only given boxes during the breeding season and I have yet to have a pair use the box as a refuge. Prior to starting breeding both birds stay out in the cage – even when I reach in to change food dishes. Once the hen has gone down a few cocks sit on guard duty inside the box but most sit on the perch at the opposite end of the cage. Again they do not enter the box even when food is changed.
In the wild Madagascar hens cut leaf strips and tuck them into their rump feathers to transport to the nest. I gave all my birds fresh twigs – usually eucalyptus, sometimes willow. Most ignored it, a few cut strips and dropped them and some pieces were taken into the box. I have only once seen a hen with strips in her rump feathers and even she didn’t bother to line the nest properly! Most hens will very quickly start entering the box and re-arrange the wood chips, sometimes throwing most of it out (which is why I retain the concaves) and others reducing it
to sawdust. If they retain most of the layer they usually lay tightly in one corner of the low level.
Incubation is given as around 23 days. Judging hatching is difficult because the hens will retire to the box 7 – 10 days before they start to lay. A good indicator that laying has commenced is in the daily appearance of a much larger and softer than normal dropping on the cage floor under the perch farthest from the box. There are exceptions. One in particular I finally forced off her eggs at 45 days expecting to find a very tired looking clutch of eggs. In fact they were clean and tidy and I hurriedly withdrew. On day 50 I heard a newly-hatched chick. She hatched and reared 4 and must have spent at least as long in the box before laying as she did incubating! From this point the hens sit very tight – the first warning is when they hit the side of the box with their beaks, the second is a growling sound and
14 BIRD SCENE
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