Hens will quickly become accustomed to burrowing through. As each season passes I increase the amount of mixture until the hen is tunnelling along the full length of the tunnel into the nesting chamber. As a matter of fact, one of my hens burrowed 200mm through a dummy nesting tunnel made of a 100mm dia. The hens will continually sharpen their beaks on a piece of hard aviary woodwork, and make repeated visits to the tunnel to burrow through. An entrance plug will take only a couple of days to negotiate, a full 100mm tunnel taking around two weeks to complete.
Egg laying occurs shortly after access is gained into the nesting chamber.
As stated previously, the hen does the burrowing with the cock always close by, vocalising and appearing to become quite excited. A flight away from the burrowing activity sees a series of displays by the cock and often the feeding of the hen. I have personally not sighted the mating of these birds on perches or the wire of the aviaries. I have however, disturbed what may have been mating, on the ground. Prior to the employment of the burrowing material, the results were no where near as uniform or reliable, if anything more haphazard.