BREEDING AND GENERAL MANAGEMENT 49 



Preparing the Egg Food. 



There are many different methods of preparing egg 

 food, and each individual fancier thinks his own method 

 the best. Some mix sweet biscuits with the boiled egg, 

 and others bread crumbs, others soaked plain biscuit, 

 and some soaked bread. Then some breeders press 

 egg and biscuit or egg and bread through a fine sieve, 

 others use a fine potato squeezer such as cooks use for 

 flaking potatoes, others mix the egg and bread with 

 pestle and mortar into a paste. Some may keep the egg 

 food as dry as possible and others prefer that it shall 

 be hke pap, in fact they call it " pap." This pap 

 is not so soft as bread and milk pap, but more like the 

 consistency of putty. Many use only the yolk of the egg 

 as they say the white is indigestible 



My own method of preparing egg food is as follows : — 

 Take a full size 2oz. egg and boil it for thirty minutes. 

 The reason why the egg is boiled for thirty minutes is to 

 render it digestible. The white of an egg boiled for ten 

 minutes is hard, tough and leathery, and very hard of 

 digestion, but when the egg has boiled thirty minutes it 

 will be found to be soft and flaky, and therefore more 

 easily digested by the young birds. When cold, pass the 

 egg through a fine sieve. Then take a good thick slice 

 of stale bread, say one inch in thickness, soak it in water 

 for five minutes, squeeze it as dry as possible, and then 

 pass through the sieve, using a broad knife or flat spoon 

 for the purpose. Next, add half a saltspoonful of salt 

 to the egg and mix the egg and bread up together. This 

 is not too forcing a diet, and the birds thrive well 

 on it. 



As I have said, some use bread crumbs, some sweet 

 biscuits which are crushed dry in a mortar and then 

 mixed with the egg, some scald the biscuits and mix them 

 up crumbly with the egg. This is a very generous and 

 forcing diet, and in my opinion too strong for newly- 

 hatched canaries. Many deaths are due to too generous 

 feeding on rich food. 



In the feeding of egg food, one thing must not be lost 

 sight of, and that is immediately boiled egg is exposed 

 to the atmosphere it begins to decompose, and in a few 

 hours goes sour. Thus food prepared in the morning 

 should never be used in the evening. To secure the best 



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