CHAPTER XXVI. 



PREPARING BIRDS FOR EXHIBITION. 



BEFORE canaries can be exhibited, they require to be specially 

 fed, washed (as described in the previous chapter), and 

 otherwise prepared for the contest. This is the case with 

 horses, dogs, poultry, pigeons, and other animals and birds, 

 and canaries are no exception to the rule. 



Norwich Plain-heads and Cinnamons are shown for colour 

 chiefly; and at the age of from six to eight weeks, those 

 intended for exhibition should be placed in separate cages, or, 

 at any rate, apart from the ordinary stock birds, and fed 

 with one or other of the compounds recommended for colour 

 feeding, depending on whether you wish to produce yellow 

 or red-fed birds. For colour feeding you must be careful 

 to select birds of a recognised type, of good quality of 

 feather, and large and robust, or your labours will be thrown 

 away. 



If the birds you select for this purpose are young, i.e., 

 of the first season, in order to give them a fair chance 

 of success, they will require to be tailed and flighted, that is 

 to say, the tails of the birds, as well as the majority of the 

 wing feathers, will have to be drawn out, as it is only during 

 the process of the moult that the colour feeding affects the 

 plumage. It is a cruel and unnatural practice, and one I am 

 greatly averse to myself, but what is to be done? Most 

 exhibitors do it, as they know it is their only chance of 

 success, as the best birds not so treated would probably fail to 



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