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Marquis of Tavistock—Breeding Notes for 1936



(Avicultural Magazine, Vol. XII, fourth series, p. 94) that incubation

was undertaken almost entirely by the male, that a fresh nest was

built for each clutch, no soft food was used in rearing the young,

the parents refused mealworms and gentles, and reared their families

entirely on canary, white millet, dry and soaked, pannicum and seeding

grasses and soaked millet sprays.



BREEDING NOTES FOR 1936


By the Marquis oe Tavistock


The past summer has been a moderate season, the great amount

of wet and cold in the early part having a discouraging effect on some

birds and being, perhaps, responsible for a rather unduly high mortality

of young in the nest.


Plum-headed Parrakeets were a complete failure; a lutinistic

hen paired to a normal cock had clear eggs, as also had a lutinistic

pair. A normal-coloured hen bred by myself from lutinistic parents

and paired to a normal cock hatched a brood, but lost them at various

ages, and the only survivor was so rickety that it had to be destroyed.

I am coming to the conclusion that P. cyanocephala is one of the most

difficult of all Parrakeets to breed and fully rear. It insists on nesting

very early and, if kept back long enough to give its young a chance

of escaping the spring frosts, falls into moult. Although they get on

all right on first leaving the nest, the young birds after a few months

enter on a period of extreme delicacy which continues at least until

they are through their first complete moult, i.e. until they are about

eighteen months old.


A hen Plum-head paired to a cock Slaty-head reared one strong

hybrid, losing the remainder of the brood in the nest. I bred this

cross a few years ago from different parents.


Ringnecks also had a bad season ; various pairs of lutino-breds

had clear eggs or lost their young in the nest, and one lutino hen bred

by myself did not lay at all. I also lost a lutino-bred cock, his widow

rearing one green young one.



