I lost a gouldian! :(
Posted: Sun Sep 25, 2016 2:52 pm
Hi all--
One of my gouldians died this week, and I'm not positive why. The other 5 seem to be fine and in good spirits. The only thing that's different is that I switched them to an "austerity diet"--so I removed their eggfood, millet, calcium---basically everything but seed, water, and dried greens.
I also bought a "plainer" seed mix--normally I buy one with those faux-colored nutrient pellets in it, but I decided to cheap out and got a more basic seed mix. I noticed some of the seeds in there were larger than I'd seen before, but as it was a finch seed mix, I didn't think much of it.
Now I'm suspecting that due to the larger seeds, their food was not properly running through their seed hopper and this caused my 1 to starve. This is pure speculation though. Or, maybe the seed wasn't high enough quality, and malnutrition was the culprit. I really am not 100% positive here, the last time I saw her she was acting fine and looking healthy like the others. She finished her molt about 3 weeks ago or so.
I'm posting this to see if anyone has some thoughts/insight. I also took some images of her post-mortem, but I don't want to post them unless someone gives it the OK.
Any thoughts would be appreciated.
I'm very sad!
One of my gouldians died this week, and I'm not positive why. The other 5 seem to be fine and in good spirits. The only thing that's different is that I switched them to an "austerity diet"--so I removed their eggfood, millet, calcium---basically everything but seed, water, and dried greens.
I also bought a "plainer" seed mix--normally I buy one with those faux-colored nutrient pellets in it, but I decided to cheap out and got a more basic seed mix. I noticed some of the seeds in there were larger than I'd seen before, but as it was a finch seed mix, I didn't think much of it.
Now I'm suspecting that due to the larger seeds, their food was not properly running through their seed hopper and this caused my 1 to starve. This is pure speculation though. Or, maybe the seed wasn't high enough quality, and malnutrition was the culprit. I really am not 100% positive here, the last time I saw her she was acting fine and looking healthy like the others. She finished her molt about 3 weeks ago or so.
I'm posting this to see if anyone has some thoughts/insight. I also took some images of her post-mortem, but I don't want to post them unless someone gives it the OK.
Any thoughts would be appreciated.
I'm very sad!
