Society as foster parents

[athens.asad]

Hi All,
my gouldians & long tail finches have laid eggs on a couple of occasion but no babies ,eventually broken and thrown them.I am planning to use society as foster parents .How many society shall I buy as I am not able to distinguish between male and female . If I have around 5 of them will they still breed .Or do I need to keep only a pair I heard other societies also feed babies .Pls suggest.

thanks .

[Babs _Owner]

athens.asad

Gouldians learn to breed. A few clutches with mistakes while learning is common.

If you resort to just tossing their kids in with societies, your gouldians wont learn to follow through.

[Icearstorm]

athens.asad

They will almost certainly breed unless they are of the same sex. If you have time, you should sit and wait to see/hear society finches singing so you can buy a trio of males, which tend to be the best fosters. If you use unknown birds or females as fosters, mark the desired eggs with a marker so you can distinguish them from any eggs the society finches might lay; you should remove all society finch eggs before they hatch so the parents focus on fostering, rather than raising their own babies. For a group of males, put one egg in per day to mimic a female laying eggs in the nest, which will get the males to incubate. With females or a mix, do the same thing or simply swap the marked eggs out with the society finches' and they should raise them as their own. Bear in mind that society finches may be carriers of diseases which could kill the fostered babies. Buying societies from a gouldian breeder mitigates the risk of carrier society finches.

That being said, you may want to reconsider breeding birds that cannot raise their own young, as this may be partially genetic.

[ac12]

The way I did it was to buy 4 to 6 societies.
Band each bird, so that I could identify it by the color of its band.
Then listen, watch and wait.
When one of them sang, I noted the band color, then caught and moved it into the MALE cage. The color band here is important, because when you go catch the bird, it is easy to get the birds mixed up when only using feather patterns.
I repeat this until I hear and see no more societies singing in the first cage. The remaining societies in the first cage are likely all FEMALES.
I keep my M and F separate, so that I can manage and plan all breedings.

By keeping the M and F separate, I do not have the situation where they may mate at the same time that I want them to foster.

[athens.asad]

Icerstorm that was awesome.I will buy trio.
Thanks Gary - will they foster although they don't have their own eggs , I.mean even when they are not breeding.

[Icearstorm]

athens.asad

If you put one egg in their nest per day, you can usually convince them that one of their cage-mates is laying. Being the social birds they are, they should all take care of the eggs. If you put in one fake egg per day, they should also start incubating. That way, if you suddenly need to foster multiple eggs, just swap them out with the fake ones.

[athens.asad]

Thanks so much .I am buying society finches right away.

[ac12]

When you get your societies. You MUST keep them away from your gouldians, until they successfully foster a couple chicks to weaning.
This is because societies can carry 2 diseases which are FATAL to gouldian chicks.

[athens.asad]

Sure Gary, I will keep this in mind .Thanks so much for your advice.

[wilkifam]

Give your Gouldians several chances! It usually takes a couple breeding seasons for them to get it right! I fostered a couple times, but never have to do so any more. If I do foster, it is to another pair of Gouldians, not Societies.

[athens.asad]

Alright Lori.i have 4 pairs of gouldians ,i will give one of them a chance to raise their own babies.Thanks

[Icearstorm]

athens.asad
Your birds might be tossing because they are stressed out; what are the cage dimensions? If they are all together in the same cage, putting each pair in their own cage could make them feel secure enough to breed successfully, as they would no longer need to defend their nests from other birds.

[ac12]

I keep my mating birds in a separate breeding cage, so they are not disturbed by other birds.

With tossing, we just do not know why gouldians toss the hatchlings. So we have to guess; people disturbance, noises, other birds, not enough food, not liking their nest, etc.

Some birds just don't get raising chicks, but they may learn.
I had a pair that tossed every single chick in season 1.
In season 2, not a single toss. They were perfect parents.

[Icearstorm]

ac12
Were they young? I hear first-year gouldians often toss for the first year, then do well after that for some mysterious reason.

[ac12]

Ice
I think they were a newly purchased male and a 1st year female.

I do not remember if any 2nd season parents tossed, but I think I did have 1 or 2 of them that did toss. Another thing that I should record.