Elsevier

Animal Behaviour

Volume 7, Issues 1–2, January–April 1959, Pages 35-41
Animal Behaviour

The effect of nest building on later reproductive behaviour in domesticated canaries

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Abstract

  • 1.

    1. Domesticated canaries were subjected to various degrees of deprivation of nest-material and nest-site in order to assess the effects of nest-building activity and the construction of a nest on later reproductive behaviour.

  • 2.

    2. All birds were watched with nest-material for half an hour three times a week. Those groups which were deprived of material between these watches were also observed occasionally at other times.

  • 3.

    3. Those birds which had material continuously, but were not permitted to construct a nest, built more actively than those allowed to build undisturbed. Birds without material for most of the time built vigorously during the watches with material, but seldom visited the nest-pan at other times. Birds without a nest-pan showed active building behaviour but it was mainly limited to the early phases of the nest-building sequence.

  • 4.

    4. Egg-laying was delayed in the birds deprived of material, and even further delayed in those deprived also of a nest-pan. This was probably because stimulation from the nest-pan during building normally accelerates egg-laying.

  • 5.

    5. The effects of the treatment on courtship feeding, the laying of clutches as opposed to single eggs, and incubation behaviour are also discussed.

References (7)

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    Amer. J. Anal

    (1904)
  • R.A. Hinde

    The nest-building behaviour of domesticated canaries

There are more references available in the full text version of this article.

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