Puteh Care

Taking Care (House Keeping)

I spend about 20-35 minutes "taking care" of 4 Putehs takes less than 30 minutes to bath and top up feed and clean the cages. I do them in production line fashion, twin bathing cage one shot 2 birds pompom-ing, when I finished with the cages and topping of feed and fruits they should be ready to hop over. At the meantime the other 2 seeing the 2 bathing are eagerly awaiting for their turn.

Some Putehs take their own sweet time playing before they bath, but after 2 to 3 times if they dun bath while I clean their cages, it is just tough and whoever din bath will have to wait for the next day. They are fast learners; soon they will follow your schedule. 

With this approach, there is no difference taking care of one or four, one bird will also take around 10-15 minutes for it to have a proper bath.

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Fear Of Other Putehs. 

This is simply a normal reaction of any bird, but it is less pronounced in Putehs because Putehs are flock birds and hence they are less likely to be intimidated by other Putehs. Unlike the Jambul which will be really scared the first time you take it to “Chai” and hang it next to other Jambul in top form.

If you note that your Puteh flutters a lot and jump about crazily the first few times you take it to 'chai' with other Putehs, it’s because it is excited in seeing his own kind - and suddenly so many of them too!

There is absolutely nothing wrong with 'chai' your Puteh with other Putehs; in fact it helps to tame your Puteh faster too.

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General health and well-being of the Puteh

First of all, I would like to reiterate very clearly that I am not in this hobby to breed nor to train my Puteh or any bird to be a champion. Hence some of the suggestions made by me may or may not work well for hobbyists who aim to be in the song bird competition.

Older birds tend to develop too much "fire" with dry food and start to molt.

The balance to be maintained for most of the old timers who were willing to share said:

1) Fruits daily, but reduce it when you notice the Puteh's droppings to be watery
2) Main diet should still be dry pellets as it is multi-nutritional.
3) Insects: preferably large grasshoppers (about an 1.5 to inches, split it open for the Puteh to get at the innards. Some said the grasshoppers should be brown ones, some said it really does not matter. Once or twice to be fed with insects are good, at least and not more.

Really, I don't see the difference with what I have written about the general dietary habits of Putehs. Perhaps the point of contention is being able to tell the health of the Puteh from the consistency of its faeces.

That brings us around to the same moot point about whether the diet is suitable for a competition bird or for a healthy bird.

It’s OK to spray water onto your puteh while bathing. In fact, it’s good. This induces them to bath more. However, do not spray directly onto their face as the water may enter their nostrils and cause them to 'cough' and fall sick, thus spoiling the bird. Just spray the body.

Give adequate sun. You can give direct sunlight for about 30 minutes using the morning or evening sun. Don't give direct midday sun as it is too hot. Puteh becomes fluffy or 'fat' due to inadequate sunlight and sometimes too much fruits. Do not give a big chunk of apple or whatever fruits as this may cause them to eat a lot of the fruits. Give a small chunk instead. No supplements are needed. 

Tips- Taking care of your Mata Puteh and improve its performance.

When a bird is subject to sudden change of diet (or inconsistency) you will notice some of this:

a) Going into molt even if it is not time yet for molting.

b) Sudden drop in form

c) Watery droppings.

Taming Puteh, expose him more on human interactive and bath him more often. Example: At least 1 a day, as time goes by he will be settle down quite easily. Meanwhile, get yourself a bath cage for Finch/Mata Puteh; transfer your Mata Puteh into bath cage whenever you do the maintenance work Example: Top up water/food/cleaning to prevent your bird from escape and suffer serious head injury.

A bird depends very much on its feathers to be able to fly AND more often than not, its plumage will help determine whether it will get a mate. Any bird - whether a Jambul or Puteh or a Hornbill - will spend lots of time preening themselves to ensure their most precious possession, their feathers, are in tip top condition.

During molting period, I even bathe the bird with rice water. Rice water will helps the plumage of birds to grow excellent brilliant condition. It smoothen the feathers when it grows thus giving the bird with finest beautiful plumage.

If you have observed birds in the wild, the ones with poor plumage condition will almost never get a mate and more likely to be chased away by other male birds whose plumage are in excellent brilliant condition.

The moral is: - the more often you bathe the Puteh (or any bird) you can be sure it will be in top form. 

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Tonic for Mata Puteh
Result: Vocals and overall activity of Mata Puteh has improved. 

1) 5 ml sugar mix with 20 ml water to make the nectar which I add in 4 drops of the tonic instead of the usual drops of vitamins. 

2) I feed them the nectar once a day for 5 days (I stop at 5 instead of the recommended 7 days as they are getting a bit noisy) and the concoction is good for 2 days feeding (I keep the balance in the fridge) as the usual nectar vase can fill about 4 ml of nectar.

Just remember not to leave the nectar vase too long in the cage. I leave it in for 4 to 6 hours which by that time, the nectar level has drop to a level where the Puteh cannot reach already. Leaving too long in the cage may promote bacterial growth in the rich preparation which is not good for our birds.

The above is a personal testimonial and should not constitute a guarantee whatsoever. I am always trying new food and will be more than willing to try any reasonable recommendations from brothers here. 

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Training the Mata Puteh

To speed up the development of [the Oriental White-eye] you may want to try this:

Bring them at least once a week to gatherings (“Chai”). If the form is not up to a certain level, the birds will not “Chai” but there is no need to worry about it in the beginning. Putehs are different from other types of softbill songbirds in that they are neither solitary nor territorial by nature. A puteh that is not ready for “Chai” may in the beginning shows sign of being intimidated but this will not affect its development of its form later. A reasonably good puteh, with patience, will develop its form when regularly exposed to environments of the “Chai” arena after overcoming its initial reluctance to “Chai”. Of course, there are instances that no matter how much patience you have, a particular puteh will never “Chai” and can only buka at home. The reason is this type of puteh is most likely a very low ranking individual in the pecking order of a flock of birds (please don't ask me for scientific studies to substantiate this theory). Now, bringing up the bird's form is not necessarily for the sake of competitions. As hobbyists, most of us would want to see that our birds are in optimal form even if it means just appreciating them at home.

If there is no “Chai” places conveniently located around you, the next best alternative is to bring the bird out as often as you can. For example, when you are going to the neighbourhood coffee shop for a drink, bring them along and hang somewhere while you are enjoying your coffee. Bring them along when you are walking to the nearby provision shop to buy groceries. In other words, the more frequently they move around instead of staying stagnant in one place (your home), the better for them. Even the best of putehs when kept only at home, will not be at its peak. The reasoning behind this: unlike a territorial bird that stay put in its territory to defend it, putehs travel long distances in flocks from the time day breaks, foraging for food far and wide. Each time they stop, they will eat, chirp, buka etc maintaining contact and confirming their pecking order in the flock vocally. This is what hobbyists base their training methods upon to bring up the form of the bird to peak condition. It is about flowing along with the nature of the bird.

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Yin Yang of Puteh Diet

The suggestion of a balanced diet as advocated by the old timers is actually based on the balance of the Yin and Yang of a Puteh's (or any animal for that matter) well-being.


Yin Yang is in fact an application which is suitable for a human being and not quite for an animal. There is no documented evidence of any Chinese medical study on the Yin Yang of a bird's health, much less of any other animal.

Instead what we do have is the application of the balance of Yin and Yang. Thus, if we apply this to a bird, how would we know whether the bird's health is balanced?

The old timers then conclude the following:

1) Is the bird lively and singing - if yes, it’s ok.

2) Are the faeces wet or firm? - If wet, there is too much Yin, if dry then there is too much Yang

3) If dry, is the bird still singing and does it appear to be hyperactive? If yes, it confirms that it is much too heaty and hence the bird might 'burn out' before the competition.

4) If wet, is the bird still singing but appear to be less lively? If yes, it confirms that it’s much too cool and might not perform at its peak when its competition time.

5) Thus the bird keeper is then exhorted to try and balance the diet such that it results in firm faeces and not wet or dry.

Consequently you would then note that the 'good' performers (not necessarily only the winners) in a competition will have firm faeces. Correct? Yes, indeed.

Then ask yourself this question, has any old timer bothered with the possibility that the Yin Yang of the Puteh is quite different from that of a human. In the case of a Puteh or any bird, the human equivalent of Yin Yang cannot be applied. In its natural state, the Puteh is more Yin than Yang. That is Mother Nature. We cannot say that it is wrong. It’s just that way.

The same can be said of Eagles or Owls or Herons, all of which are Yang birds. Does that mean they are unhealthy? Hey, you can't even get an Eagle to eat lettuce! Similarly you cannot force a Puteh to eat meat.

The Yin Yang balance for other living beings are just not the same as for us, humans. This is in fact supported by Western science. Humans need a fine balance of Yin Yang - we are after all omnivores (meat and non-meat eaters). A dog is a Yang animal - it is a carnivore. A cow is a Yin animal - it’s an herbivore.

So what then is a Puteh, is it Yin or Yang? Answer: It is more Yin than Yang, judging by its natural diet.

If you adhere to its natural diet regime, you will have a normal, healthy and happy Puteh.

However, if you wish to bring it to competition 'standard', you would need to tweak its Yin Yang by offering it less Yin food. It will heat or fire up the little fellow - hence we have the saying 'Api' or in Cantonese "Foh". (But you can't tweak too much Yang, or else it will burn out.)

What happens then of course, would be a change in the consistency of its faeces - it becomes less wet and more firm ! Then what does that look like? It looks exactly like human faeces - firm but not wet nor hard and dry; as in the case of a healthy human.

Thus, as I said the old timers tend to equate the Puteh faeces to the human. If it is firm, the Puteh is in excellent health and has 'Api'. Yes, not just 'Api', it has MORE 'Api' than a normal healthy Puteh.

What remains is the moral question - are you doing your Puteh justice by tweaking its Yin Yang balance such that you get what YOU want and not what the PUTEH needs.

It’s really a matter of personal preference, but I wish to add that when we keep a bird, its life is in our hands. And the truth of it is that we never own the bird. If we do own it, try opening the cage - see what happens - the little fella will scoot off soonest possible. I believe then we should try our best to take care of it by applying the natural approach as opposed to tweaking nature to suit us.

I am not an advocate of Western values but neither would I discard their ideas especially if they are consistent with our Oriental values; and in this case it happens to concur - the balance of the Puteh's diet should be according to its particular nature of Yin Yang and not according to ours, unless you wish to 'fire up' the little fellow for competition sake.

In actual fact, if you follow the natural dietary regime, you will still have a Puteh which is in top form, but not in the same category as a competition Puteh 'Api'.

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Having Puteh picking up bad habits like somersault.

The usual thing for most birdkeepers to do is to hang their Putehs with other Putehs in hope that:- 

(1) Some hope that their Putehs will learn to perform like the good ones.

(2) Their Puteh will perform even when placed amongst many other Putehs.

(3) That their Putehs will be 'teased' or 'provoked' or 'challenged' so that their Putehs will peak their performance.

I always agreed that you should bring the Putehs out to “Chai” arena, not only you can share and exchange opinions and to enjoy everybody’s companionship since we share a common hobby. Same goes to the Putehs enjoying other’s companionship, but beware of them picking up bad habits like head rotation or even somersault.

I recently placed a "WHITE" surface CD at the top of the cage to prevent Puteh from somersault. After 2 days of observation the Puteh having nowhere to hold at the top, it finally kicks off that habit.

It’s only a matter of time and my patience until finally my Puteh become tame. I spend a lot of time with my Putehs in the beginning stage when brought home. It was a new environment to the bird, I will have interaction with him by giving the Putehs bathed first then he's slightly calmer now. Sometimes also start to sing his mid-tone right after bath for under the sun. If I want to hear him sing I have to keep out of sight. If he caught me watching he'll stop singing and jumps around again.
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