I went to the ATL bird fair and came home with 3 male gouldians. These were sold by a broker who said they were young birds and had already been treated for mites and wormed.
All of the brokers's birds appeared active and healthy, alert, and many with breeding colors showing.
We went with a normal red head, a white-breast red-head, and a yellow-head. The only thing "off" that I noticed at the show was that the yellow head had a small patch of missing feathers on his face, but the broker said it was either due to moulting or being pecked at by females while in the close quarters of the show cage.
When I got home, I noticed that the bald patch was a little bigger than I had thought. I treated all birds with scat just in case (applied on neck) then put them into quarantine setup as far away from my others as possible (different floor of the house, etc.).
I posted pics of them to a FB finch group and a kind poster told me that the normal red-head's beak looked long and probably needed to be trimmed and that the yellow-head's bald patch was due to balding, not moulting. He linked me to ladygouldianfinch's article about balding.
I will post pics of both below and would like your feedback.
The white-breast male was not puffed up at the show, but is a little puffed now (as seen in the pic) it could be due to the cool temps (house temp is about 65 in their room) but I will report if this continues. I gave them a heat lamp on low over a corner of their cage just in case.
What I'm doing now diet-wise:
Setup has a cuttlebone, a dish with charcoal, oyster shell, and crushed egg shells. They have access to an open water source and tubes of water. A separate bowl with some higgins egg food (dry), a dish of finch seed with roudybush (the smallest size) and kelp powder sprinkled over it and a small dish with dried "herb salad". They also have some spray millet hanging in the cage.
Their quarantine cage is roughly 24" L x 12"W x 18"H and has a swing and several perches, a couple sand perches, a natural branch, and some fake silk foliage. If this cage is too small, I have a slightly larger one (30" x 18"x18") that could be setup to be used, but I don't want to stress them by moving unless needed.
I am planning on continuing to give the kelp powder daily sprinkled on seed mix to *hopefully* help with the balding if iodine is the cause. I also plan to do a prepared egg food (mixed with boiled egg, shell, and veggies) every 2-3 days, but was unsure how often I should give wet food for these guys.
If you have any advice, I would love to hear it. I thought I was purchasing birds from a reputable source, and didn't expect issues, but I guess I should have expected some issues buying from a bird fair.
I have gotten in touch with a breeder and am hoping to purchase my next finches directly... Pending if I can make things work with these lol.
Thank you for your time and help!
