Is it good to live in captivity? How long do snakes live in captivity and in the wild? How long can birds live.

Many people are interested in how long finches live. Their lifespan depends on their habitat. In nature, these birds overcome many difficulties; dangers await them day and night. In captivity, the lifespan of finches is directly related to the care and attentiveness of the owner. Let's figure out how long they can live in different conditions.

What can affect the lifespan of finches in nature?

How many years a wild finch lives depends on access to food. forced to eat what grows within their reach. Sudden and prolonged drought can reduce the number of finches, as it dries out plants and leaves birds without food.

Nomadic species cope with this problem more easily, because they can afford to move to fertile lands at any time. However, not all individuals survive long flights, dying on the way.

Along with searching for food, birds have to constantly search for drink. With the exception of zebra finches. They can live for a long time without water and are even able to consume salt water, fatal to most birds.

In dry times, this also becomes a problem, which significantly reduces the number of flocks. The number of birds is also affected by poisoned water bodies - in this way, farmers are trying to get rid of annoying finches looking for food in farmers' fields. There are also traps placed in which the bird can meet death.

How many years the finch will live also depends on whether it becomes prey for a predator. Among the birds of prey that pose a danger to finches are the following:

• hawks;
• sparrowhawks;
• ravens;
• drongo;
• eagles;
• eagle owls;
• starlings;
• Sokolov.

Some predators can destroy clutches and eat young birds. For example, snakes, lizards, ants, flies, cuckoos, widows, cow corpses.

As a result, in wildlife Finches live about two to five years. Some of their species are under threat of extinction. For example, black-faced and king parrot species.

Gould's finches are also becoming extinct as a species. This was influenced not only by the dangers and difficulties that birds face every day, but also by their behavior. Gould finches are very bad parents, often abandoning eggs or chicks to their deaths.

Life in captivity

Their lifespan depends on how finches live at home. Only properly organized maintenance and proper care will protect exotic pets from tragic consequences.

With a caring owner who has managed to recreate living conditions close to natural, finches can live many happy years. There are cases where representatives of some species lived up to fifteen years.

You can see the life expectancy of some species of these birds in the following table:

What affects the lifespan of finches in captivity?

Inhumane breeding and place of purchase

The lifespan of finches is influenced by genetic predisposition. Multiple attempts by amateur breeders to develop new mutation species of these birds have led to the appearance of some individuals. Sometimes chicks die immediately after birth or while still in the egg.

Buying a bird at a pet store or poultry market does not provide a 100% guarantee that it will be healthy and young. Even the good ones will not save the finch if it is already seriously ill. And an adult bird will not live with you for long.

But even a young and apparently healthy bird can die, despite all the efforts of the owner. For example, due to a hereditary disease, the signs of which were not noticed in a timely manner.

Poor living and care conditions

Owners who do not have experience in keeping finches can place birds of other species in their cage. Such proximity often turns into a constant struggle for territory and food. In “combat” conditions, finches can fall into depression, which will exhaust them and destroy them. Injuries incompatible with life are possible.

Inexperienced owners will reduce the age of their pets if they are poorly maintained or cared for. Finches are very clean birds. They won't last long in unsanitary conditions.

On mental and physical state birds are also influenced by the dimensions and location of the cage, low temperatures, dry air, toxic odors and fumes, lack of water procedures and sunbathing, disturbances in sleep-wake patterns, dim lighting.

If finches are allowed to roam freely around the room, then failure to comply with safety conditions can take their life. Birds can fly out of an open window, get caught in a fan, drown in containers with liquids, or get poisoned toxic substances or indoor plants, die from electric shock.

If a bird falls into the paws of a cat or into the mouth of a dog, it runs the risk of being eaten. Even if the animals decide to just play with the bird, they can introduce an infection into the finch’s body through their saliva, which contains bacteria that are deadly to birds.

The lifespan of finches directly depends on them. Wrong balance nutrients, vitamins and minerals, low-quality or expired food, sour or missing food, dirty water - all this can undermine the health of birds and lead to their death.

Stressful situations and trauma

A sudden change in environment can have an adverse effect on mental state finches. Experiencing strong emotions, the bird often refuses to eat and drink. Starvation and dehydration lead to the fact that even a healthy individual loses strength and dies. That is why birds should not be disturbed at first, to give them the opportunity to get used to new environment.

Small finches may be frightened by sudden actions of pets. For example, a dog barking loudly or a curious cat poking its paws into a cage. Birds can also be frightened by children trying to get them out of their cage. Loud noises from a TV, vacuum cleaner, or stereo system can put a finch into a state of shock. Any stress can lead a bird to death.

Sometimes birds die from injuries sustained while flying. They can get injured while walking around the room or in small cages. Also, small birds can be crushed by the door, they can be stepped on or sit on.

Conclusion

To try to avoid the death of finches, it is necessary to surround the birds with care and attention, organize proper living conditions, monitor their activity and appetite, and regularly examine them. If you have any suspicions, take your pet to the veterinarian.

If you liked the article, please like it and share it with your friends.

Below we will answer the question of how many years a snake lives both in the wild and in captivity (zoos, terrariums). What is its lifespan - both maximum and average, what factors does it depend on, and even whether a snake can be an enemy to humans. You will read about all this in this article.

Snakes. Who is this and where do they live?

Representatives of the Reptile class - snakes - are found throughout the entire planet, except that they are not in the air. They developed lands from the Arctic Circle to the southernmost regions of the American continent. They live in a variety of ecosystems - steppe, forest, desert, mountain. True, most snakes still prefer the tropics (Asian, African, American, Australian). There are snakes that are characteristic only of a specific habitat. But there are also real cosmopolitans. For example, one of the most common snakes on the globe - the viper - has mastered all continents.

You won't find snakes in Greenland, Iceland and Ireland - areas close to high latitudes.

However, one should not think that there was an abundance of snakes. Like most of animals under pressure economic activity of man and his insatiable thirst for the development of new lands, some species of snakes today are considered endangered - there are 30 species in the International Red Book, and 15 in the Russian Red Book. Among the domestic snakes listed in the Red Book are species such as the long-nosed viper and the Central Asian cobra.

Lifespan of a snake in the wild

In the wild, studying the life of snakes, including its duration, is a rather difficult task. It requires a lot of time, special conditions, and professionalism of scientists. It's easier to do this in captivity, of course. But researchers still have some data. For example, how many years does one of the most common snakes live? The answer is known: its maximum lifespan in the wild is 12-15 years.

For a wild individual, this is a lot, since there are many factors that shorten the life span of these reptiles. Firstly, snakes live in a limited space, moving no more than a hundred meters. Secondly, snakes have natural enemies. These are birds that feed on snakes (storks, owls, most accipitridae, in particular snake eagles, etc.), as well as animals - ferrets, badgers, foxes and even hedgehogs. Well, many individuals are eliminated while still young, for example, due to disease.

In general, serpentologists say that the size of a snake’s body is directly related to its lifespan. So, snakes, like small snakes, live 10-15 years. But pythons already live up to 30 years, and according to some data, even up to half a century.

Allegedly in tropical jungle There were giant Latin American boa constrictors that lived 120 years. True, it is not possible to clarify how reliable this information is. It is quite possible that this is speculation.

How many years does a snake live in captivity?

It is commonly believed that in captivity, with proper care, some species of snakes can live for half a century. Indeed, not so long ago a dark python ended its days at the Moscow Zoo. He lived for about 50 years and reached a length of more than 5 meters. A royal python can live the same amount of time in a terrarium. But it is believed that these are the longest-living record holders among snakes kept in captivity.

Moreover, these data were not officially recorded. But here is the generally known data on various types of snakes. They are quite old, but these are definitely not rumors.

So, the record for longevity among snakes belongs to a boa constrictor named Popeye. He died at the Philadelphia Zoo in 1977 and lived just over 40 years.

How long does an anaconda snake live? It is known that one of the anacondas at the Washington Zoo lived for 28 years.

The average lifespan of a snake is from 10 to a maximum of 20 years. You can find out how many years he lives from quite reliable sources. These largest venomous snakes lived in captivity for more than 30 years, and grew throughout their lives, resulting in the body length of individual specimens being more than 5 and a half meters.

Other species of cobras live from 12 to 15 years in captivity; the American chicken beetle can live 18.

And of course, you need to understand that we are talking about keeping an animal in captivity, and captivity presupposes comfortable conditions for the specimen, a nutritious diet, the absence of enemies, the ability to lead an existence typical for this species and veterinary care. As a rule, all this is possible in a zoo.

But these days, there are more and more hobbyists who keep snakes at home. But if not properly cared for, a snake (for example, a snake that is recommended for beginners) will not last even a couple of months. And if done correctly, it will live up to two decades and, perhaps, will delight the novice serpentologist with its offspring.

Conclusion

Among all the extraordinary species of animals on the planet, snakes are the most peculiar. Just by their appearance near a person, they often cause the latter to panic or even have a slight attack of paranoia. This horror can amaze him so much that the person who encounters the snake will not even be able to determine whether the snake in front of him is poisonous or a harmless one.

Meanwhile, it is believed that snakes cannot experience aggression towards humans and attack only in defense. Indeed, all snakes are predators, and their prey in the wild includes lizards, small rodents, frogs, birds, fish, and snails. It is worth noting that most snakes are so whimsical that they prefer food of one type throughout their lives.

At the same time, known precautions when handling snakes will not harm. Because, after all, any snake is dangerous, all snakes have teeth, and they all know how to use them, regardless of whether they are poisonous or not. There are no snakes as tame as our beloved cats, dogs, and hamsters. The snake is a serious predator, and it perceives humans as best case scenario like warm wood (because all snakes are sensitive to the heat that the body radiates). In the worst case, the snake will feel threatened by you, and its reaction in this case will be lightning fast.

Many lovers of keeping birds indoors keep pets in their homes for their beautiful appearance, entertaining habits, and strong friendship with the owner. Although exotic birds such as parrots, various weavers, astrilds, tropical species finches, buntings, cardinals, as well as small species of pigeons and quails; many representatives of the domestic fauna are no less interesting for keeping in captivity.
For example, corvid birds, whose chicks are often found fallen from their nests, are easily fed by humans, quickly get used to a semi-free lifestyle and become favorites of the summer season. They are remarkable for their habits, great intelligence and loyalty to their owner.
The brightness of color, grace, entertaining behavior and ease of care often attract interest in keeping quails (common and silent), doves (little and ringed) in captivity, and among passerines - jays, bullfinches, uragus and some other birds. These birds allow you to get acquainted with the variety of mating methods, feeding patterns, and pigeons and quails, in addition, are not difficult to force to breed and observe different ways care for the offspring, differences in the development and growth of chicks.
Often, wounded or sick individuals that have lost the ability to fly, as well as fledgling chicks that cannot feed themselves, also fall into human hands. Trying to cure them and save them from death, the owners, especially children, get so used to them that they then keep them at home for many years.
Trapping can provide a wealth of scientific knowledge about the birds of each region. First of all, birders can provide indispensable assistance in detecting rare species. IN Leningrad region For example, the first information about the canary finch, mountain linnet, black-throated Accentor, and Dubrovnik was received from an expert and lover of songbirds S. N. Tolstyakov.
Spending significant time in nature, birders are often the first to notice the beginning or end of the migration of a particular species, the winter appearance or beginning of nesting of various birds, and therefore; have information that is so important in phenological research.
Finally, recreational fishing can help guide banding and identify birds banded in other places. Unfortunately, the number of qualified amateur birders who help solve scientific problems in the process of their favorite hobby is extremely small in our country. The reason for this is, on the one hand, insufficient attention paid by research teams to the promotion of ringing and the involvement of nature lovers in the ranks of taggers, and on the other hand, the fear of environmental organizations to issue fishing permits to a significant number of people.
The positions of both are, from our point of view, fundamentally incorrect. They have led to the fact that at present all bird catchers have been treated as people who exploit nature for the purpose of profit, and the cognitive, emotional, scientific and sporting aspects of catching have been forgotten, that is, the main thing for which they existed before has ceased to be taken into account and bird-catching and other related activities must exist in the future.
Forgetting these aspects of amateur birding not only does not allow us to develop the correct approach to keeping wild songbirds at home, but also increasingly scares away nature lovers and, above all, young people who are ready to join the tagging of animals, from the process of active knowledge of living nature, which is now so necessary for a reasonable attitude To her.

WHAT YOU CAN LEARN ABOUT A BIRD BY HOLDING IT IN YOUR HANDS

It is important to know what phase of the annual cycle the captured bird is in. This largely determines the attitude towards her and the advisability of remaining in captivity. To determine whether a bird has begun or completed breeding, whether it has begun molting (replacing old plumage with new ones) or migrating, it is enough to carefully examine it.
True, even before examining the bird, the time of year itself makes it possible to guess in what condition it may be. Having caught an individual in spring time, it remains to clarify whether the bird is migrating or breeding, in the summer it is breeding or molting, in the fall it is molting or migrating, that is, by examining it, you only specifically establish which of the two possible periods it has entered, and this greatly simplifies the task.
Whether a bird has reached a state of sexual activity can be determined by the degree of development of a number of external signs.
The reproductive activity of male passerines and some other birds can be judged by the development of the cloacal protrusion, which at this time increases and takes on a characteristic cylindrical shape. Towards the end of the breeding season, the cloacal protrusion decreases and soon almost completely disappears.
In females during sexual activity, the cloaca also increases in size, but significantly less than in males. During egg laying, the entire abdomen takes on a cigar-like shape.
Much more clearly than the size and shape of the cloaca, the formation of a brood spot indicates the reproductive activity of the female. It begins to form on the ventral surface of the body, in that part of it where feathers do not grow - on the ventral aptera.
The brood spot goes through several states in its development. Outwardly this manifests itself as follows. First of all, the fluff covering it falls out of the abdominal aptera. Then, thickening blood vessels gradually form in the skin. Then swelling occurs on the abdomen, reminiscent of swelling from a severe burn. Later, the swelling subsides, the skin wrinkles, dries out and begins to peel. Finally, the abdomen is overgrown with new down.
The presence of a brood spot indicates the bird's participation in reproduction, and its condition makes it possible to determine at what stage of this process the bird was captured.
It is known that the ventral surface is cleared of down during nest construction; "Skin vascularization" - the stage when blood vessels become visible, occurs during oviposition.
Swelling appears at the beginning of incubation, develops to its maximum by the time the chicks hatch and gradually decreases (and the skin wrinkles slightly) over the next few days, when the chicks in the nest still require heating and the bird sits on them for a long time. By the time the young leave the nest, the skin on the abdomen becomes dry, wrinkled, and flaky.
Many bird species breed twice in one season, and some raise three broods. During the second and third reproductions, edema develops again and the brood spot goes through all the same stages in its development, with the exception of the first and last - “cleansing from fluff” and “overgrowing with fluff,” since overgrowing of the ventral apteria begins only during molting, that is after the bird's reproductive period ends.
In addition to the shape and size of the cloaca, as well as the formation of a brood spot, changes in the color of the beak in some species indicate that the bird is preparing for breeding.
Pale, almost colorless at other times of the year, during the period of sexual activity the beaks of many birds acquire an intense color: they turn black in sparrows, turn blue in finches and grosbeaks, turn yellow in starlings and blackbirds, turn red in garden buntings, etc.

WE CONTINUE INSPECTION OF THE BIRD

Asymmetry in the growth of feathers on a bird's body is a consequence of their accidental loss; the symmetrical regrowth of feathers indicates their natural replacement during the molting process.
After the reproductive period comes the period of postnuptial molting. In young birds, the autumn (post-juvenile) molt occurs soon after they leave the nests and move to independent life. To see whether a caught bird is molting, you need to inflate the plumage on the head, back, chest, straighten and examine one wing and the other in turn, the tail.
Then, among the bird’s old or new, fully formed feathers, “stumps” and “tassels” of feathers will be found, growing to replace those that have fallen out. Often a bird loses some feathers by accident: in a fight or escaping from the clutches of a predator that has grabbed it. Soon, new feathers begin to grow in place of the lost feathers. But the growth of feathers to replace those accidentally lost is not molting, the onset of which is associated with serious hormonal and metabolic changes in the body.
It helps to distinguish the restoration of accidentally lost feathers from the natural process of changing plumage by the fact that during molting the plumage is replaced in a strictly defined sequence. At the same time, it is characteristic of all bird species that the replacement of feathers symmetrically located on the body occurs simultaneously or almost simultaneously; in each separate area of ​​​​the plumage (for example, abdominal, dorsal, shoulder, femoral), replacement occurs sequentially from the central rows to the peripheral ones.
During the molt of adult birds, the flight feathers grow sequentially
In passerine birds, the pattern of autumn molt becomes a good determinant of age. The autumn moult of the young, with the exception of the moult of larks, skylarks, starlings and sparrows, does not affect the outer (primary) flight feathers. In adults, on the contrary, the change of plumage begins with the 10th (from the outer edge of the wing) flight feather. Then the 9th, 8th, etc. begin molting. The replacement of feathers from the 10th to the 1st extends over the entire molting period. Therefore, if you take a bird in your hands and see that feathers are growing on its chest, back, shoulders, hips and at the same time there is no change in the primary flight feathers, you can be sure that this is a young individual; if, in addition to the small feathers of the body and wing, flight and tail feathers molt, it is an adult. This rule is invalid only for starlings, larks, sparrows and skylarks.
An inexperienced naturalist, having accidentally caught a fledgling whose primary feathers have not yet fully grown, mistakes it for a molting adult bird. Having discovered growing flight feathers on a bird, you need to pay attention to their size. If all the flight feathers are equally developed, then they cannot molt. As already mentioned, the loss of flight feathers occurs sequentially and in the wing of a molting bird these feathers will be of different lengths.
In fledglings, all flight feathers are formed simultaneously
However, another mistake is more common when in young birds the regrowth of the feathers of the first plumage (juvenile) is mistaken for their autumn molt. The flight feathers of a fledgling grow quickly, but fine plumage on the body continues to form after leaving the nest, when the bird already flies well and becomes independent. At this age, growing juvenile feathers are found on the periphery of the ventral, dorsal, and shoulder areas, while the first molting feathers appear later in the centers of these areas.
The juvenile feathers that grow after leaving the nest are just as soft and expanded as those that have already grown during their stay in the nest. In contrast, as a result of molting, the bird will put on an outfit made of other, denser, differently colored feathers, similar topics worn by adults.
The migratory state, which in many species occurs after the end of molting, can be judged by the deposition of fat reserves or the place where the bird was caught. If during molting there are almost never subcutaneous fat reserves, then with the transition to the migratory state, fat begins to accumulate and is clearly visible in the interclavicular fossa, on the abdomen and on the side under the wing.
When you pick up a bird, you need to try to find out if it is healthy.
Some signs of disease are immediately noticeable: swellings on the paws and wings, growths on the beaks, discharge from the nostrils. The appearance of other sick birds only indirectly indicates their painful condition: bloating of the abdomen, “shrinking” of the large pectoral muscle and, as a consequence, protrusion of the keel of the sternum, contamination of the undertail feathers with liquid droppings. All these, as a rule, are signs of contagious diseases that we do not yet know how to quickly diagnose and effectively treat. Therefore, having caught such a bird, try to release it into the wild as soon as possible, otherwise the lives of those inhabitants who have been kept at home for a long time will be seriously endangered.
Often when fishing you come across cripples: one-eyed, one-legged, once with a broken wing, but now with a hanging wing. Such birds have little chance of survival in the wild. Most often they catch the eye at the end of the autumn migration, when in heavy weather conditions They lose their strength, and with them their caution. An injury prevented them from flying away on time; it prevented them from arriving in a timely state of migratory activity or forced them to move more slowly along the flight path.
A person who knows the value of life, even if it is the life of a small bird, will always take pity on a cripple and leave her with him to live forever due to disability.

IS IT DIFFICULT TO HOLD BIRDS?

It is easier to have birds accustomed to captivity than to accustom wild, newly captured individuals to it. Only knowing the basics of content can one hope for success in taming. This leads us to begin a new section with information about the needs of birds living at home or in the laboratory.
It would not be a mistake to say that birds are very unpretentious, but at the same time they demand constant attention and worries. It is not so difficult to create conditions for birds to live a normal life, good health and a cheerful mood. It is important to note that the rather cramped, caged space in the new environment does not have a painful effect on the psyche of most of them.
The diurnal, active lifestyle characteristic of many birds in nature pits them against different neighbors every minute, and during the course of just one year they repeatedly change their place of residence. Here, in a fork in the branches near the fluffy top of a young pine tree, a chaffinch began to build a nest. She constantly brings here more and more stalks of moss, fiddles with them for a long time on the nest, carefully placing them one next to the other. A Great Spotted Woodpecker appeared on a nearby pine tree; A willow warbler flew right up to the nest and hovered, fluttering its wings, at the end of the branch; in the excitement of the chase, two male chaffinches roll head over heels in the air - they rushed very close, and the female chaffinch continues her work, as if she doesn’t notice her restless neighbors. She will have many different meetings on one spring day, because the forest is full of lively inhabitants scurrying everywhere.
When nesting time ends, the female finch will replace her old plumage with new ones, and she will leave the area of ​​the forest where she spent the summer. The first stop on the way to wintering will probably be in the floodplain meadow of a small river. It will live here for a day or two or three, feeding on the seeds of meadow grasses. Then she will fly tens and hundreds of kilometers more, choose plowing or a vegetable garden for rest, where weed seeds will attract her attention. Many “temporary apartments” will be replaced by the chaffinch. But the bird’s entire body is precisely adapted to the almost lightning-fast change of environment and events. Experience is quickly developed that suggests a safe distance in relation to a particular creature, the suitability of a particular environment for life. These biological properties nervous organization birds probably contribute to their rapid adaptation to living conditions in captivity, to close proximity to people.
So why is it difficult to keep birds? Why do they require constant attention?
The life of birds is fleeting compared to the life of people. Since childhood, it has been ingrained in our minds that a person can do without water for three days and without food for seven without much harm to himself. These or similar measurements are not suitable for birds.
They forgot to give water to the little siskin bird.
An hour later he was rushing around the cage, and after three he was already lying dead on the floor. He led to the death of the bird high level metabolism, which is characteristic of most birds and especially songbirds. It forces birds to feed for the vast majority of the day. This means that there must be both water and food in the cage throughout the day.
Species, age or seasonal food specialization can be very narrow.
It is useless to offer sunflower seeds, hemp seeds, millet and any other grains to a flycatcher, chick finch, molting bunting. The flycatcher is an insectivorous bird. This is evidenced by her thin soft beak. In nature, it catches flying insects; in captivity, it can be tamed to take stationary food. However, the food must be of animal origin: ant cocoons, mealworm larvae, cottage cheese, chicken eggs, etc. But it is also known that the finch and bunting are typical granivorous birds.
In fact, many so-called granivorous birds become exclusively insectivorous at a certain age, usually in the nestling period, and in certain seasons of the year.
Age-related and seasonal changes in the needs for one type of feed or another can occur very quickly, within one to two days.
It is therefore clear that lack of attention, as well as poor knowledge of the subtle features of biology, turns keeping birds in captivity into a difficult or even impossible task.

HOW TO EQUIP A BIRD ROOM

WHAT TO KEEP BIRDS IN

CONTINUOUS NEEDS OF CAPTIVE BIRDS

The main needs of birds living in captivity should include food, water, light and temperature regime s, as well as the dryness of the room.
We should not forget that even a short-term violation of the maintenance regime leads in most cases to the development of diseases and death of birds. Therefore, compliance with the necessary rules of feeding, lighting, as well as temperature and humidity conditions cannot be episodic. These are constant needs for the life of birds in captivity.
Stern. Variety is a necessary requirement for a bird's diet. Birds do not like monotony, but at the same time they develop a habit of familiar food and a new type of food is often met with hostility. It happens that without gradual training or cunning in the method of presentation, a bird dies without ever starting to eat food that is unfamiliar to it.
There is always plenty of food available: as much as the bird can eat. This is the basic rule of content.
There is often a misconception that birds need to be limited in the amount of food they eat to prevent health-damaging obesity.
The bird's body finely regulates the amount of feed consumed. During certain periods of the year it increases sharply. Knowledge of the physiology of birds shows that periodically observed obesity is a natural, natural condition to which the bird’s body has been adapted throughout the history of the existence of this class of animals. Fighting fat accumulation is much more harmful than allowing excessive obesity.
Based on their preference for food, birds are divided into herbivores (for example, granivores) and carnivores (insectivores, carnivores, etc.). This does not mean that the former do not need animal food, and the latter completely ignore plant foods.
As a rule, most species require both types of food. Insectivorous birds are more demanding in terms of the composition and quality of food, they are more voracious and therefore more difficult to maintain.
Among plant feeds, primarily ripe selenium from cultivated plants is used: sunflower, hemp, canary grass, millet, rutabaga, oats, flax, lettuce, poppy. These are used to create a grain mixture.
For small birds with weak beaks, sunflower and hemp seeds are crushed, but not so that only the shell is cracked, but so that all its contents are crushed. A small amount of seeds (2-3 handfuls) can be easily crushed with a bottle on a cutting board or table. In this case, the bottle should not be held horizontally, but slightly inclined to the table surface, so that the force is concentrated in the bend area towards the neck. Crushed seeds are a favorite food not only for small granivorous birds. They are also readily eaten by insectivores, such as robins, white wagtails, and many species of larks, pipits and dunnocks. Crushed seeds do not store well and quickly become bitter. Therefore, they must be chopped immediately before serving.
Cereals, with the exception of oatmeal and buckwheat, are of little use as food for wild birds. Seeds deprived of their shell lose their nutritional and taste properties during storage. Oatmeal and buckwheat are added to the grain mixture and, if necessary, can even replace it for a short time.
When purchasing grain feed, you should pay attention to its quality. Unfortunately, sometimes food that is completely unsuitable for food goes on sale: rancid or moldy. Therefore, when buying food, you need to carefully examine it to see if there are any signs of mold on the seeds, and taste it by chewing a few grains.
In addition to grains of cultivated plants, birds willingly eat the seeds of many weeds and meadow grasses, wild trees and shrubs.
It is important to note that you can prepare them yourself and this will add significant variety to the birds’ food ration in winter. It is relatively easy to collect the seeds of dandelion, sorrel, plantain, quinoa, birch and alder. Herb stems, catkins and tree cones picked with ripe seeds are dried, laid out on paper or cloth in a warm, dry room or in the sun. After just a few hours, the seeds fall out on their own or are threshed.
Baskets of dandelions are harvested before they open into fluffy umbrellas. The tassel of unopened fluffs is cut off with scissors, and only after that the baskets are dried in the sun. All threshed seeds are dried for some more time, scattered in a thin layer and stirred regularly.
During long-term storage, the shells of many small seeds become very hard. To make it easier for birds to process these seeds with their beaks, before feeding them they are soaked for several hours in cold water and then lightly dried.
The special value of weeds and meadow grasses is that their seeds can be given immature, such as birds eat in nature. Probably, ripening seeds are not only nutritious and rich in vitamins, but also very tasty.
In cages, birds primarily choose this food, preferring it to a grain mixture.
When returning in the summer from a walk outside the city, to a park or garden, you can always bring home a bouquet of twigs with fruits, or even a whole armful of grass with seeds. While caring for laboratory birds, every day we took a large basket and went for “grass.” You fill it tightly with woodlice, put an armful of shepherd’s purse, bird buckwheat or quinoa on top, pick bouquets of burdock and Chernobyl and, satisfied with your “prey”, return to the laboratory, where you arrange for the birds “ festive table" The grass in the cages has to be changed daily. As soon as you cover the bottom of the cage with it or arrange the sheaves and bouquets, the birds immediately flock and attack the plants with such greed that after a few hours there are no seeds left at all.
Since it is very difficult to completely satisfy the need for these seeds, the main food - a grain mixture - must always be in the cage at any time of the year.
You can collect ripening seeds from the end of spring, when the dandelion fades. As soon as the baskets of inflorescences close and instead of yellow flowers white tassels of still unopened “parachutes” appear, the dandelions are picked and bouquets of them are placed in jars of water in cages and enclosures. Bouquets and sheaves of dandelion and other plants are placed so that birds can easily reach the fruits from perches or other perches. For birds that prefer to feed by running on the ground (for example, larks and buntings), the stems are broken so that the seed-bearing shoots are near the ground, or the brought grass is spread on the floor in a thin layer so that the seeds of each stem are easily accessible.
Dandelion is being replaced by sorrel, shepherd's purse, reed grass, bluegrass, plantain, and nettle. At the end of summer, when their seeds fall off, yarrow, meadow cornflower, tansy, and hawkweed begin to bloom. And in late autumn, quinoa, Chernobyl, and burdock ripen. But there is no other plant such as woodlice, or chickweed, whose seeds would be readily eaten by almost all granivorous birds.
Woodlice is irreplaceable because it, strewn with seed pods, can be collected from early spring, when overwintered stems melt from under the snow, until late autumn. It happens that snow will already fall, or frost will strike and cover the woodlouse with thick frost, and it seems that its time is over. But as soon as the thaw comes, its lush, shiny greenery again amazes with its brightness. It is not afraid of freezing, and after thawing the stems and leaves retain their elasticity. If you wish, you can find woodlice wherever there is moist and loose soil.
This is one of the worst weeds in garden and row crop farming and is easiest to collect in vegetable gardens, especially in potato beds. You need to choose those plants that bear fruit abundantly. You can bring home enough at once to last for several days. It is relatively easy to store, you just need a cool place. In the fall, it is enough to hang a bag or net filled with grass outside the window. You can line the floor of the cage with woodlice, in which case it will also act as bedding. The grass should be spread out thoroughly so that as many seeds as possible are accessible. When there is a lot of woodlice, it can be scattered along the branches of bushes and trees in the aviary, thereby maximizing the surface from which the birds will peck seeds.
But woodlice is valuable not only for its seeds. In early spring, it is sometimes impossible to find plants that have overwintered with fruits, and the need for vitamins, which birds receive from greens, is great. At this time, they willingly eat woodlice leaves. In addition to woodlice, it is good to give young dandelion leaves by cutting out the whole rosettes of the plant from the soil with a knife and placing them in jars with water. Instead of these wild plants, you can offer lettuce or tradescantia leaves. The latter, along with specially grown greens, becomes the only green supplement in winter time. We must remember that birds need greenery all year round and it is necessary to fully satisfy these needs.
It is not at all difficult to grow a small amount of greenery even at home.
You don't need real soil to do this. Sunflower seeds, millet, oats - everything that is given in the grain mixture can be germinated, for example, in sawdust. A thin layer of sawdust is poured into a flat cuvette specially made of tinplate or any other dish of a similar shape. Seeds are scattered over the sawdust in a continuous layer, and another layer of sawdust is placed on top of them, everything is watered abundantly and placed in a light room. warm place. Seeds germinate very quickly when the ditch is slightly heated from below, for example by the heat of a water heating radiator, and brightly illuminated from above using any lamp. In winter, the windowsill lacks not only heat, but also light. In just a week, the thick bristles of young greenery will be able to please birds in cages.
Birds eat greens well while they are young, juicy and firm. Therefore, it should not be allowed to grow more than 2-5 centimeters, but it is better to grow it in small portions and immediately offer it for food. For those birds that are not able to pluck grass themselves, it is finely chopped with scissors and added to soft food.
This is what we had to do when we kept large quantities of marsh warblers, gray flycatchers, robins, and wood larks in the laboratory. Warblers ate the greens greedily, while larks, flycatchers and robins sometimes had uneaten pieces left at the bottom of their feeders. Apparently, in nature, different types of insectivorous birds need green food components to varying degrees. It is possible that in the wild, warblers themselves do not peck the greens, but obtain large amounts of them through the intestines of the caterpillars on which they feed, but it is likely that in nature they just as readily eat plant food. In any case, what attracts attention is the fact that in cages the warblers, like no other, happily crush the soft greens of the woodlice and always peck the seeds from the stems of the quinoa.
In general, the tastes and needs of birds are revealed gradually, and with regard to all kinds of additives to the main feed, only one thing can be advised: provide the birds with the maximum choice, and not be limited known species feed and do not rush to negative conclusions, remembering that the bird needs to get used to any food.
Along with grass seeds, especially great opportunities for creating a varied diet are provided by the juicy fruits of wild and cultivated plants. The fruits of forest trees and shrubs play a huge role in the diet of many species in nature: rowan, bird cherry, juniper, buckthorn, blueberry, lingonberry, cranberry, raspberry, blackberry. All of them are still available in our northern forests. For birds entering cities and suburbs, no less important are the succulent fruits of ornamental shrubs that grow wild only in more southern regions: honeysuckle, elderberry, currant, and hawthorn. All the fruits that come to our table are also suitable for bird feed.
When giving berries and fruits, they are hung from a trellis or branches, again in such a way that they can be easily reached from the perch. To do this, use wire hooks or clips, such as ordinary clothes clips. Of course, it is easier to strengthen fruits that have petioles or are borne directly on the branches. If small berries can only be given in bulk, then you should use a feeder, since they quickly become dirty on the floor of the cage. Large fruits, such as apples, are cut into slices, which are inserted between the bars of the lattice near the perches.
In winter, when there are no fresh fruits, you can give them dried and then soaked in cold water or scalded with boiling water. It’s relatively easy to stock up on rowan and elderberries for this. Collect them: you need to use brushes, and dry them by hanging them. You can speed up drying by using air heaters or an oven. However, it is not necessary to dry the rowan. If you collect it in late autumn and hang it outside the window, it will remain in good condition for a long time.
In winter and early spring, when it is most difficult to provide animals with greens and fruits, for some species they can be successfully replaced by the buds of trees and shrubs. Birds especially like the kidneys fruit trees, spruce and willow. They often eat not only the buds, but also the tips of young shoots and the succulent growth layer of the bark - the cambium. Therefore, it is advisable to bring not just buds, but small twigs and bouquets of them placed in cages. It is good to place such bouquets in water for a couple of days beforehand so that the buds swell and increase in size.
Branches of fruit crops, of course, are difficult to get, unless you break off branches with snow or cut down an old tree. But getting willow shoots is not difficult. Our willows are numerous and varied. They grow in all wet and light habitats: they form continuous green hedges along highways and country roads, ditches with water; There are always dense thickets of willows along the banks of all kinds of reservoirs and in overgrown meadows. The plant is striking in its vitality: it rapidly “spreads” in breadth, stretches extremely quickly upward, and branches wildly in places where there are creases. This allows the willow to be used as a constant source of branch food. Birds especially love the buds of goat willow and eared willow.
Those birds that do not eat buds should be given white cabbage leaves in winter. Almost all types of cabbage are consumed. Some birds themselves can pinch off pieces from the leaf; in this case, the cabbage leaves are firmly fixed. To do this, either place the thickened base of the sheet on a hook, or insert the sheet sideways between the bars of the grid and then turn it 90 degrees. The rods dig into the sheet and prevent it from slipping out.
The cabbage is fixed in places in the cage so that its inhabitants can easily reach it from the floor or perches. Birds do not like wilted leaves, so they must be replaced daily. For those species with soft and thin beaks (warblers, warblers, warblers, blackbirds, nightingales), the cabbage is very finely chopped with a knife or grated on a coarse grater and added to soft food.
In addition to white cabbage, you can give other soft and juicy vegetables, such as cauliflower, ripe tomatoes and cucumbers. Among vegetables, raw carrots are even more important than cabbage.
It is rich in vitamins, primarily vitamins A and C. Grated, it is one of the main components of soft food. Some manuals even recommend a mixture of carrots and white crackers as the main food for insectivorous birds. Of course, such a diet is too strict, but the fact that birds can live on it testifies to the nutritional value of carrots. In our practice, we still did not have to keep insectivorous birds only on carrots and breadcrumbs.
Soft food, which for captive insectivorous birds forms the basis of their nutrition, and for granivores it is an important supplement to it, must contain components of animal origin. This is primarily a chicken egg, cottage cheese, beef, ant cocoons, bloodworms.
The main component of soft food is a chicken egg. The number of eggs required for a single serving of food is hard-boiled. After cooling, grate the eggs. The food has the best consistency if the diameter of its individual particles is close to 2 millimeters. In this form, the food is quite crumbly, at the same time, even the smallest birds can easily swallow individual pieces of it. To prepare this food, you need to use a grater with the appropriate hole sizes and pass the egg through it twice. Particles of boiled protein stick together easily. To prevent the white from caking and being eaten just as well as the yolk, the grated egg is thoroughly mixed.
The chicken egg prepared in this way is mixed with carrots. Carrots are much tougher than a chicken egg, and you have to grate them on a finer grater. The smaller the carrot particles, the better they are eaten and absorbed by birds. However, fresh finely grated carrots give a lot of juice. It makes the food sticky, which is completely unacceptable. Therefore, it is better to add a small amount of grated white crackers, which absorb excess moisture. A mixture of chicken eggs and carrots in approximately equal proportions can already be fed to most birds.
During periods of molting and feeding chicks, it is necessary, and at other times it is desirable, to make the diet of insectivorous birds more varied and rich in proteins, vitamins and calcium salts. You can enrich the food with proteins by adding meat and cottage cheese. Raw meat and cottage cheese spoil quickly and should be boiled before adding to soft food. Boiled and cooled meat is passed through a meat grinder. After this, it can be mixed into the egg-carrot mixture. The cottage cheese is dissolved in large quantities water, bring to a boil or boil for several minutes, and then place in a linen bag and let hang for about a day. The next day you can feed it to the birds, grating it on the same grater as a chicken egg. Excess boiled cottage cheese, like any other product, must be stored in the refrigerator, since rotten or sour bird food is completely unsuitable.
Even with the abundance and variety of surrogate components of soft food, birds, and primarily insectivores, need natural food from insects. They cannot do without live food, or at least canned and dried food. This need becomes more acute during certain periods of the year. Thus, it is absolutely necessary for growing young or molting birds to be given ant cocoons, mealworm larvae and flies or bloodworms.
Nowadays the easiest way is to get bloodworms for your charges. Bloodworms, the larvae of insects similar to mosquitoes from the family Dergun, are traditional and widely used for aquarium fish feed. Unlike other types of live food, it is regularly sold in pet stores. However, despite the availability of bloodworms, it is not customary for bird lovers to use them. There is even an opinion that it is not nutritious enough and also causes intestinal disorders in birds.
This opinion was completely refuted by the warblers and flycatchers that we had to keep in large numbers in the laboratory. Then a serious problem arose: how to feed almost a hundred such voracious mouths for more than six months? Now we can admit that it was a little scary. The birds have been captured, their relatives have long since flown away for the winter, which means release into the wild is ruled out until spring. There were still ant cocoons in reserve, but this supply was melting away with incredible speed. And we were interested in winter molting. During molting, even more food and the best quality will be required. Then we decided to try bloodworms as live food. The birds ate it greedily, primarily selecting the larvae from the soft food. They quickly accumulated significant deposits of migratory fat, and during the molting period good feathers grew on them - a sure sign of normal protein metabolism. So it became clear that bloodworms, in terms of nutritional value and availability, can be considered one of the best types of live food.
But we also encountered its bad qualities: it is difficult to store bloodworms in large quantities. If the oxygen, temperature or humidity conditions are slightly disturbed, it dies from drying out, freezing, or lack of oxygen. The corpses of the larvae quickly decompose and are no longer suitable for food. Feeding dead bloodworms apparently leads to intestinal diseases. We managed to keep 4-6 kilograms of bloodworms in good condition only for a week. Rinsing it in small portions twice a day with running water cold water, we suspended the bloodworms for several minutes in a nylon net, and then laid them out in flat ditches so that the thickness of the layer of larvae did not exceed 3-5 millimeters. The bloodworms were stored at a temperature of plus 1-6 degrees Celsius under a paper cap, which prevented intense evaporation.
Bloodworms turned out to be a complex type of food in terms of the way it was presented to the birds. It turned out that giving it in separate feeders is inappropriate. Birds peck bloodworms from a homogeneous mass reluctantly. The larvae located on the surface dry out very quickly, die, and a hard crust forms from them, making the rest of the food inaccessible. On the contrary, mixed with soft food, where grated carrots create the necessary moisture and the larvae are separated by particles of other food, they become especially attractive and are eaten with pleasure by birds. Bloodworms are added to soft food just before it is distributed. The feed is thoroughly mixed so that the larvae are distributed evenly. Sometimes it is useful to stir the food directly into the feeders several times during the day.
We have tested bloodworms as an additive to soft food on many insectivorous birds. It was readily eaten by wood larks and skylarks, shore swallows, white and yellow wagtails, wood and red-breasted pipits, wrens, wood accentors, robins, nightingales, redstarts, various thrushes, warblers, warblers, flycatchers and starlings. Granivorous birds also consumed it with great pleasure: various buntings, buntings, finches, redpolls, goldfinches, bullfinches, bee-eaters, field and house sparrows. Tree sparrows and redpolls that bred in the laboratory successfully fed their chicks with bloodworms.
Another traditional live food is mealworm larvae, or “mealworms” as they are often called. These larvae are very mobile, have negative phototaxis and therefore, trying to hide from the light, quickly crawl through the cracks of the cage, hide under feeders, penetrate food and become inaccessible to birds. Mealworms must be given in separate feeders with vertical sides at least 2 centimeters high. Birds love this food so much that as soon as you put a feeder in the cage, after a few minutes there are no mealworms left in it. But flour beetles are easy to breed both at home and in the laboratory.
Mealworms are bred on a dry, clean substrate of wheat bran or oatmeal. Such a substrate is also food for them. Little space is required for breeding. Bran or rolled oats are poured into any container at hand: flat wooden boxes, tin boxes, jars, ditches. The thickness of the substrate layer can be 5-10 centimeters. To prevent the larvae from spreading, it is enough to choose a container with vertical and smooth walls, in which the substrate does not reach the edges by at least 4-5 centimeters. In order to prevent the escape of adult beetles - beetles that can fly - the top has to be covered with a fine mesh or covered with a lid with small holes for air. A piece of cloth or paper is spread over the bran. Larvae can hide from light in it, and adults can lay eggs. To provide insects with moisture, it is enough to regularly add small pieces of cabbage, carrots, apples and other vegetables and fruits.
The reproduction rate of beetles increases if the insects are kept warm. At home, you need to bring them closer to heating devices; in the laboratory, where a large “mealworm factory” is being set up, you can use special heating from one or two incandescent lamps. The optimal temperature for the reproduction of mealworms is 25-30 degrees Celsius. Thus, the most serious difficulty in breeding mealworms is obtaining the first few dozen individuals.
The best traditional type of live food is the ant cocoons of red forest ants. Fans usually call them ant “eggs.” In terms of nutritional value and vitamin content, this type of live food has no equal. Suffice it to say that the chicks of buntings, wagtails, flycatchers, warblers and others, which were fed in captivity exclusively with live ant pupae, grew up to be strong birds with beautiful plumage. In terms of growth rates, they often surpassed their free brothers. An ant “egg,” even pre-dried and then scalded with boiling water, is a better additive to the egg-carrot mixture than any variety of surrogate food.
If possible, feed the birds with live ant “eggs”. The “egg” can be presented in separate feeders and mixed into soft food. The difficulty in feeding a live "egg" is that it succeeds. collect only together with adult working ants. Ants, obsessed with the desire to hide precious pupae, drag them out of the cage or hide them there under bedding and feeders. Food becomes unavailable. Ants also bite birds’ legs and get into the feathers. In order to get rid of working ants without compromising the quality of the food, you have to manually select them from small portions of the “egg” immediately before distributing it.
The task is made easier if you use two pieces of fleecy material, such as flannel, flannel, or burlap. When the “eggs” are poured from piece to piece, the ants cling to the material and remain on it, while the pupae roll off unhindered. The ants are shaken off to the ground with several sharp movements. The “egg” is poured in this way until a small number of ants remain, which are then removed by hand. And it is not always necessary to get rid of all insects, since many species of birds (flycatchers, all thrushes, woodpeckers) use ants as food. It is possible to store a living “egg” for a long time only in refrigerators. If this is not possible, it is hung in fabric bags that allow air to pass through well. If gas exchange is disrupted, the “egg” quickly cakes and the pupae die. To avoid this, the contents of the bags are shaken several times daily with great care so as not to crush the pupae. When crushed, they quickly become moldy, and the mold soon affects the entire supply of “egg”.
In the warmth, the pupae continue to develop, and after 5-7 days intensive hatching of adult insects begins. Therefore, having a large amount of ant “egg”, part of it has to be “soaked”.
Freshly frozen pupae are somewhat inferior in quality to live ones, but still remain the best view stern. The easiest way to pickle ant pupae is in the oven. To do this, heat a baking sheet and place a sheet of paper on it. The “egg” is poured onto the paper in a layer of about a centimeter. Then the baking sheet is placed in a hot oven for 20-40 seconds. The frozen pupae taken out of the oven are poured onto a sheet of paper and spread over it in a thin layer.
During the first 10 minutes, while the “egg” has not yet cooled, it is transferred from the sheet that has absorbed moisture to new, dry ones. As soon as the egg begins to rustle when stirred, it is stored, scattered in a thin layer (1-3 centimeters) in a dry room. A frozen “egg,” like a living one, requires constant care. If you don't stir it from time to time, it cakes and becomes moldy. A moldy “egg” should never be given to birds.
To store ant pupae for future use, they need to be dried. The “egg” is dried in the same way as a frozen one is stored. But to speed up drying, lay it out in the sun or direct a stream of air from a fan or heater onto it. A frozen, completely dried egg is 4-5 times lighter than a live one. It should be stored, like all dry food, suspended in bags. Fresh frozen “eggs” are offered to birds in their pure form or mixed into soft food. Dried pupae, before putting them in feeders, pour boiling water over them, let them sit for a few minutes under the lid and place them on a sieve to allow excess moisture to drain. After the “egg” has cooled, it is mixed with soft food.

LIGHT AND ITS ROLE IN THE LIFE OF BIRDS

To meet the light needs of birds, at home you will have to set aside the brightest part of the room for them: best of all, near the wall on which daylight falls from the window. And yet, on short, gloomy winter days, even near a window there will be clearly not enough light.
Need additional lighting. It’s easy to make illumination; just hang a reflector with a regular 40-watt incandescent lamp on the front wall of the cage. This lamp has advantages over a fluorescent lamp. It does not distort the natural color of the plumage, and most importantly, it emits that part of the rays of the visible spectrum, which, as special studies show, is most necessary for birds. In addition, an incandescent lamp emits not only light, but also heat, and birds love to sit and bask in its rays. Therefore, one of the poles should be strengthened near the reflector.
The importance of ultraviolet rays for the body is well known. With their deficiency, vitamin deficiencies and other diseases often occur. Some species of birds cannot reproduce without ultraviolet rays because they lay eggs, the embryos in which die before hatching. Therefore, in laboratory and room conditions, it is advisable to use artificial sources of the short-wave part of the spectrum - quartz and erythema lamps. Lighting them on birds should be done with great care, as they can damage their eyes. Lighting sessions start with one to two minutes per day and gradually increase to 15-30 minutes. If the lamp is taken away from the birds at a distance of 2.5-3 meters, then the duration of irradiation can increase two to three times. Germicidal lamps cannot be used for quartzing birds. The radiation from these lamps can cause birds to go blind.
But artificial irradiation at home is not available to everyone, so more often you have to wait for the warm season, when you can transfer your pets to an outdoor enclosure. If it is not possible to take the birds out into the open sky, you should warm weather open the windows wide during the hours when the cage is illuminated by the sun.
And yet light, despite its undeniable benefits, is sometimes harmful. At night, mainly during periods of migratory activity, when many species in nature make night flights, even a weak light source causes anxiety in birds and a desire to escape from the cage. Now you have picked up a chick of a black-headed warbler from a ruined nest and fed it. The warbler has grown and become completely tame: he takes mealworms right from the palm of his hand. As soon as you approach the cage, she is already at the very bars, looking expectantly. All day long the warbler calmly jumps from perch to perch. But one early autumn night, something suddenly happened to the bird. As soon as it got dark and a weak light from a street lamp poured from the window, the bird began to huddle in the cage: it fluttered its wings, began to fly up the bars through which the light penetrated, hit the ceiling, fall to the floor, fly up again... and so on for many hours. In the morning you sadly discover that all that remains of the tail feathers are short, sharp fragments of the rods, and the rest of the feather is very frayed, the forehead and folds of the wings are bloody. But all this could have been avoided. It was enough to create complete darkness at night and not disturb the bird until the morning by sewing a light-proof but air-permeable cover or curtain made of dense black material. Such a cover or curtain will be needed not only during the period of migration activity, but it is advisable to use it constantly.
Outside of periods of migration, the vast majority of birds are active only in the light. The length of daylight hours determines the duration of wakefulness and sleep, and the timing of feeding. In our latitudes, wintering songbirds are forced to feed during daylight hours. Moreover, in order to lengthen feeding hours and survive the long winter night, the same tits, redpolls, bullfinches, and buntings wake up at dusk, when the illumination is much less than that in which they awaken in spring or autumn.
The length of daylight hours, or, more precisely, the ratio of the light and dark parts of the 24-hour photoperiod, which acts as an environmental signal factor, also plays an important role in the life of birds. Seasonal changes in the length of the day - this is a kind of calendar by which the bird recognizes the time of year.
In conditions of high and temperate latitudes, all birds have a strict cycle of seasonal phenomena - a sequence of special physiological states characteristic of wintering, migration, reproduction, and molting.
Their regular alternation allows birds to live in that part of the globe for which the change of seasons is typical. This property of the bird’s body allows it to fly away from the winter cold in advance and fly to the nesting site in the warm season. In each species, such a sequence of states is a species-specific hereditary trait, fixed in the genotype, as well as size, color of plumage, or patterns of growth and development.
However, the duration of wintering, molting or migration can be extended or shortened and thereby, as it were, adjusted to seasonal phenomena the area in which the bird lives. For such adjustment, each individual checks its internal annual cycle physiological states with a photoperiodic calendar.
The main signal for the start of reproduction in birds is...lengthening daylight hours.
In Japan, bird lovers have known about this for a long time. Owners of white-eyes and other songbirds, in order to get them to sing in January, extended the short December days. To do this, every evening after sunset, cages with birds were placed near candles, additionally illuminating them for another 3-4 hours. Soon the males began to sing actively, while their relatives sang only with the arrival of spring.
Special studies by ornithologists and extensive experience in keeping birds in laboratories, at home and in zoos have shown that the period of sexual activity and the associated period of singing can be caused prematurely in a wide variety of birds by exposure to long daylight hours. This feature of most species that winter north of the equator is extremely important to take into account when keeping them in captivity.
To encourage birds to actively sing or breed in winter, it is necessary to lengthen the winter day by several hours using lighting, turning the lamp on and off at the same time every day. Experiments have shown that the faster the day reaches its maximum length, the faster the gonads develop. Therefore, in practice, when it is necessary to bring birds into a state of sexual activity in the shortest possible time, the length of the day is immediately increased to 16-19 hours.
However, we must not forget that a long day has a stimulating effect only if it replaces a short day in late autumn or early winter. Therefore, there is no need to rush into stimulating sexual activity, and it is better to gradually lengthen the day in November or December. Well, if you can’t wait to hear the song of a bird caught on the autumn migration, first create a very short day for it (8-9 hours a day) and only after 3-4 weeks sharply increase the exposure.
It is not always advisable to activate birds in winter. If you want birds not only to sing, but also to build nests and hatch chicks, you should use summer for this. In the summer, they can live in a well-maintained outdoor enclosure, eat a variety of fortified foods, take sunbathing, and therefore have a greater chance of successfully raising offspring.
To delay the sexual activity of birds by summer months, all winter and spring you need to strictly maintain a “short winter day”. You can't do without a light-proof curtain. When shortening the day, it is necessary to ensure that the curtain is raised and lowered every day at a certain time, since sensitivity to light is especially great during the morning and evening twilight. Birds from whom they hope to produce offspring should begin to increase the day 30-40 days before the desired nesting date. Sexual activity in different types lasts from 50 to 90 days. Change its duration external influences almost fails.
After the period of sexual activity has expired, molting begins - the process of replacing old plumage with new ones.
The plumage is replaced in a certain sequence.
This differs from the process of regrowth of accidentally lost feathers. The rate of plumage replacement is controlled by the endocrine glands, the activity of which largely depends on external, photoperiodic conditions.
For normal molting to occur, shorter daylight hours are required than for sexual activity. And not just short, but decreasing, say, from 15-14 to 12-11 hours.
On a constant or too long day, molting can be interrupted, protracted greatly and, finally, turn into a painful process, which is sometimes observed in birds kept in captivity. Even the feathers themselves then form incorrectly: they grow very slowly, become crooked and do not reach normal sizes. Conditions that are too short are also unsuitable for molting. For many of our birds, a day shorter than 10-12 hours completely eliminates molting. Finding themselves in such conditions, they remain for another year in old, worn plumage.
Birds mating and breeding in the spring and living under open air until autumn, the plumage is replaced normally. In nature, in the second half of summer and autumn, the day gradually shortens and each organism chooses those periods at which the photoperiodic conditions for molting of a given species become most suitable. The situation is more complicated with the molting of birds activated by additional lighting in winter.
Here you have to carefully observe and with the first signs of molting (at this time, fallen feathers appear at the bottom of the cage), begin to gradually reduce the length of the day, for example, every 5 days by 15 or 20 minutes per day.
Then the rate of molting will be quite moderate and rhythmic, the birds will feel normal, and the new plumage will completely replace the old one.
But there are also species of birds that are difficult to keep indoors, which, despite excellent care for them, living in the open air in summer and autumn, “do not want” to replace their plumage.
As a rule, these are birds that molt in nature at their wintering grounds.
Fanciers who have ever kept lentils know well that they shed extremely poorly in captivity. Instead of replacing their plumage in November-December, from mid-winter they begin to “go bald” and by the end of wintering they are such strange creatures that it is difficult to call them birds. Their head, neck, shoulders and other parts of the body are almost completely devoid of feathers. Only the flight wings remain on the wings. They themselves become so fat that they can hardly fly up and stay on the perch.
This phenomenon interested us, and to study it we carried out a series of experiments. It turned out that molt of lentils is not only under strict photoperiodic control, but also requires a much shorter day length than the molt of other species. The signal for the beginning of molting and an indispensable condition for its occurrence for Leningrad birds are photoperiods with a day length from 10 hours 15 minutes to 9 hours 45 minutes. Without such a light regime, such a strong disturbance in the hormonal balance of the body occurs that the formation of a new feather becomes impossible, and therefore the fallen feathers are not replaced by new ones and the bird “goes bald”.
It also turned out to be curious that the lentils seem to be looking for the required photoperiod in time and adapting the timing of their molting to it: no matter what time, starting in November, you set them the necessary light regime, the birds wait for their time and only after that they begin molting and they complete it normally.
Like lentils, other species whose autumn molt is postponed to the wintering season have equally strict requirements for photoperiodic conditions. For example, the molting of the Dubrovnik occurs in September-October, when the birds are already in winter quarters in Southeast Asia. Therefore, in captivity they do not shed until the day is 12-11 hours a day.
In addition to the autumn molt (post-juvenile in young and post-nuptial in adults), a number of species have another one - pre-nuptial. It always goes away during wintering. Unfortunately, very little is known about prenuptial molting and the conditions necessary for it. Because we do not know the requirements of birds during this period and, apparently, often violate them, such birds live very poorly in captivity. The remaining insectivorous birds that do not have a winter molt (robins, nightingales, stonechats, wrens, dunnocks) can not only be successfully kept in captivity, but also their rhythm can be changed. seasonal life but to your own desire: by increasing the day, force them to sing in winter three to four months earlier than the natural timing and, if necessary, shorten the duration of their autumn molt, quickly reducing the length of the day.
Air temperature and humidity.
It is not necessary to observe the special temperature and humidity regime for birds of temperate latitudes as strictly as the lighting regime or daylight hours. And in nature, the significance of these factors varies greatly, so birds are adapted to life in a fairly wide range of their changes. Many species can be kept year-round either indoors at room temperature or outdoors. Even birds that fly to the Mediterranean countries and other areas of the subtropical zone live quite well in an outdoor aviary during mild winters. This does not mean that they are indifferent to temperature and humidity environment, but they have broad adaptive abilities.
Taking this into account, a number of rules have to be followed. If in winter an outdoor aviary contains species that winter in our latitudes, then the birds must be in a physiological state of wintering, which means their annual cycle should not be altered by an artificial photoperiod; they cannot be returned to a warm room from time to time, kept there for several days and taken out into the cold again; Feeding birds in the cold season should be especially plentiful and nutritious, and the food should always be available - not frozen; in severe frosts, bathing in water should not be allowed, and therefore snow should be offered for drinking, not water. If in winter, in an unheated room, species of birds are kept that naturally winter in warmer countries - in the tropics, then the air temperature in it should not fall below minus five degrees Celsius.
A number of species adapt to low winter temperatures not only through physiological changes in the body, but also through the manifestation of special behavior. To such special forms Behaviors include collective overnight stays in the hollows of tree sparrows and great tits, roosting in a tight clump of tits, spending the night under the snow of tap dancers, bullfinches and other small birds, not to mention black grouse, which dig holes for themselves in the snow. Therefore, enclosures must have shelter from the wind - a thicket of pine and spruce branches, a fluffy snowdrift, and nest boxes for hollow nesters.
Too high summer temperatures combined with direct sun rays especially scary for birds. Birds die from overheating, perhaps, more often than from cold. The most common cause of death for indoor birds is overheating in the sun when the cage is placed outside the window on a hot summer day.
High air humidity itself is relatively easily tolerated by birds, but various diseases often arise, primarily mycoses (see the section “Diseases of birds. Their treatment and prevention”).

WHERE DOES CAPTIVITY START?

The troubles associated with keeping birds begin from the moment of catching. As soon as the bird is in your hands, it must be provided with a comfortable room, food and drink. The main concern is to get him to eat food that will be possible to feed in the following days. Of course, this can only be one of the feeds suitable for a given type. The bird should start feeding immediately. It would be wrong to think that in order to get used to the new environment, she needs to be given time: she will sit, get used to her position, and then she will start eating. On the contrary, in order for the bird to get used to a new place and way of life, it must begin feeding no later than two hours after capture.
Therefore, you cannot leave her alone until she “takes up the food.” If, despite all efforts, the bird does not eat, has begun to plump up and hides its head under its wing, but has not yet become so weak that it cannot fly, it is necessary to release it into the wild as soon as possible.
Where and how to place the bird.
There is an idea that a captured bird should be gradually accustomed to the limited space of the cage. To do this, she must first be placed in a large enclosure, and then transferred to ever smaller cages until she gets used to the size of the cage in which she will live permanently. This idea is incorrect. Experience in keeping and acclimating birds to captivity shows that food and drink in the cage should be constantly in the field of view of the newly caught bird, while the surroundings of the cage should be as inconspicuous as possible.
In a large and spacious enclosure, food may be invisible, and a wide view from it encourages birds to look for a way out to freedom. Therefore, it is better to place the caught bird in a kuteyka specially designed for such a case or in a carrying cage, a flight, and finally in an ordinary small cage, covering it with white thin material that transmits light well
. A kuteika is similar to a small cage (for a small passerine bird its dimensions are 20 by 30 by 20 centimeters), but instead of walls and a ceiling made of rods, it only has a wire frame, onto which a cover made of white, not very dense fabric is placed on top or suspended from the inside. Instead of a door, a fastener, such as a zipper, is sewn in.
The design of the cage and flight is described below, since they are mainly used for transporting birds. If you choose an ordinary, relatively high cage, the perches should be removed from it or strengthened near the floor. Perches are needed only for those birds that do not tend to collect food by running and jumping on the ground, such as flycatchers, long-tailed tits or warblers.
However, wherever the birds are placed, you need to provide yourself with the opportunity to observe their behavior and at the same time be invisible: make a special peephole in the wall of the cage, kuteyka, leave a small gap between the folds of the material covering the cage. Even in a curtained cage without perches, birds can behave restlessly; they fly up or crawl along the bars, fluttering their wings.
Such birds are usually tied with their wings. Prepare a soft thread by folding it several times for strength. The bird is held in the left hand, tail first. The ends of the wings normally folded on the back are connected, slightly crossing. A thread is brought under the intersection and, wrapping it around both ends of the wings at once, the knot is tightened. Two more knots are tied on top of the first knot, each time sharply pulling the thread. After the knots are pulled tight, the loose ends of the thread are cut short so that there are no loops left and there is no possibility of catching on anything. When the bird “takes up the food” and gets comfortable in the cage, usually within a day, the thread is cut.
In the absence of visibility from the cage, even immediately after capture, many individuals behave calmly and with untied wings. Before deciding whether to mate a particular individual, you should observe it for a few minutes.
Caught birds should be kept alone, but you can also put them in groups, so, of course, that the birds are not crowded. Not placed in one cage more birds than with normal long-term maintenance. Due to differences in character, intelligence, and experience, some birds begin to feed in the cage earlier than others and, through their behavior, demonstrate to others that the food is edible.
Thus, the ability to imitate, which plays a huge role in the lives of these animals in the wild, will serve them well even under such unusual circumstances. That’s why it can be useful to put people in a group wild birds one individual, trained to a cage. It is not even necessary that it belong to the same species as those caught, as long as it actively eats the food offered and behaves peacefully.
Oddly enough, it is not the young birds that cause the most trouble, but the adult ones. Those who know how to feed in a cage have to be placed with them first of all. Adults are more careful and conservative in their choice of food, and they have a stronger desire to break free. As a result, often, having achieved nothing, adult birds have to be released into the wild.
Apparently, it is clear to everyone that large predators cannot be placed in the same room with other birds, but probably not everyone knows that even some small birds can behave like real predators. First of all, these are shrikes (especially the largest of them, the gray shrike), woodpeckers, and many corvids. They can inflict reprisals not only on representatives of smaller species, but also on their own kind. Certain species of birds are endowed with powerful beaks, which in nature are used only for processing rough plant food.
If they get into a cramped space, frightened by the proximity of other birds, they can seriously injure their neighbors. Therefore, it is better to isolate such birds, especially the common or juniper grosbeak, from other species, and if the cells are very small, then from their own kind. Even among the most peaceful species with ordinary, not very strong beaks, there are sometimes individuals that behave extremely aggressively, capable of beating their neighbors to death. Most often, such aggressors are found among robins, nuthatches and great tits. All this forces us to take an extremely responsible approach to the placement of caught birds and very carefully monitor their behavior in the cages in the first hours.
Composition and methods of presentation of food. Perhaps it is worth paying attention once again to the fact that the caught bird must immediately begin to be accustomed to the food that can be provided to it in all subsequent days and which would satisfy its basic food needs. Based on this, in most cases it is necessary to offer the bird food other than what it is used to getting in nature.
Imagine that some bird lover was lucky and, having met a flock of bee-eaters, sitting down to feed on scarlet rowan clusters, he caught a crimson beauty. The sciat will cause a lot of trouble if you try to feed it rowan berries. It’s good if there was a good harvest and the fruits were stored in large quantities. How many rowan berries do you need to put in the cage for the bird to get enough?
Indeed, in the wild, flying from tree to tree, it feeds almost the entire short autumn day. What if the pike fish in a given season did not feed on rowan berries, but on spruce or willow buds? In any case, you will have to offer grain food, such as sunflower seeds. But changing your diet is not as easy as it might seem. When faced with unusual food, the bird does not seem to understand that it is edible. To facilitate the forced transition from one type of food to another, insectivores are first offered live food (ant cocoons, fly larvae, mealworms, etc.), granivores are offered a grain mixture, the seeds of which are presented in the most accessible form (sunflower or hemp, for example, being crushed).
The first portion of food (live or grain) is poured not into feeders, but into the bottom of the cage. At the same time, make sure that the food is not contaminated or trampled, adding more if necessary. Birds, running along the bottom of the cage or sitting on low perches, from where they can easily reach the food, have it in their field of vision constantly. Scattered on the floor, it looks more natural than in feeders, and birds take to it faster.
After the bird begins to take food from the bottom of the cage, place the next portion in the feeder. When mealworms are used as live food, they are first partially immobilized, either by severely cooling or by pressing down the heads. Such larvae continue to move, but do not crawl through the cracks. However, mealworms can be given in a feeder, and without resorting to immobilizing them. Birds begin to react to them very quickly, no matter how they are presented. If there are no mealworms and you only have, say, an ant “egg,” unpleasant complications may arise. Among insectivores, there are some individuals that do not touch the food while it is motionless. For such birds, a handful of cocoons along with live ants are thrown into the bottom of the cage. Adult insects pick up the pupae and drag them around the cage in order to quickly hide them in a safe place.
The “moving egg” attracts attention, and the bird begins to feed on it. There should not be many ants in the cage (no more than one or two dozen), otherwise the food will quickly be taken away, and the birds will be bothered by insect bites. For the same reasons, as soon as the bird begins to eat the pupae, adult insects are removed from the cage.
The unique ways of moving and collecting food in nature in some species sometimes becomes a significant obstacle when acclimating to normal cellular conditions. It has already been said that it is not possible to train swifts and nightjars to take food from feeders or from the ground. However, if for a number of species the food is placed in a seemingly unusual way, but thereby at least roughly imitating the nature of its placement in nature, then the efforts may be crowned with success and the bird will begin to eat new food. In our practice, we encountered such a situation when we caught marsh warblers for experiments.
In nature, warblers scurry through thick grass, pecking insects from stems and leaves. We scattered the food on the floor and secured the perches in a low position. The birds did not pay any attention to him. They understood the edibility of the ant “eggs” only after we had picked bunches of reed grass, moistened them with water and sprinkled them with ant cocoons, and placed them in cages.
Live food is, as is known, the best food for insectivores, but it is usually impossible to provide such food for the entire period of keeping your pets. Therefore, already in the first hours of life in captivity, birds are gradually transferred to regular soft food. As soon as the birds begin to eat live food from feeders, it is replaced with a mixture of ant cocoons or mealworm larvae with soft food. Initially, this mixture is given in such a proportion that the living components predominate. Then their concentration is reduced more and more until it is brought to a completely accessible level.
A mixture of soft food with ant “eggs” is generally better accepted than a mixture with mealworms. Birds continue to select beetle larvae from the food, leaving the remaining elements untouched. Then the mealworms are cut in half. When the birds get used to eating halves, they are cut into even smaller pieces. Crumbs of soft food stick to the pieces of larvae, and gradually they begin to be eaten.
For some birds, other types of live food become convenient. So, to accustom blackbirds to soft food, you can use earthworms. Unlike mealworms, they must be cut at least in half immediately, otherwise the worms will crawl apart very quickly. The best transitional food for waders is bloodworms.
There are bird species that do not require consistent feeding training in captivity. For example, crows eat a wide variety of food: bread, porridge, meat, cottage cheese, fish, and they pounce on it literally as soon as they get into the cage. Many predators react the same way to live food.
Transportation. It’s good if you manage to catch birds near your home. But most often you have to go far to get them, and the place of future residence from the fishing point is separated by hours of travel. Laboratory research often requires transporting birds hundreds and thousands of kilometers. For very long distances, it is best to use an airplane. But in this case, due to bad weather on the route, there is a threat of delays on the route for one to two days. If not just a few, but tens or hundreds of birds need to be transported over such distances, as is often required for scientific purposes, then the problem of transportation becomes very serious. We must immediately warn that before embarking on such a long journey, the birds must be given time (at least two days) to get used to life in a cage and learn to eat food.
In any case, whether you have to take birds home from the suburbs or transport them from one end of the country to another, when transporting it is better to use special cages - carrier cages and flights.
These are flat cages of such a height that birds can run in them and sit normally on perches fixed at the bottom, but cannot fly up. The carrying cage, like any cage, has a mesh on only one side, for example on the top. Since the cage is always in hand, always under supervision, there is no need to use a strong metal mesh for its manufacture. It is heavy and more often injures birds. Therefore, the top of the cage is covered with a nylon or cotton mesh with cells of such size that the birds cannot stick their heads through (for small passerines, 10-14 millimeters). The bottom and walls of the cage are easiest to make from thin planks. The simplest door for a cage is a latch on stops made of bent nails. The nails are hammered from the inside, the ends that come out are bent at right angles so that they hold the bolt.
Such a cage has undeniable advantages over other cages, since it is very simple to manufacture. When going on a long expedition, it is enough to take with you only a piece of Delhi. The rest will always be at hand. After spending an hour or two, anyone can make a carrying cage. For transporting 10-15 small birds, a cage with dimensions of 60 by 30 by 7 centimeters is convenient. If there is a need to transport several times more of them, then cages of the same size are placed one on top of the other. Between them two planks one to two centimeters thick are placed. Through the gaps formed between the cages, a sufficient amount of not only air, but also light penetrates into them, and the birds can feed on the way.
The upper cage in a bundle of this kind is covered with a rigid lid made of a piece of plywood or plastic, which is also placed on spacer strips. The surroundings are quite poorly visible from the bunch; light penetrates it not from above, but almost from the side, and therefore the birds behave relatively calmly.
A carrier cage as a temporary housing for birds is widely used in field ornithological research. Specialists, working with large traps, sometimes catch up to a thousand birds a day. No matter how quickly the birds are inspected and banded, they have to be kept in carrier cages for some time. The need to put more and more birds from trap receivers into cages and soon remove them from the cages forced the use of a special cage with a fabric sleeve instead of a door. You just need to bend it so that the birds do not fly out.
The span is a real cage with low side bars, elongated in length. The flight is used both for transporting birds, holding and acclimating newly caught ones to captivity, and for placing semolina birds on the lek. Therefore, perches are installed on its wooden sides. Flying from perch to perch, the birds attract the attention of their free relatives. This explains her relatively high altitude compared to the height of the carrier cage. The span is used for transportation due to its convenient flat shape, small size and lightness. In order not to disturb the birds on the way, they put a white fabric cover on the fly or wrap it in light-colored thin paper. The door is located on the top removable grille. The removability of the lid allows the birder to prepare several flights of such a size that one fits inside the other, which makes it easier to deliver the flights to the fishing site. The usual dimensions of a passage for passerines are 60 by 30 by 17 centimeters with a height of the side sides of 5-6 centimeters. When transported, up to 20 siskins or up to 12 finches, buntings and other birds of similar size can be placed in one flight, that is, much more densely than in a permanent place of residence.
If you need to transport only one bird or you need to isolate a pugnacious one, then you should use a “lamb” or a cage bigger size, when the bird is larger than small passerines. The dimensions of the cage are chosen so that the bird can freely stand, sit in it and, flapping its wings, not touch the walls, that is, in this case one must be guided by the same rules by which a lamb is selected.
Whatever the birds are transported in during long-term transportation (for songbirds this is more than one to two hours of travel), they must be provided with food and drink. Dry and live food is poured directly onto the bottom of the cage or cage, and if soft food is given, then for obvious reasons it has to be placed in feeders. When there is shaking on the way, the feeders are firmly fixed so that they do not move around the cage.
It is better to do this using a wire ring into which the feeder is inserted. The feeders themselves should not be screwed to the bottom or sides of the cage. This will make cleaning them much more difficult, and on the road will make it simply impossible.
It is better to water the birds at stops, placing drinking bowls with water in the cages for 5-10 minutes every two to four hours of the journey. In winter, in the cold, birds should be fed with snow, also given in drinking bowls, since both water and snow poured on the bottom of the cage get the plumage very wet and cold weather Birds are at risk of dying from hypothermia.
In some cases, it is possible to get home after a long journey only after dark. Having arrived at the place, despite the fact that it is dark outside, the birds need to be fed. Without transplanting them into other cages, they are illuminated with a bright lamp, given food and water and given the opportunity to eat for one to two hours. Only after this do they turn off the lights, and at dawn the birds are resettled in their permanent places of residence.

Noskov G.A., Rymkevich T.A., Smirnov O.P.

Source
“Catching and keeping birds” L.: From Leningrad State University, 1984.

The way life works is that nothing lasts forever. Sooner or later, our grandparents, mothers and fathers, you and I, and our pets will go to another world. No matter how much we want it, it is inevitable, and parting with a loved one or animal is always difficult to bear. In this article we will not talk about people, but about our beloved ferrets, who live much shorter than humans.

Very often I see the same question on thematic forums: - “ How many years do ferrets live?" Yes, every novice breeder is worried about this question, because in the near future no one will want to say goodbye to their beloved ferret, to whom they have become attached with their whole body and soul. But let’s not talk about the sad, but consider the issue on the merits.

In captivity, ferrets live on average 7-9 years, but there are also cases when the animal lives up to 10-12 years. Often, the animal dies completely in at a young age(up to 5 years of life) due to inadequate supervision of the owner over the animal, improper nutrition and care, and irresponsible attitude towards its health. All of this shortens your pet's life, so if you want your ferret to live a long and happy life, you need to take proper care of it. How long your pet ferret will live depends on you.

Factors influencing life expectancy:

1. The very first and most important factor, which, unfortunately, is not under your control, is heredity. If your ferret's parents died of natural causes at the age of 5-6 years, then there is a huge chance that your animal's genetic code has the same life span.
   Club breeders aim to increase the life expectancy of their offspring by selecting genetically healthy animals for mating, so, as a rule, their ferrets live somewhat longer.
2. As I said above, a lot depends on the owner himself, on his care for the animal. Improper diet and care, indifference to the health of the animal, constant cage keeping without physical activity, all this negatively affects the life expectancy of the ferret.
   You cannot feed your ferret soups, bread and other “food from the table”; he is a predator, so his diet must contain meat ingredients in predominant quantities. Read the corresponding article about nutrition and care.
   In addition, the ferret needs active muscle exercise to prevent the development of a disease such as muscle anemia. Therefore, walk him outside every day and let him run around the apartment for several hours.
3. I often meet breeders who do not close the kitchen, where there are many open food sources, and some even feed their ferret with prohibited foods. Thus, they get various gastrointestinal diseases, which significantly affect not only their future quality of life, but also their duration.
   Remember that even a small piece of chocolate can lead to the death of a student, no matter how much he asks you to treat him to it. They will be happy to taste everything, but this could turn out to be a disaster for him, at best poisoning. It is better to completely block the animal’s access to the kitchen, and, as reward or pampering, give only permitted treats, and then in small quantities. Read the relevant article on what you can treat your ferret to.
4. In 5-6 year old choreas, malignant formations – cancer – are very common. Unfortunately, scientists cannot yet indicate a specific reason for its formation, but there is an assumption, confirmed by test results, that ferrets fed dry food, which has a high presence of carbohydrates, are more susceptible to cancer, which is the causative factor. Animals that eat natural food are less susceptible to this disease. Draw conclusions.
5. Some breeders are either unaware or deliberately spare money on annual ferret vaccinations against rabies and canine distemper. This cannot be done, unvaccinated animals get plague in 60% of cases, and rabies in 10% of cases, even if you avoid contact with other animals, there are plenty of sources of infection. Even your outdoor shoes can become a source of infection, or a mouse. Do not neglect vaccination, it is also in your interests.

Perhaps I did not give such a comprehensive answer about how long ferrets live in captivity, maybe I missed something important. But by observing everything that I described above, you will avoid many unpleasant situations that in one way or another can affect the ferret’s lifespan or lead to its death. And death is the final stage of life, the end of its term.
Take proper care of your pet, closely monitor all its actions, do not expose it to physical harm, then your ferret will live a long and happy life.

In nature, hedgehogs live only 3-5 years. In captivity, their life expectancy doubles, sometimes reaching 16 years. Such a large difference in life expectancy is not accidental.

• Firstly, hedgehogs living at home do not suffer from a lack of food, as they do in the wild. Often, when hedgehogs emerge from hibernation, they are in such a skinny state that their spines seem to be attached to their bones. The fat that hedgehogs so diligently accumulate throughout the warm period is not enough for the entire winter.
• Secondly, hedgehogs are animals that live alone. They don't need company at home. The animal will feel comfortable living only with a person. When another hedgehog appears in the same territory, skirmishes and fights between them cannot be avoided. They can injure themselves by biting and using their spines. The exception in this case is young hedgehogs or couples, but only during the mating season.
• Third. In the wild, hedgehogs usually have many diseases. Keeping them at home requires regular examination by a veterinarian. If a hedgehog gets sick less, it is quite natural that its life expectancy increases. Due to this, pet hedgehog It is better to purchase from a person who specifically breeds hedgehogs for sale. Baby hedgehogs are no longer afraid of humans, so it is easy to establish contact with them. These hedgehogs, as a rule, are healthy and are not carriers of infectious diseases, which cannot be said about wild hedgehogs. When purchasing a hedgehog, there must be appropriate documentation stating that the hedgehog is healthy and has positive heredity. Of course, it is very easy to catch an animal somewhere in the park. But in nature they often suffer from rabies and tick-borne encephalitis. Does anyone really want to expose their health and the health of loved ones to such a risk?

It should be remembered that hedgehogs of “European” origin are accustomed to sleeping in winter. This is how they are designed: winter activity reduces his health to zero, and in the spring he may die. The hedgehog will not fall asleep if you keep it in warm conditions- in the room. If the hedgehog is planning to sleep in winter, then in the fall he will need to prepare a comfortable place for hibernation, in which it will be quite cool - no higher than +5 degrees. It should be noted that at home you should not forcibly change a hedgehog’s daily routine; this is inherent in nature. During the day - to sleep, at night - to be awake, in winter - to hibernate. The only exception is African hedgehogs, which do not hibernate during the winter.

In order for a hedgehog to live at home for a long time, it is necessary to feed it well, show it to a veterinarian and properly prepare it for hibernation. By following these simple rules, your hedgehog can live for many years, while being your faithful friend.