effectively the suggestions add up to no direct experience of the problem but guesses that if I change the environment it may change the behaviour? Fair enough, could be something in that. And there I was thinking it could actually be a defective bird...!
Currently they have Finch Blue, canary seed and cuttlebone to browse on, and regular milkweed (when it rains) and I grow pots of seed to point of seeding, which I put one in just before the cameras and that didn't change the behaviour given it happened a few days earlier (or progressively, I wouldn't really know) and after. There has been plenty of newly sprouted seed last few days, just what gets wet on concrete floor. Largely the concrete is under cover, about half the aviary and they can pick from a few micro environments within the area, from full sun to deep shade, with quite a variety of perching and a little greenery where the canaries have spared it (they are such marauders, slowly slowly; takes them a week to strip the seeding grass but they get the job done!). I would think a lot of birds have much more reason to be neurotic than this lot.
I haven't added birds for over 2 years, so they are all 'locals'. It has me puzzled still, and it is a danged nuisance to boot!

[finchbreeder]

Sounds like you are doing everything right, and you just have an "odd" bird. Sorry couldn't be more helpful.
LML

[Rod_L]

You could have an odd bird but it would be rare. I have never had any birds do stuff like that, hence the responses about modifying the environment to possibly/ hopefully change the behaviour.

The bird might be trying to bath in the seed, or it could be looking for something or hoping there is something at the bottom of the seed dish. Or it could just like messing with your head and does it to stir you up

Have you got enough males and females so they can all pair up?
It might be a frustrated male who can't get a girlfriend.