Society Fostering question

[debbie276]

To be honest with you I rarely if ever loose gouldian chicks because of it being over 90.
It really does sound like either the parents knew something was wrong with these chicks and that's why they abandoned them or the societies may be passing on a disease.
FYI, be very careful with the AC that you don't give them a chill.

All the best

[a_gouldian]

To be honest with you I rarely if ever loose gouldian chicks because of it being over 90.
It really does sound like either the parents knew something was wrong with these chicks and that's why they abandoned them or the societies may be passing on a disease.
FYI, be very careful with the AC that you don't give them a chill.

All the best

These Gouldian eggs were given to the Societies after the last egg was laid because the parents had tossed chicks consistently and this was the 5th clutch and we wanted to separate the parents and give them a break from breeding. They never had so many eggs hatch in a clutch before. The previous clutches were 2-3 chicks. These Societies are young birds as well and the first clutch they have ever raised.

[debbie276]

Unfortunately, another chick was dead this morning. This chick was smaller then the two remaining chicks. Of the two remaining chicks one is a little bigger than the other. Is this survival of the fittest?

An average gouldian clutch is about 5 eggs and as many as 9 so it is not unusual for 5 or more chicks to live to weaning.

Another chick was lost last night even with the supplemental feedings. The last chick looks healthy and is much bigger than the other chicks. The chick that passed away last night was about 40% smaller than the remaining chick. It's crop and head was noticeably smaller, but it was lively.

If the society's are feeding them all but you are still getting different size chicks there is likely something going on. There were only 2 days between the first 3 and the last 2. There shouldn't be a large difference now. If you were supplementing feedings, I doubt it died from lack of food.

At this point if you are able I would try different mates for the goulds next time around and see if it continues to happen. I would guess either gouldian incompatibility or an illness.
Hope things workout well for you

[a_gouldian]

Unfortunately, another chick was dead this morning. This chick was smaller then the two remaining chicks. Of the two remaining chicks one is a little bigger than the other. Is this survival of the fittest?

An average gouldian clutch is about 5 eggs and as many as 9 so it is not unusual for 5 or more chicks to live to weaning.

Another chick was lost last night even with the supplemental feedings. The last chick looks healthy and is much bigger than the other chicks. The chick that passed away last night was about 40% smaller than the remaining chick. It's crop and head was noticeably smaller, but it was lively.

If the society's are feeding them all but you are still getting different size chicks there is likely something going on. There were only 2 days between the first 3 and the last 2. There shouldn't be a large difference now. If you were supplementing feedings, I doubt it died from lack of food.

At this point if you are able I would try different mates for the goulds next time around and see if it continues to happen. I would guess either gouldian incompatibility or an illness.
Hope things workout well for you

We do have another pair of Gouldians on order for the Sept/Oct time frame from the same breeder. She will send us a pair not related to the first pair we have. The adult birds look really healthy. Could they be carrying an illness that affects their chicks but doesn't affect them?

[debbie276]

With gouldians it could be incompatibility and/or genetic.

I would be sure to quarantine the new birds and build up both pair for the upcoming breeding season.

best of luck

[a_gouldian]

We decided to remove the remaining Gouldian chick (11 days old) from the Society box because they weren't feeding the chick enough. There are three Societies, 2 self chocolates M/F, and one fawn self male. The Fawn was doing most of the feeding and nest duty after the other chicks passed away. The two chocolates starting mating again today and acted like they were done raising chicks from this go round and would probably be laying eggs in another 5-8 days. This time we will let them raise there own chicks to see how they do and will not intervene with and hand feedings. These are young Societies and this is the first time they have tried to raise chicks.

We put the Gouldian in the large brooder box we built, that also has our 17 day old Owl chick, and will keep them in separate containers/spaces on opposite sides of the brooder box and use separate feeding utensils, mixing bowls, etc. just as a precaution. (We have had the Societies for a month and the breeder the Societies came from has Gouldians and never had health problems, but we wanted to err on the side of caution) We had the temp down to 88 F now for the Owl but raised it one or two degrees for the Gouldian. We are hoping to be able to lower it to 88F in 4-5 days depending on how the Gouldian is doing. Have to re-read info. to see the earliest we can move the owl to a cage by itself.

Any info. about temp. etc, that we may not be aware of please let us know. Thanks.

[a_gouldian]

Here are two pics of our Gouldian chick at 11 days, taken today. Does the chick look like he should at this age? This is the oldest we have had a Gouldian chick get since we received our first pair of Gouldians in Feb. We started hand feeding a few days ago because it didn't look like the Societies (their first clutch of birds) were feeding the chicks enough. The other 4 chicks did not make it.

[debbie276]

Looks like it should at that age. Keep in mind handfed chicks are usually just a bit behind parent raised in their development.

Best of luck

[victoriabam]

Its great to heard from you about the eggs preservation issue. This must be the problem solving thread.