190 Mrs. A. F. Verey—White Blackbirds in the Aviary


WHITE BLACKBIRDS IN THE AVIARY


By Mrs. A. F. Verey


Some time ago I wrote about breeding Blackbirds for colour.


I bad some success in 1934 with breeding, but very little in rearing,

my crop for that year being a very pale whitish grey cock that I call

silver, a cream hen, and one or two normals.


The cock was the son of “ Mistletoe 53 by her son of the previous

year, a normal black cock which had one white feather on his shoulder,

after the first moult, and one on the forehead after the second. The

hen was by the brother of this cock from an aviary bred hen with no

white blood. There were black cocks from this nest.


I had been closely inbreeding other pairs, mostly brother and sister.

Many of these nests were lost because both parents were inexperienced,

and I found that the young cocks were not very clever at providing

sufficient food for the nestlings so that the hens had to leave them so

often for food that they got chilled, and being so inbred they were

not strong enough to survive.


I also made some bad mistakes in diet, notably by giving too many

mealworms, instead of earthworms.


I was very fortunate in being given a cream hen from the same

district in Bognor, in which Mistletoe was bred, and in 1935 this hen

was mated to the “ silver ” cock, but did not nest.


The other young cream hen was mated to the cock with the white

feathers and also failed to nest, but the cock from the same nest was

paired with Mistletoe, that is grandson to grandmother, and produced

one chick in the first nest which died at a few days old during some

very bad weather. This chick was white.


There were five chicks in the second nest, four being white, one

died from overcrowding at three days, and one was a mottled darkish

colour. This bird had deformed joints and although I had hoped to

keep it alive and see what colour it would turn out I had to have it

destroyed for its own sake. Mistletoe made a third nest, but some

Greenfinches insisted on laying in it, and the resultant battle destroyed

the eggs. She nested again, all unfertile. However, I reared three,

a cock and two hens.


There were a pair, brother and sister, that were mated in 1934, and



