BREEDING

The preparation for the breeding season starts around the begining of October, by slowly increasing the length of lighting in the birdroom, and adding soft food to the flights on a more regular basis.
Towards the middle of November the hens are selected and placed into the breeding cages, first with the nest box attached so that they can settle down and get used to the surroundings and explore the inside of the nest box.
Three days later the cocks are caught up and put in with their selected partners

Daily inspection of all nest boxes takes place with all dates of eggs laid, and chicks hatching recorded onto a nest box card.

Once all the chicks have hatched, the nest box is cleaned out and fresh sawdust added, to try and keep the nests clean.
The chicks are inspected daily, and any build up droppings around their feet is cleaned off, also the inside of the beaks checked for any build up of soft food, which is removed with the aid of a blunt cocktail stick.

Once the babies have left the nest box, a close eye is kept for any sign of attack from the cock bird. After 5-6 weeks, once the young birds have been observed feeding for themselves, they are moved to a small rearing cage.

Once the youngsters are moved into the rearing cage they get plenty of soft food, soaked oats and millet sprays on top of the usual seed mix. This is to hopefully bring them on a bit before being moved into the main flight, once they have had the first moult.
While they are in the rearing cage, they get handled as much as possible to hopefully steady them down, and also a show cage is attached to the side in which all the little tit bits are fed to encourage the youngsters to enter the show cage at their own free will, without realising that they are actually being trained, ready for hopefully being taken to the shows later in the year.