In early February the regular seed diet should be supplemented with egg food. This is prepared by sieving a 30-minute boiled egg and mixing with toasted bread crumbs etc., to a crumbly consistency. See “[Egg Food]” in “[General Care]” section. A little poppy seed sprinkled over the portion given each bird is beneficial. A daily teaspoonful of this mixture for each bird is sufficient until the early part of March. About once a week scatter a little ground oyster shell on the cage floor with the gravel, and keep a cuttle bone in the cage at all times. A few tender dandelion leaves, when procurable, are relished once a week. Some breeders like to use freshly sprouted seed at the stage when the sprout is a quarter of an inch long or less and also greens they raise themselves from the regular bird seed mixture. The early part of January is a good time to practice raising these greens. Just be sure that there is no evidence of mold growth on the sprouted seed when it is fed.
Small diameter perches for the chicks just weaned can be secured in advance. A visit to your shrubs or grape arbor will easily provide a handful of suitable length perches of moderately rough surface, from ¼″ to ⅜″ in diameter. Starting about the first of March a little niger seed should be given the hen in a treat cup two or three times weekly. This oily seed should help prevent egg binding. At this time both the solid and wire partitions can be put back in the breeding cage, and the cock changed to his half of the cage.
THE MATING
At mating time the hen is lively and alert and will usually call loudly. The cock will sing lustily and dance on the perch with lowered wings while singing. When these signs occur, remove the solid partition, leaving the wire partition in place. When you see the cock feeding the hen through the bars, remove the wire too, and let the birds run together. They may quarrel for a short while, but will soon become devoted. Place the lined nest in the cage along with a little nesting material.
ROUND ONE—THE FIRST NEST
Do not be in a hurry for the hen to lay. She will produce her egg at her own time and no sooner. As soon as it is laid, take it out of the nest with a teaspoon and place it in the small box you prepared earlier, replacing it with a dummy egg. Remove the second egg likewise. Turn the removed eggs daily. As a general rule an egg is laid every morning until a clutch of from four to six eggs is completed. There are occasions when a hen will produce only two or three eggs to a clutch, and many times she will skip a day between eggs. When the third egg is laid, remove the dummy egg, dust the nest again with insect powder, and place the other eggs back in the nest. The evening is a good time to do this.
When the hen takes to her nest entirely, separate the cock and hen by replacing the wire partition. The hen’s bath should be withheld for the first eleven days she sits. On the sixth day you should candle the eggs. Cut an oval hole slightly smaller than the dimension of an egg in the bottom of a small cardboard box, and place an egg on the hole. From beneath, shine your flashlight through the egg. If the egg is clear it is infertile, but if slightly red with a dark spot it is fertile. If the eggs are all clear remove them and the nest, and after a few days start over, letting the cock run with the hen again. If there are fertile eggs, place them back in the nest, where the hen will continue through the setting period, which is fourteen days from the day she took to the nest steadily.
After the eleventh day allow her to bathe daily as the moisture from her feathers tends to soften the egg shells and is an aid to the chicks in picking their way through.
When the hen takes to the nest, it is a good plan, because of her inactivity, to restrict her diet somewhat—particularly the egg food and greens. She will likely leave much of this anyway, and she should never take any that has soured, as she may do if it is left in the cage partly uneaten all day.