FINCHforum

First, is it advisable to keep a single Gouldian on its own, or are they socialable birds that require the presence of another of its kind?

And second, if I do buy other birds, I was thinking of buying a species more robust such as Zebras or Societys.

ac12 wrote: 24C is perfectly fine for gouldians. I wish I could afford to keep my house at that temp. In the winter, the temp in my house will sometimes drop down to 16C, until the heater turns on. I do not heat the house 24hrs a day. I do have a heat lamp that turns on during the day, that the birds can go under to warm up, which they sometimes do.

Thanks for the comments. In Korea, we have individual floor heating for each room, so I keep the bird room at 24 C; the rest of the apartment is colder. I have now placed the cage on the floor - the floor heating will warm the plastic bottom of the cage, hopefully making it more comfortable for my Gouldian. Forecasts are very frigid weather over the next few weeks.

I think that in the winter, houses tend to be more closed, because of the outside cold, that the inside environment becomes a bigger factor in keeping birds well. I would check for and eliminate environmental factors; candles, incense, cooking with tefflon/non-stick pans, insect poison, etc. My guideline is, if I can smell something, it could be bad for the birds.

NO on the zebras.
Zebras are too pushy and some can get VERY aggressive and would dominate a calm bird like a gouldian.

The societies would work OK. I have a male society in my male gouldian community cage. I don't know how that F gouldian would feel in a cage of societies. I would get a F society for her as a companion. A M society will try to mate with her.

debbie276 wrote:

First, is it advisable to keep a single Gouldian on its own, or are they socialable birds that require the presence of another of its kind?

Gouldians seem to be much happier with a cage mate, which could also be two males or two females.

And second, if I do buy other birds, I was thinking of buying a species more robust such as Zebras or Societys.

In the winter here in NJ I keep my gouldians in temperatures as low as 55F which would be about 13C. 24C (75F) is not cold at all for them and you should do fine at that temperature.
As long as your not breeding them the gouldians should be fine with other passive birds. I had a canary in with mine without any problem. On the Finch Information Centers species pages there is a good list of compatible birds you might want to consider.
http://www.finchinfo.com/birds/finches/ ... /index.php

Before you put a society in with the gouldian you might want to consider that the society MAY be a carrier of Campylobacter and Cochlosoma which would be deadly to gouldians.

Best of luck