Canary Illness? Singing Female or Egg-Bound Male?

by Jamie
(Melbourne, Victoria, Australia)

Unexpected canary illness:

I was so excited to buy my first canary.

I desperately wanted a singing canary and was assured by the seller that I was buying a male. So I named him Butters and waited patiently for the singing to begin.

However, after some months of having a silent bird, I thought he needed some help, so I started playing singing canary clips to him from YouTube. He loved them and would often jump down onto the keyboard and listen attentively or start pecking at the screen!

Well it took a while but my bird finally started singing. Not a pretty canary song but a garbled mess of all different bird noises. I thought that it was about as good as he would get and so I was satisfied with that.

However it wasn't long until my canary started copying me whistling to our dog, making noises like the wild parrots outside, and even doing a wolf whistle (which takes everyone by surprise)! Obviously he is a bit of a mimic!

Then one day my little Butters got sick, and so I rushed him straight to the avian vet. Low and behold the vet advises me that "he" was egg bound, and that I actually had a female! Well I was surprised - it was so totally unexpected! "She" made it through the egg binding with the help of the vet, and I was overjoyed that my little bird was happy and healthy again and still singing her head off.

I renamed her Butterina, and I absolutely love her to bits, even if she can't sing properly!