Start Your Canary Breeding Season Early With Artificial Lighting.

For canaries, light is the “Great Regulator” . Light regulates the canary breeding cycle and the molting cycle.

After the winter equinox when days are at their shortest, the days will begin to lengthen and by March or so daylight hours are around 12 or 13 hours per day. This is when your canaries will begin to breed. As daylight hours increase so do breeding hormones.

However, you don’t have to wait until spring to pair up your canaries. You can start the breeding season early by using artificial light and heat.

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Artificial Lighting

With the use of timers you can have the lights come on and turn off at beneficial times. Many breeders use full-spectrum lighting to simulate the benefits of natural sun for increased success rates.

But don’t just jump in on the 1st of January and set your timer for 14 hours per day though. That would be too much of a shock for your canaries who are used to about 10 hours a day and may adversely affect their health status.

Increase daylight hours slowly if you want to get a jump on the canary breeding season...

I start January 1st and increase the normal hours of daylight by 30 minutes. One week later I increase by another 30 minutes, and so on, increasing by 30 minutes each week until 13 hours per day is reached.

With this schedule, canary birds are primed and ready to breed by about mid to late February. If you start increasing daylight in January you’ll have baby birds by mid March.

Although light is the number one attention-getter for regulating the breeding cycle...also pay attention to...

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Temperature and Diet

high quality seed mix, I begin flooding the canaries’
diet with protein and greens.
More on the canary breeding diet here...

If you use artificial lighting to jump start your canary breeding season, temperatures should be kept around 60 to 70 degrees beginning in late January. Raise the temps gradually just like you've done with the lighting.

For more on breeding canaries go to All About Breeding Canaries.

Good luck and breed well!

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