Breeding Results at the Keston Foreign Bird Farm



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Lovebirds could be sexed. If the pelvic bone of adult birds is felt,

as advised by Miss Knobel for sexing large Parrots, it will be found

to be quite wide in the hen and very narrow in the cock. We have never

known this test to fail but it will not work until the birds have reached

maturity. Next year we hope to breed several more members of the

Agapornis family.


Of the Finches perhaps the most spectacular success was the

Ruficaudas. The hot summer seemed to suit them and all were double

brooded. We finished the season with forty-three youngsters from

five pairs.


Long-tailed Grass Finches proved disappointing through, we

believe, no fault of their own. We tried them in a new sort of open

aviary but their temperament is extremely inquisitive and every time

anything happened outside the aviary, or anyone passed, off they came

to see what was happening, resulting in chilled eggs. One hen had

thirty-two eggs to her credit and not a single young one hatched. There

are, of course, extremes to everything and from sixteen young (produced

by another pair) to thirty-two eggs seems to us to be the limit both

ways. Results from our other pairs were somewhere between these

two points. A Heck’s hen brought up a family of four most beautiful

young by herself, her mate succumbing to pneumonia the day the

brood hatched.


The performances of the Zebra Finches were very different from

last year. We reared approximately 500 young from forty-five pairs.

It may be of interest to mention that we have not got a single imported

bird of this species in the place. It has been queried from time to time

whether aviary bred birds breed as well and are as fertile as imported

ones. In our opinion and experience they breed far better provided,

of course, that the parent birds are carefully bred and not allowed

to degenerate. Unfortunately, since they are so extremely simple

to breed, there are undoubtedly small, badly bred specimens offered

for sale. Aviary bred hens, we find, are less liable to egg-binding than

imported ones. Bengalese, as usual, obliged by rearing almost anything

we cared to give them as well as approximately eighty of their own

species. While we write there are still young in the nests. We breed

them during the summer in outdoor aviaries and not cages, and the



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