On video, my gouldian dad tosses his chick. Disturbing

[ac12]

Babs,

I do similar.
As soon as the clutch fledges, I remove the nest, so the parents can concentrate on weaning the clutch.
The nest goes back only after the chicks are weaned and moved to the male community cage.

I had a pair of gouldians foster raised, and the fledglings did similar. They barged into the nest and forced the societies out of the nest, then left the eggs alone, cuz they did not know what to do with the eggs. So of course, those eggs died. That was the last time I tried to overlap fostering.

[Babs _Owner]

ac12

Yep, exactly! Even if you dont foster, the juvies will "scramble the eggs" , Ive found

[Stuart whiting]

Stuart whiting andiok

There is a big difference between Canaries (where many males are not involved with chick rearing) and species like Gouldians, where both parents are actively involved in incubating and rearing the chicks.

Not necessarily so Elana, many canary breeders do use the cock birds aswell for rearing as in fact cock birds can be extremely good rearers but many people including meself would choose not to because we know the problems that can be caused,

Incidentally I do also know of various Australian finch and other foreign finch breeders who also now just use the hens for incubating and rearing where the cock birds are soon to be removed and kept on there own, this has also applied for gouldians aswell,

Don't get me wrong Elana because if the gouldians and other foreign seem to be fine then some breeders here in England will leave em together as normal but wouldn't think twice about separating and allowing the hen birds to continue with there duties if the cock birds appeared to be making a nuisance of themselves,

This to many of us around Europe would be std practice as we've been breeding this way for many years and can't see us going backwards,

Another point worth noting is that parrot finches are very closely related to Australian finches that originally come from New Ginuie, New Calidonia and to introduced areas of Aussie, these birds can be some of the worlds worst finches where cock birds wanna antagonise the hens a lot of the time, especially red faced parrot finches because when it comes to rearing the youngsters the cock birds have such high ego that they wanna try and drive the hens down to nest again,
A ) it seriously stresses the hens out and B ) the youngsters end up by suffering through being under fed and all because the cock won't allow the hen to feed because he wants her to sit on another nest.

I've bred exhibition greenfinches for about 30 years and this was also a very common accurance and to be fair many other finches were the same,

This is why it's now recognised as common practice throughout Europe, it seems that many other countries are perhaps left in the dark about this realistic type of breeding

[andiok]

Stuart whiting
exactly!
couldn't have added another word more Stuart!

[debbie276]

This is why it's now recognised as common practice throughout Europe, it seems that many other countries are perhaps left in the dark about this realistic type of breeding

It is also used in the states mostly with canaries.
Just because it can be done does not mean it should.
In my opinion hens will burn out sooner. Not sure why you would want to alter the natural way of nesting. If you do it over and over it changes the way the bird looks at bonding and raising their young.
Personally I don't think we are in the dark nor do I personally see it as realistic breeding unless you are in it to produce many chick's quickly for profit. It's not natures way.
JMO

[Stuart whiting]

This is why it's now recognised as common practice throughout Europe, it seems that many other countries are perhaps left in the dark about this realistic type of breeding

It is also used in the states mostly with canaries.
Just because it can be done does not mean it should.
In my opinion hens will burn out sooner. Not sure why you would want to alter the natural way of nesting. If you do it over and over it changes the way the bird looks at bonding and raising their young.
Personally I don't think we are in the dark nor do I personally see it as realistic breeding unless you are in it to produce many chick's quickly for profit. It's not natures way.
JMO

Debbie I Said some countries are left in the dark , not all countries,

The breeding tactic can be realistic but one obviously needs to understand why it should be done in the first place,

we do it because it is actually a quicker way of forming a stud of birds, as a rule of thumb it's clearly a known fact that stud birds are normally from cock birds because if one cock was to be paired to several hens in one season as I personally have with quality exhibition greenfinches over a lot of years the hens are gonna produce birds that have all been thrown by the cock bird, this is how very closely related studs are formed by inbreeding, as mentioned we only need to keep back about 4 very good cock birds and these can easily serve upto 20 or so hens,

You mentioned that hens will burn themselves out quicker and yea I can sort of go along with that but if one has a nest of 5 youngsters then yes the hen will tier but I tend to split the nests and like to have 3-4 youngsters per nest, these can easily be recognised by ringing.
Also I only like to have no more than 2 rounds per hen per season, I think personally that this is plenty enough, I've known other people to have upto 4 rounds but is definitely not for me as I prefer to properly rest my hens after breeding as they'll shortly be going into the moult.

The cocks themselves can also be from a closely related stud, this is often how many are produced, because quality is being bred with quality and the blood lines are kept close and watched very carefully.

You mention that over time if continued to breed like this that the bonding between pairs will be affected, sorry but I don't agree with that atall, it was often thought that bullfinches pair for life but was proved to be rubish, so in aviculture you've got a pair of birds you've had together for several months in the hope that yer gonna breed from them but to yer astonishment they don't wanna breed but you now introduce another cock bird as a replacement and all of a sudden the hen has shown interest and now after a few weeks you've got youngsters flying about, now........there was hardly any pair bonding there and this happens all of the time and is why I don't believe in pair bonding,

What I do believe though is getting yer birds properly into breeding condition in the first place.

You mention that it's not a normal method to use as its not natural but yer need to take a look a bird keeping as a whole,

A lot of birds in a wild natural state will rear on live food but we try to wean the birds onto egg foods etc, this ain't exactly natural eaither as they certainly wouldn't get this in the wild and the list goes on,

Also to put it another way is many breeders are trying to breed a whole host of different colour mutations in a lot of our finches but is this classed as being natural, obviously it's not, so when we find certain ways of breeding birds to form a quality stud yes some of the things may not be natural but I'd sooner breed like this and especially if I knew that the cock birds were gonna perhaps be troublesome.

End of the day it's obviously each to their own in how we breed and prefer to keep our birds as the are no real right or wrong ways.

[debbie276]

My comments are specific to gouldians as that was the subject of this thread.
Bonding is very important with gouldians, as I'm sure most if not all gouldian breeders are aware. If they naturally share nesting and raising duties it is most definitely harder when their mate is not there to help. Most goulds only have 2 sometimes 3 clutches to begin with so by your theory they would only be allowed 1?
I'm not even gong to touch on the inbreeding aspect ... like you said "each to their own"

[Stuart whiting]

My comments are specific to gouldians as that was the subject of this thread.
Bonding is very important with gouldians, as I'm sure most if not all gouldian breeders are aware. If they naturally share nesting and raising duties it is most definitely harder when their mate is not there to help. Most goulds only have 2 sometimes 3 clutches to begin with so by your theory they would only be allowed 1?
I'm not even gong to touch on the inbreeding aspect ... like you said "each to their own"

Ok fair do's Debbie,

I'm happy if I get just the 1 round per hen but I did say that I'll let em have upto 2 rounds if they want,

No I'm not gonna even go into the inbreeding aspect eaither, all I will say though debs is that I'd obviously never ever go rediculasly close like son X daughter etc as going to close can be fatal within a stud and would be just plain madness,

However I do also believe that it's good at times to occasionally introduce new blood into the stock and out breed but only for the right reasons if yer get me jist.

I can't comment to much as regards to the gouldians as I'm not a specialist in gouldians like yerself but have only gone along the lines from what I know some of England and other European gouldian breeders have experienced and the way that some of em are breeding at present and have had reasonable success

[Babs _Owner]

debbie276

It looks like 4 chicks hatched (barring no hidden genes) it should be 2 yb hens and 2 SF pastel males (from the looks of them).

These will be my first yb gouldian born in my room. Very excited.

Quick nest check showed the kids wobbling away, so they are getting fed.

Mom is either on the nest or eating....she's serious. Thank goodness. And I'm glad in a way the 5th didnt hatch. She has plenty on her plate without her mate.

[debbie276]

That's great news Babs!
All the best

[lovezebs]

Babs

Sounds like things are coming along nicely Babs . Thank goodness .

I found this bit of information, which you might find interesting:

[Babs _Owner]

lovezebs

Thanks so much for finding this Elana! Very interesting were the two different types of tossers.

Butternut definitely didnt damage either chick in any way. He carried them over and dropped them only.

But I do remember returning Brat's tossed kiddo (who wasnt injured), and she got so agitated that she brutalized-killed another chick in the nest trying to get the tossed chick back out....

The only thing I question is the returning of the chick over and over with the "gentle tosser".

Butternut was so wound up, I think if I did that he would have gotten enraged like Brat.

But it was good to read that reintroducing Dad back into the family can be successful. I'm definitely going to be putting dad in with a divider on Saturday for a few hours and opening it up in the afternoon
to see how he does.

He's calling to her from the cage in the kitchen all day long. I think he will be happy to be back.

[lovezebs]

Babs

Good luck honey .

[Babs _Owner]

debbie276 lovezebs

Heres the kids this morning. They are vocalizing now .

Looks like 2 YB in there to me.

[a_gouldian]

Congratulations! Looks like you resolved the problem.