Breeding

Birds are paired up just prior to the Club show in Doncaster i.e. mid November. This hopefully ensures that most if not all chicks are able to be rung with the new rings issued at the end of December for January. Pairs are selected visually but we try and balance the good and bad points of each bird in the hope that the young will have the best features of the parents and none of the bad. In practise though some of the young will have some of the bad points of one or both the parents. Only birds that are 'fit' are paired up. We do not necessarily fill all our breeding cages at once. The birds are left together for at least a week before the nest box is put on the cage. The nest box attaches to the front of the cage and can be opened easily to check eggs and chicks. The nest box is filled with shavings to just below the entrance hole. It is up to the hen to decide how much nesting space and material she wants. The hens usually start to lay within 2 weeks. Any hen that does not lay in this period is left with the cock for a further 4 weeks after which the pair is split up and a new pair selected from the stock flights.

The eggs are handled as little as possible. As the top of the nest box can be opened it is possible to see the eggs quite clearly and one incubation of the eggs has started it is easy to see if the eggs are fertile or 'clear'. If all the eggs are clear the hen is left to sit them full term and expel them from the nest box herself when she is ready to start laying again. This means that if birds need to be fostered from their natural mother we have somewhere to foster them to for rearing.

Just prior to the young leaving the nest we place a table in the corner of the breeding cage. This provides a place for the young birds away from the danger of being pecked as the pair prepare for their next round. The young birds are left with their parents as long as possible and are certainly not removed from the breeding cage until they are feeding themselves. From the breeding cage they are transferred to a stock cage where they are kept along with other young of a similar age until they are approximately 12 weeks old. At 12 weeks they are then judged able enough to be put in a 'Nursery' flight within the confines of the bird room. This flight does not have access to the outside flight. The young are now kept in this flight until the end of the year unless they are selected to be part of the 'Show team'.