MY THOUGHTS ON THE WILD-CAUGHT WHITE-RUMPED SHAMA IN CAPTIVITY - PART IV

PREPARING AND CONDITIONING THE NEWLY WILD-CAUGHT SHAMA TO EAT DRY FOOD IN CAPTIVITY

Newly wild-caught shamas that were kept by their trappers or the shopkeepers for some time before being sold would have been taught by these people to eat dry food. For those that are freshly caught and arrived without knowing how to eat dry food, the following may be useful to the novice keeper.

Upon acquiring the freshly wild-caught shama, the novice keeper should first of all, try to provide nourishment quickly to build up its strength before attempting to teach the bird to eat its dry food. Ant eggs are relished by most wild-caught shamas and they are ideal to be used as the first food in captivity to nourish the newly wild-caught bird. Thawed ant eggs should be offered several times each day and drinking water must be available at all times.

Many newly wild-caughts will not be able to seek out the food and water from certain types of food cups that we may use. The food and water must be made visible to the bird by using transparent cups such as those made from plastic instead of porcelain cups. Even then, do not expect a wild bird that is freshly taken from the forest to know how to reach the food from the opening at the top of the cup. It is not unusual that the freshly wild-caught bird will try to get at the food by pecking at the sides of the transparent cups instead. By removing the top of the plastic cups to allow for a wider opening will make it much easier for the bird during this initial period. Alternatively, transparent feeder dishes can be used instead of cups. If there is still difficulty for the bird to access the food and water, place them in small shallow dishes and leave them on the cage floor for the first couple of days.

The bird must be observed to be eating the ant eggs, otherwise, it may be one of those rare occasions where a wild-caught shama will refuse ant eggs. Some captive bred shamas that are never fed ant eggs before as well as the occasional wild-caught from certain localities may not recognize ant eggs as a food source.

After a couple of days, when the bird is observed to be eating well, mix in a drop or two of liquid multi-vitamins and minerals into the ant eggs. A dose of this every couple of days at this stage will help to strengthen its resistance against diseases. Do not be tempted to supplement right from the beginning because if the bird had refused to eat the ant eggs right from the start due to the taste or smell of the supplement, thereafter, it may sometimes take a while to coax it into accepting ant eggs again. It will require a couple of days for the bird to form a strong and positive link to the ant eggs as its source of food. Its desire to feed on them must be strong enough for it to be able to ignore the strange taste and smell of the supplement. Building up a strong reliance on ant eggs will also work well towards using them as the medium to introduce dry food into the bird's diet later on.

When it is time to introduce the dry food into the bird's diet, the keeper may want to bear in mind to do this gradually. I would think that this is important not just only towards successfully training the bird to eat dry food but also to allow the bird to have sufficient time to adjust and produce the required digestive enzymes to cope with a food that is quite foreign to its digestive tract. It may sound trivial to some but over the years and through the trials and errors of raising numerous wild-caught white-rumped shamas, I have often suspected that the instances where I had succeeded well were correlated to the gradual and proper digestive acclimatization of these birds during their early days in captivity.

The dry food must be ground into fine powder and in the beginning, only a small pinch is thoroughly mixed into each serving of the ant eggs. In powdered form, the dry food will adhere better to the moist, thawed ant eggs. After each serving of the mixture, it is usual in the beginning for most of the powdered dry food to be left behind in the cup or to be strewn on the cage floor. Despite the bird’s insistent efforts to shake off the dry food, be assured that some of it will still inevitably be taken in together with the ant eggs. This will be evident in the droppings which by now, instead of being mostly white, would have taken on in some parts, a similar colour to that of the dry food. A few days is needed to feed the bird in this way, after which, the frequency of serving the mixtures of ant eggs and powdered dry food will have to be reduced.

The reduction of the serving frequency is to encourage the bird which will then be quite hungry between the feedings, to go for the dry food that is left over from the mixtures. There will be some taste and smell of ant eggs still lingering on these left-over crumbs and when the bird is hungry enough, it will attempt to feed on these. Once they started feeding on the left-over crumbs of dry food, it is the start of the conditioning of the bird to associate the dry food as a food source to satisfy its hunger. When they are observed to be eating up every thing from the ant eggs and dry food mixture, place a separate cup into the cage that contains only dry food. These need not be ground up but should be in their original pellet form.

The frequency of feeding the mixture of ant eggs and powdered dry food should then be further reduced to only once or twice a day to encourage the bird to feed from the cup of dry pellets, which should be by now recognizable as a food source by the bird. If all goes well, the droppings will show more colour of the dry food during this stage, confirming to the keeper that the bird is indeed eating the dry pellets. If the droppings show slight tinge of green, it is a sign that the bird is starving and not taking sufficient dry food from the cup. When this happens, the frequency of serving the mixture of ant eggs and powdered dry food would have to be increased again, for a while more.

Upon confirming that the bird is feeding very well from the cup of dry food, it should then not be given anything else in the morning. Ant eggs can be reserved for feeding only once in the evening. The ant eggs should also continue to be made good use of as a medium to supply supplements to the bird during this period of stress. Live food that is planned to be part of the captive diet should only be fed in very small quantities each time and from the afternoon onwards or withheld until later, after the bird is well conditioned to consume sufficient quantity of its dry food on a daily basis. This will help to ensure that its apettite for the dry food during this period of conditioning will not be distracted by the presence of other more appealing food sources and will also allow the digestive system to be better adjusted to the dry food which will henceforth, be a substantial part of the bird’s captive diet.

Partly because of the stress associated with conditioning the bird to eat its dry food and partly due to its not being well acclimatized to the captive environment, the newly wild-caught male shama will not be expected to come into form anytime soon. However, if all goes well, the newly wild-caught that is better acclimatized to the captive diet and well cared for during the molt will also usually thrive better and come into form faster in captivity.

Unless it is absolutely necessary, once the bird’s digestive system is acclimatized, the dry food should not be changed from one brand to another as this would mean having to put the bird through the stress all over again. 

Yankovic - Eat it

MY THOUGHTS ON THE WILD-CAUGHT WHITE-RUMPED SHAMA IN CAPTIVITY - PART III

THE CAPTIVE DIET AND ITS IMPLEMENTATION

A good captive diet should be one that is practical for the keeper, nutritionally adequate, compatible to the bird’s digestive system and palatable enough so that the bird can be easily conditioned to consume it in sufficient quantity. In this part of the world where the shama has a long history in captivity, it has been shown that a combination of a good dry food supplemented by some live food daily can serve this purpose well.

Protein is the important component of a nutrient compact diet that is required by the shama in order for it to thrive in captivity. Traditionally, most dry food that are made in this region for the shama will supply this nutrient partly through a combination of ingredients that are rich in plant based proteins, such as beans, legumes and peanuts. Since any single source of plant protein will be incomplete and lacking in one or more of the essential amino acids required, a combination from the various sources will help to ensure that the essential amino acids that may be lacking in one will be made up by another. Apart from these ingredients, generous amounts of egg yolks are usually included in these dry foods. Egg yolk besides being a very rich source of animal protein is also very rich in other nutrients. It is also very agreeable with the digestive system of the captive shama. Fish meal or other ingredients of equivalent nutritional values are sometimes included into the dry food to provide additional animal protein and to supply the necessary calcium. A good dry food besides having a good combination of ingredients that are compatible to the digestive capabilities of the shama for the nutrients to be easily assimilated, must also be consistent in its components from batch to batch so as not to cause unnecessary digestive stress to the birds.

It may be worth mentioning here that ant eggs are very useful when included in the captive diet of shamas and other insectivorous birds. It is a source of nutrient compact food that is also very compatible to their digestible system and most wild-caught shamas will consume these as eagerly as they would consume live insects. Here in this region, ant eggs are available either fresh or frozen. Frozen ant eggs must be thawed and the excess moisture to be soaked up by paper towels before being offered to the birds. In this way and when only a small quantity, such as a teaspoonful is offered each time, it will be eaten up before it can turn rancid in our hot weather.

The usefulness of thawed ant eggs as part of the captive diet goes beyond being a good source of food. The eagerness of most wild-caught shamas to consume them makes them a convenient and effective medium for mixing vitamins or oral medications into, when these are required to be administered to the birds. The appropriate use of ant eggs as the first source of food to quickly nourish the newly wild-caughts and then subsequently to introduce the dry food to the birds through mixing them into the ant eggs, will usually result in faster and better acceptance of the dry food by the birds than the other methods. Similarly, when the need arises to change the dry food from one brand to another, the use of ant eggs will help in enabling a smoother transition to minimize digestive stress that is often associated with an abrupt change of the dry food.

Live insects form an important part in the captive diet of the white-rumped shama to provide for a good source of protein. The convenience of obtaining crickets and mealworms these days will make for easier provision of live insects as part of the diet. Grasshoppers collected from the wild are often regarded to be one of the best live food for the captive shama. Earthworms that are collected from uncontaminated soil will be useful additions to the variety of live food that can be offered in captivity. Live insects that are high in chitin should not be fed in large quantities at a single feeding. It may be worth the trouble to pick out the white molting mealworms to minimise feeding the bird with too much of the indigestible skins. Given the choice, the captive shama will also indicate that whenever possible, its instinct is to avoid the skin (chitin). When offered a mixture, it will always pick out the white skinless ones first.

Live insects should be gut loaded to maximise its nutritional value. Crickets can be fed with chicken feed and other food high in calcium prior to being offered to the captive shama. This will help to make up for the imbalance of calcium to phosphorus ratio in the food value of these insects. They should also be given some carrots or leafy greens to gut load them with beta-carotene to supply some vitamin A which is quite often found to be lacking in the diet of the captive shama. Mealworms will not survive well in chicken feed but can be gut loaded with Nestum family cereals or other equivalents that are fortified with muti-vitamins. They can also be fed with some carrots prior to being offered to the captive bird.

While some of the other species of songbirds we keep may grow fat from their rich captive diet and their sedentary lives, often the white-rumped shama in captivity appears to be undernourished. This is sometimes due to the captive shama not eating enough of the dry food provided. For the caged, non-breeding male white-rumped shama that has already been successfully trained to eat its dry food, under normal circumstances, live food and ant eggs should not be offered to the bird during the early part of the morning. The bird is most hungry at daybreak and when not given the choice, will consume substantial quantity of dry food during this period of the day. This must be encouraged so that the captive shama will be conditioned to always regard the dry food provided from the cup as a source to satisfy its need to eat. It must form the habit to eat sufficiently from this source. By offering live food during the early period of the morning, especially if the quantity is quite substantial, it may result in having the bird reverting to some extent, back to being unwilling to eat its dry food. The bird that is not keen to eat its dry food will not consume them in the sufficient quantity that is needed, preferring to wait for the live food instead. This habit of reluctance to eat its dry food when prolonged, will result in the bird being unable to thrive well in captivity. For this same reason, the quantity of live food for the day should preferably be spread out over a few times during the afternoon and evening and in small quantities each time, instead of being given at a single feeding session so that the bird will be encouraged to eat the dry food in between. This will further reinforce its conditioning and ensure that it will eat sufficiently and evenly throughout the day instead of gorging itself with a large feeding of live food at one go, overloading its small crop and then eating insufficiently at other times of the day.

MY THOUGHTS ON THE WILD-CAUGHT WHITE-RUMPED SHAMA IN CAPTIVITY - PART II

THOUGHTS ON FEEDING THE CAPTIVE WHITE-RUMPED SHAMA

Facultative insectivorous wild birds of temperate regions will switch between feeding on insects and other food sources depending on seasonal availabilities. Unlike these birds, the food sources of the tropical wild shama is not affected by climatic fluctuations in the same way. Hence, it has evolved to be a specialist feeder that feeds only on insects and small invertebrates that are found in its habitat throughout the year. When taken into captivity, the specialist feeder will not willingly feed on unfamiliar food items (such as dry pellets), even when forced by extreme hunger. This feeding instinct of the newly wild-caught shama that is so well tailored to its natural habitat will have to be altered by its keeper if it is to survive in captivity. Its digestive system that is so well adapted to its natural food sources will have to be adjusted to accommodate and utilize the captive diet. It has also to be conditioned to eat sufficiently from the captive diet that must also provide adequately in order for it to thrive.

Although it is not difficult these days for the keeper to provide a captive diet that is made up of commercially farmed insects, this alone will not be adequate. Commercially farmed insects are nutritionally inferior in comparison to the natural prey items found in the wild. The lack of variety in commercially farmed insects will also render such a diet to be nutritionally inadequate. The commonly available farmed crickets and mealworms are high in fats and chitin and lacking in many other nutrients. Such a diet will quite certainly cause nutritional deficiencies in the long run. Therefore, the novice keeper should not think that by providing such a diet, he will be providing one that will be closest to the natural diet of the wild shamas.

Within the group of birds classified as insectivores (specialist feeders), the dietary habits and digestive capabilities may still differ to some extent, from one species of this group to another. Their different habitats that support different types of prey items could possibly be the reason behind these slight differences of their digestive adaptations. Therefore, when one species of insectivorous bird thrives on a certain captive diet, it is not necessarily so that all other insectivorous species will do well on this similar diet. An example from my own observations of the commonly kept insectivorous birds shows that the digestive capabilities of the white-rumped shama and that of its relative, the oriental magpie robin can be quite different. When both are fed on a captive diet that is high in chitin, shamas will regurgitate substantial amount of indigestible chitin throughout the day. Regurgitating pellets of undigested chitin is a common behavior of many species of insectivorous birds in the wild. However, the observation that chitin is better retained by the magpie robin and allowed to pass through its digestive tract, suggests that the magpie robin, when compared to the shama, may have a digestive system that is far better equipped to utilize the chitin component of the diet. In the case of the shama that do not retain them in its digestive tract at all, quite clearly, chitin has little or no nutritional value for this species.

Apart from the purpose to expel indigestible matter through the mouth, there are really no other significant benefits to birds from the behaviour of regurgitating indigestible food. In captivity therefore, there is no reason to encourage this natural behaviour in birds like the shama. Hence, if its captive diet comprises of too much indigestible chitin, it will be of no benefit, since it is also shown that shamas do not utilize whatever food value that may be present in these. On the contrary, regurgitation requires convulsive efforts and in the case of the shama, there seem to be significant amount of discomfort associated with this effort. They also seem to be affected by the presence of indigestible pellets that had formed in their crops and are yet to be ejected, often becoming inactive and unwilling to sing or eat until these are regurgitated. Even though the discomfort associated with a high chitin diet may not adversely affect the health of the captive shama, it will at the least, interfere with the performances of a male shama that is raised for the arena. Therefore, it is in my opinion that unlike some other insectivores, the shama should not be fed on a diet that is high in chitin. For this reason, food such as crickets and mealworms which are high in chitin should only be used sparingly when included in the captive diet of the shama.

Certain brands of dry pelleted food for insectivorous birds that are popular in the west may not necessarily be good for the captive shama. For one thing, some of them are tailored to the needs of insectivores from the temperate region and will include substantial amount of dried fruits. Although the digestive system of the captive shama can be conditioned to accomodate such an inclusion in its diet, it is however not a species that will thrive on nutrient dilute food such as fruits. Unlike the temperate insectivore whose digestive system is adapted to consuming nutrient dilute food during certain time of the year, the white-rumped shama, being a specialist feeder that feeds on a nutrient compact diet throughout the year, is by nature, a small eater that do not have the required capacity in its apettite for a nutrient dilute diet. Some of these pelleted dry food contains substantial percentage of crude fibre, often advertised to be necessary to simulate the chitin component of an insectivore's diet. In the case of the captive shama, I do not think that this is beneficial.

MY THOUGHTS ON THE WILD-CAUGHT WHITE-RUMPED SHAMA IN CAPTIVITY - PART I

UNDERSTANDING THE NEWLY WILD-CAUGHT WHITE-RUMPED SHAMA

By the time the newly wild-caught shama reaches the shop or its keeper, more often than not, its physical and mental well being would have already been compromised to some extent, due to hunger and due to the cramped and perhaps, sometimes even torturous condition during its storage and the journey. It is extremely terrified and can even be quite disorientated when placed into its cage. The subsequent frantic and seemingly endless but futile attempts to escape from its confinement and from the terrifying new surroundings will only add on to the physical and mental stress to drain the bird further. In this very delicate state, its health and immune system will be further compromised if it also did not receive nourishment quickly. For those that perished during the early stage in captivity, the combination of stress and starvation is usually the primary cause of death.

The novice keeper that is fortunate enough to be able to keep his newly wild-caught bird alive, only to be disappointed months later down the road by its inability to thrive well in captivity, should try to understand that his frustrations were most likely brought about by his failure to acclimatize the bird properly to captivity. He should also try to understand the importance of the early transition period, during the first week or so upon acquiring the bird. Often, laying a good foundation during this initial period goes a long way towards a successful acclimatization of the bird to captivity. For every male wild-caught white-rumped shama that has made it to the arena and fulfilled its purpose in captivity, there will be many others that could not. Often, when they do not make it, the blame is on the birds for being unable to make the grade. Perhaps the novice keeper should also see it from another perspective: that the full potential of a captive male white-rumped shama cannot be unveiled if it is not in good health and that it will also not come into optimal form if it is not fully and properly acclimatized to its captive diet and the captive environment.

A newly wild-caught green leaf bird will quickly adapt to captivity and most will become very tame within a short period of time. A newly wild-caught hwamei, although will be as difficult to tame down as the shama, will rarely starve to death because it will readily eat the dry pelleted food offered in captivity. The wild-caught white-eyes and bulbuls will also easily take to the fruits and the sweetened dry food very quickly and both are by nature, able to withstand very well, the stress associated with captivity. Among the popularly kept songbirds of Asia, the wild-caught white-rumped shama is however, one of the most difficult to adapt and thrive in captivity.

Deep Purple - Mistreated