The breeding season for birds living in their natural environment outdoor starts in the spring.  In the Northern Hemisphere, the first day of spring is the Spring Equinox, which is made up of equal day and night hours, this year falling on March 20th.  That makes the spring period in 2014 from March 20th to June 20th.  Let us just round them off to April, May and June.  As the season cycles from winter to spring, the hours of sunlight get longer, the temperatures get warmer, and natural foods sprout, grow and become plentiful.  These are all prerequisite conditions required to stimulate the birds’ energy and fertility cycle.

February/March in the Roller Canary bird room is busy and enjoyable time for the ardent fancier.  Why is this?  We know the breeders have spirited themselves away somewhere, as all activities outside bird room seem to have died down.  Inside the bird room there are miracles happening, babies are being born.  This is finally happening after many months and years of planning and preparation, which ensured that you get the results you sought.  The fancier is once again sitting in his favorite bird room chair, enjoying what he sees, robust hens feeding their babies. 

What are the Roller Canary fanciers doing today?  What are they up to?  These are questions I ask myself when I notice their regular activities of the day have changed.
For the purpose of this discussion, let us give a name to one of these breeders, say, Alen.

The song contest is now a thing of the past, we have conditioned our birds for the breeding season, the hours of work in selecting, the best possible matings, the cleaning cages, seed cups and containers, are all done, our best hen are sitting or hatching few babies and hope, just hope, some of them will make it to the next show and maybe even win some trophies in their class.  It is now when questions start.  It seems that no one of us is sure, since every year, from novices to master breeders, we hear the same questions over again.  When do you take our male out? Or do you leave him in?  When do you put him back?  Do you add second nest, or do you wait until the young birds leave the nest to place the new nest in the same spot where the old one was?  Then we start talking about plucking.  Why some hens do that?  Do you think it is a form of cannibalism?  What do you do to avoid it? 

In pairing our rollers to enhance the quality of their song, one of the principle factors to consider is the depth and tone of the stock to be used. All birds should have at least one of these qualities bred into them so that with the blending of the strains a composite may be reached so that our future show birds will have resemblance of the inherited song.