Captain H. S. Stokes—The Breeding of the Senegal Touraco



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THE BREEDING OF THE SENEGAL TOURACO


(TURACUS PERSA)


By Captain H. S. Stokes


Five or six years of unsuccessful effort to breed these lovely birds

had made me despair of ever achieving any success, and I ceased to

be at all excited as clutch after clutch of eggs was laid, only to be

eaten or to prove unfertile. Once, in September, 1926, the pair of

birds I still have hatched a young one and brooded it for a month,

only to leave it to die in the nest one cold night. This was really' my

own fault, because I went into the aviary at dusk after three weeks’

absence abroad to greet the parents, both of whom have always been

very tame. This excited and upset them, and the British Museum

of Natural History got more satisfaction out of the poor little'one’s

corpse than I did. In subsequent years the eggs always proved clear

or were eaten by the parents.


This year, having parted with a great many of my soft-billed birds,

I was able to give the Touracos a large aviary to themselves, with

branches spaced well apart, where they had to fly or jump a good distance

and so got plenty of exercise. This seemed to improve the health and

vitality of the cock, who suffers sometimes from rheumatism in his foot.


Nesting baskets used for Pigeons were put up on the wall both

indoors and outside. The first clutch of eggs laid indoors came to

nothing as usual. The next clutch (only one egg) was laid outdoors,

and in the middle of July my servant Albert, who was then looking

after the birds, reported a young Touraco hatched three days previously.

I was furious ! “ Why hadn’t I been told before ? Weren’t they my

birds ? I must go and look at once.” But no, I was firmly excluded

from that aviary, and had to be content with quizzing and squinting

and craning my neck, hoping for the best while imagining the worst.


The parents brooded the young very closely, the cock by day,

the hen by night, as with Pigeons. It was never left for a moment,

and the change over in the evening always took place at six o’clock.

Touracos are expensive birds to feed, being mainly frugivorous. Others

have told me they may be fed on potatoes and rice, but mine scorn

such coarse fare and demand bananas, soaked currants and chopped



