1. You can separate the cock from the hen at any time if he is messing with the nest or if he persists in trying to mate with her
when she is already incubating.2. When the chicks are ready to wean, at about 21 days, you can place the chicks and the cock in one side of the duplex and
run the cock back in with the hen to mate a few times a day.3. Alternatively, you can leave the cock in the hen's apartment and put a wire divider between the pair and their chicks.
The cock will continue to feed the chicks through the wire divider. Wire dividers are often made from adapted cage-fronts.
However, here in the UK, common practice is often to use TRIPLE
BREEDER CAGES - which have THREE compartments - each about 18 inches wide
by the same depth and height. This enables you to have one hen in each
of the two end compartments with one cock in the middle, divided from them
both by vertical sliding boards. The beauty of the triple breeder is that
with all slides removed you have a flight-cage that is about 56 inches
long, which is a useful size for allowing birds to fly a little and keeping
them in good condition. I use almost all triple-breeders, though I have
a few doubles as well.
When you get your trio of birds in their breeding cages, select the hen that looks to be in strongest breeding condition, and give her a nest-pan and materials - she will start building a nest. The dividing board that is keeping the cock away from her is drawn back just a half and inch, to leave a small gap through which he can JUST see her and he can get his beak through to feed her. If both birds are in condition, you will see the cock singing through this gap in the wall, and there will be lots of sweet twitterings, with beak held wide open (this is the 'love-me-feed-me' courtship routine).
The cock will soon be feeding the hen small amounts of egg food ( he should be provided with about a teaspoon a day). If she comes into absolutely PEAK breeding condition, she will often crouch down on the perch with her tail raised, wings drooping and head thrown back; she will 'shiver' her wings and make gentle twitterings- inviting mating. The cock can then be run into the cage with her and mating will often take place INSTANTANEOUSLY. A really successful mating is signalled by the cock 'treading' on the hens back and swinging beneath her tail to touch his vent to her vent - it all takes about 2 seconds. If it has really gone well, the pair will crouch side by side on the perch, quivering with excitement and making high pitched twitterings - as near to an orgasmic reaction as can be imagined in a bird.
After you have seen one or two matings, usually within minutes, you can run the cock back into his cell and the hen will continue making her nest. He should be run back with her, morning and evening, and whenever you happen to be around in the bird room, until at least the third egg is laid. Some experienced fanciers say that a SINGLE good mating is enough to fertilize all the eggs in a clutch; most of us depend on as many matings as we can arrange until at least the third egg is laid.
OK, about the time that the last egg is laid, you give the SECOND hen a nest, remove the cock from the sitting hen, and repeat the process with hen number two. By this time, the FIRST hen is incubating and it is useful to arrange matters so that there is at least a week's difference in the two cycles.
If all works well, the first hen will hatch her chicks a week before the second hen. The cock can be let in to help with the feeding after the first week - or the hen can be left to rear the chicks alone. The critical phase is when the chicks are about 14 - 16 days old, when the first hen will be wanting to lay a new clutch; at this point she will often lose interest in feeding the first lot of chicks and the cock becomes more important as a feeder. And as soon as the chicks are 21-24 days old they can be moved to the centre compartment with the cock and he will continue to feed them for another week or so, until you are sure they are feeding themselves. At which point he can be run with the second hen to help her feed her chicks to weaning stage. If you end up with two lots of chicks weaning at the same time you can run them all together with their father.
As you get more experienced, you can run a cock with a trio of hens, and I have done it with four, but if anything goes wrong, like a young hen refuses to feed alone, then the problems can multiply, to the extent that a beginner would find it too complicated.
Nevertheless, many beginners here in the UK start out with a trio of one cock and two hens, or two or more trios. If you don't have a double or triple breeder cage, you can just transfer the cock from once cage to another by getting him to hop into a show cage. experienced 'stud-cocks' will hop into that cage like lightning as they get the routine.
The reason for using one cock with two or three hens is that genetically you are concentrating the cocks good genes into your stock and thus saving years of in-breeding. Serious beginners would pay a lot of money for an outstanding cock and then breed him to five or six hens, in the hope of increasing the 'homo-zygosity' (genetic-sameness) of their stud from the earliest years. Linda Hogan's book. 'Canary Tales', has an extremely good section on this process.
Graham White
© January 2001
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