Flamingo Breeding

Flamingo Breeding. . , Courtship , Flamingo breeding is quite a show! The entire flock joins together in an elaborate courtship display. American flamingos time their breeding to take advantage of the Caribbean's short rainy season, when there's plenty of mud for nest building and lots of food to eat., Mating Dance , Look for these behaviors from January to May, when our flamingos start breeding. Each cycle of the display takes about 90 seconds. The dance is kind of fun. Give it a try!, How do we get flamingos to breed in zoos? , Research!, Decades ago, when our staff hoped our flamingos would breed, we learned that just putting males and females together didn't work. The Smithsonian analyzed flamingo courtship and behavior over several breeding seasons. This groundbreaking research defined the nuances of the mating dance and discovered that larger flocks were more likely to produce chicks., More birds = more displays , In flocks with less than 20 birds, and an uneven ratio of males to females, there were fewer courting displays., Adding even a few new birds to a flock just before breeding season doubled the number of courtship displays., More diplays = more breeding = more chicks , With more displays and more mating dances, the flamingos started to breed., Thanks to the Smithsonian study and other projects, zoos around the world have been able to increase their flamingo flocks..