Questions about small bird breeding

[ilikepigeons]

I'm wanting to breed a small number of birds for myself, and had a few questions I couldn't find answers for elsewhere. If anyone has any advice or answers it'd be much appreciated
The species I am thinking of breeding are Zebra finches, canaries, budgies, eye ring lovebirds and Diamond doves. They are all currently in aviaries, I would catch a pair and place them inside a cage to breed rather than colony breeding though.
1. Breeding outside of breeding season?
From what I understand breeding season is when the days are longest, so spring/summer. Here its the end of Autumn. I have accidentally found that by leaving the lights on longer than the sun is up outside I can trigger my birds to come into breeding condition. My birds are housed indoors, so temperature shouldn't be a problem I think. The only thing really bothering me is that I read an article by what looked to be written by a very knowledgeable person about how canaries suffer badly from messed up daylight hours, and needed a strict routine that changed according to season to maintain good health, and that freaked me out a bit, I'll stick to that with my aviaries but I'd hate to mess it up by taking them out to breed outside of breeding season.
2. Is 5 too old for a (male) budgie to be bred? I currently have one lone budgie, I plan to buy 2 females and 1 male budgie, to balance out the genders and have 2 pairs. But would the pairing with my original male be viable for breeding or is it best to leave them as a non-breeding couple and just use the other pair? He's come into breeding condition this year judging by his cere.

 

[Cloverr39]

I'm no expert, but I've bred my pet budgies like 3 times. I ended up keeping their first ever chick and another one because of her purple-ish color. With budgies I never did anything about season. They hatched out chicks once in November (late autumn I think) and again in March (spring). Mine just assumed it was breeding season every time I would add a nest box in their cage. But they always have longer daylight (I go to sleep very late and they live in my bedroom).

I can't help much with the canary thing.
Also I don't know if your male budgie is too old to breed, but I think he isn't. I don't know, I bred mine when they were around 2. My oldest male is 4 now, but he hasn't been bred recently so I can't say.

 

[muddy75]

Mine are outside and tend to breed/hatch anytime there’s a nest box available regardless of the season/daylight for budgies and finches (they have hatched during dead of winter)
The diamond doves maybe a bit trickier but the others listed should be similar to budgies and finches

 

[Serin]

Canaries are very sensitive, do not keep them without a natural day length cycle, their lifespan will be drastically reduced. They naturally breed from mid march to the end of June in North America.

 

[ilikepigeons]

Canaries are very sensitive, do not keep them without a natural day length cycle, their lifespan will be drastically reduced. They naturally breed from mid march to the end of June in North America.

Yes, that is what I have heard and will stick to from now on.
I will breed them at the longest natural daylight hours in spring/summer then.
Because of the way my set up is it's a bit difficult since I need a light bulb going to make the room light enough for them, there is windows but not many and they are small.
If you keep canaries or know, I'd be interested to know how you keep yours/they should be kept. Is turning the lights on inside the room when it's light outside and then turning them off when it's getting dark adequate? Adjusting it to the daylight hours outside as needed.

 

[Serin]

I don't have any lights in their room on after dark, they are in a sun room. You can adjust timers, and change them every couple weeks, but if you mess up just once, the birds can molt out of season and it's very bad for them.

 

[ilikepigeons]

I don't have any lights in their room on after dark, they are in a sun room. You can adjust timers, and change them every couple weeks, but if you mess up just once, the birds can molt out of season and it's very bad for them.

Okay, thankyou for the information.
I did mess up a bit with my birds, I don't think they got enough sunlight this year at breeding season, but recently they were probably getting too much, 14-16 hours when it would have only been 10 hours outside. They are getting 10 hours now, but since it was wrong before, is there anything I can do to make up for the mistake other than fixing it now? Will this have a bad effect on them?