I did mine as I bred up to 9. My advice is not to necessarily go with the first cover you buy, if it has rubbish stars just discard it and buy another, until you get a cover with a few 4 starred stats. By the time I got to ped 9 my bird had 3 stats at 4 stars, then I had to breed it with "good" covers and hope to get lucky, and get the 4 stars from my bird and other stats 4 starred from the cover bird.

If you just use any covering bird, even if it has rubbish stars, chances are you'll end up with a mix of rubbish stats.

At ped 7 or 8 you want to start thinking about what ability you want to take as your hereditary one, and fishing for it by lethe watering every other ability until you get the one you want. you can then take that forward as your "remembered" ability to your new bird