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William Firth—Breeding Cordon Bleus in Canada



These birds are all a lovely rich pure yellow, without the faintest

tinge of green, even on the rump. We had the greatest difficulty in

building up the small original stock, as such birds are extremely difficult

to obtain, and the demand always exceeds the supply. Pure yellow

Budgerigars were, we believe, fairly abundant, even before the War,

and certainly before the advent of all the other various coloured

varieties which, presumably, overshadowed them in popular favour,

causing the original Yellows to be carelessly mated and inter-bred

with Greens.



BREEDING CORDON BLEUS IN CANADA


By William Firth


In the early spring of 1933 I bought two pairs of Cordon Bleus.

They are the first Cordons I have owned and I did not know anything

about them or their nesting habits but had been told that they were

delicate and hard to breed.


The weather was very cold at the time, so I kept them in the house

until May, when I fixed up a flight in the aviary 4 feet square. I

put in different kinds of nests, some covered and some open, and in

one end of the flight placed brush about 8 inches thick.


I regret I cannot give the date I put the two pairs in, but I did

not expect to raise young, so did not keep any record. However, both

pairs were quite friendly for about a week and you would often see

both males sitting on the same perch with a straw in their beaks,

dancing up and down and singing.


The birds took no notice of the nests I had fixed up, but in about

a week one of the hens commenced to build a nest among the brush

and completed it in about three days. At this time one male turned

against the other, and would certainly have killed him had I not removed

one pair to another flight. The nesting pair sat close from the first,

and whenever the hen came off the nest the cock at once went on. In

fact, the cock seemed to sit almost as much as the hen.


I think the young hatched in about fourteen days. However,

about that time the cock began busily picking amongst the litter, as



