FINCHforum

Thought this was very interesting

http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/2589683.htm

Hope you do too!

Thanks for sharing. I found it very interesting, especially how females can control the sex of their offspring. Truly amazing. It was also cute how they painted the heads of those redheads:)

I believe this was posted in the last few weeks but thanks for posting again as I missed it the first time. I meant to watch it when I got home from work but other things took priority. It is very interesting but I don't know that I take it as 100% as it varies from 'some' of my results. But in general it's probably right.

I was planning on pairing a black head female with my red head dilute male, but according to this video that is a horrible idea. Is that true guys? I have never heard anything like that before.

I actually have 2 females black heads, and my 2 males are red heads, when it comes to mating Ihave never had a problem....then again as someone mentioned in another post...........my females didn't have a choice Will let you know in about a week and a half how it goes with babies.

I had 2 BH males, 2 YH males and 1 RH male in an aviary with 2 RH females and 1 BH female. I let them pair on their own
They paired up as

BH male x BH female
BH male x RH female
YH male x RH female
Leaving spare RH male and YH male
Neither RH female chose the RH male
Paired birds produced 35 babies, not sure what the final sex ratio is yet, but have shown the males produced so far, others are either too young or Im not sure yet.

BH male x BH female produced 16 babies in 3 clutches (4 males so far)
BH male x RH female produced 8 babies (removed female after 2nd clutch)(2 males so far)
YH male x RH female produced 11 babies in 3 clutches (4 males so far)

Diane - thank you for sharing your breeding results! Very interesting. Can you tell me what their diet is?

I believe diet plays a large part in the hen determining what the gender will be -

Limited diet = more male babies.
Larger varied plentiful diet = more females.

I make my own mixture up from finch mix, canary mix, budgie mix, red and white millet, Japanese millet, canary seed, red pannicum, niger.

I also give millet sprays, hard boiled egg with shell, also use a commercial egg food too, different greens (depends what hubby is growing at the time) soaked seed, seed with cod liver oil added, grit with added cuttlefish, also a cuttlefish. I also have a grass that they seem to love think its called Johnston grass, every time a seed head appears it goes into the aviary. Iodine is available.

No set timetable and not everything given at the same time of course!

Further update on the sex ratio of my gouldians breeding.

I thought I would share the breeding results I have from my gouldians so far. Majority of the babies have coloured up. Just waiting for the last five to colour up enough to tell.

The birds chose their own mate. (I didnt know any better then)
There was a spare RH male but no red female wanted him, even though hes a really nice bird.
Also a spare YH male.


*****************************
Pair 1
BH PC GB male
BH PC GB hen

3 clutches
17 babies in total
5 cock birds
8 hens
4 left to colour up
****************************
Pair 2
BH PC GB male
RH PC GB hen

2 clutches
8 babies
3 cock birds
5 hens
*****************************
Pair 3
YH PC GB male
RH PC GB hen

3 clutches
10 babies
7 cock birds
1 hen
1 left to colour up
1 died


Im close to 50/50 hens/cocks at the moment with those that are coloured enough to tell.
So from 35 babies I got
15 cock birds
14 hens
5 to colour up
1 death

Even though this is a very small number to base any findings on regarding the male female ratio, it still shows the lean towards the males in the different head colour pairings while the same head colour pairing is more even.
Will update this when the other young colour up.

If same head colour produces an even split of the sexes, and mixed head colour produces more males, wouldn't it be nice to know what pairings would produce more hens?

Diane,
Interesting and great record keeping. Good breeders you got there, That a lot of chicks this season
I am still waiting on many of mine to finish coloring up. Seems pretty even so far here too.

zhavener, I used to live in Athens, I miss that red Georgia clay and all of those lovely pine trees
I don't miss the fire ants though!

Update on the breeding results.
The birds have coloured up enough to tell what sex they are now.....and they are all hens.
So this is my final total for 09

Pair 1
BH PC GB male
BH PC GB hen

3 clutches
17 babies in total
5 cock birds
12 hens

****************************
Pair 2
BH PC GB male
RH PC GB hen

2 clutches
8 babies
3 cock birds
5 hens
*****************************
Pair 3
YH PC GB male
RH PC GB hen

3 clutches
10 babies
7 cock birds
2 hens
1 died


So from 35 babies I got
15 cock birds
19 hens
1 death