FINCHforum

I was wondering what other peoples experience with breeding Gouldians in regards to how many females/males your clutches have? 50/50 or more of one sex than the other?

With the two pairs we have bred so far we have a lot more males than females being produced.

I usually have close to 50/50
Of you want more hens try putting a Blacklight in the room.
The second link below my signature explains why towards the end of article

debbie276 wrote: I usually have close to 50/50
Of you want more hens try putting a Blacklight in the room

Thanks Debbie. We will pick up a blacklight at Home Depot today. Just in time for the start of the Fall breeding season!

a_gouldian
I'm not sure if this is true for captive gouldians, but matings between red- and black-headed gouldians in the wild produce more males.

Icearstorm wrote: a_gouldian
I'm not sure if this is true for captive gouldians, but matings between red- and black-headed gouldians in the wild produce more males.

I have read that as well, but that wouldn't apply here. One of the pairs was RH/PB and the other pair was BH/PB. No mixing of head colors.

a_gouldian wrote:

debbie276 wrote: I usually have close to 50/50
Of you want more hens try putting a Blacklight in the room

Thanks Debbie. We will pick up a blacklight at Home Depot today. Just in time for the start of the Fall breeding season!

I am now not sure now if we will just wait. We were using the AVI full spectrum fluorescent lights but have built a new bank of 6 breeding cages and we put in new LED lights from M&M Cage. The LED lights are brighter and perhaps it will change the results we were having, plus we will be pairing some new birds. May wait and see what happens with the new lights. Also, M&M is has started using different LED strips now that are brighter than the lights they were selling earlier this year.

In lighting it's all about short and long wavelength, and k rating.

Keep us updated how you do and which lights (their k ratings) you are using.

Debbie,

Here is a pic of the new breeding cages for 6 pairs of Gouldians with the new lights installed. Only one cage is occupied at the present time. According to their web site the lights are 5700K but over the phone he said around 6000K so I am not sure. Hopefully they will work out.

I like your cages! I've found that my birds are a lot calmer in box cages--do you find that to be true with Gouldians?

Dave wrote: I like your cages! I've found that my birds are a lot calmer in box cages--do you find that to be true with Gouldians?

These box cages are new to us for breeding Gouldians. The one pair we have had in them for a few weeks do seem calm and are enjoying their private space.

The other thing that I read, that affects sex of chick, is food.
The more food, of what they want to eat, the more chance of a F.
Less food, more chance of a M.
I forgot the reasoning of this, but it seemed to make sense when I read it.

ac12 wrote: The other thing that I read, that affects sex of chick, is food.
The more food, of what they want to eat, the more chance of a F.
Less food, more chance of a M.
I forgot the reasoning of this, but it seemed to make sense when I read it.

They get plenty of food and they love the seed mix which is a high protein breeding mix. Both of these pairs do not care for egg food but will eat a little sprouted seed. We have tried a few different additional foods such as miracle meal, etc. but they like to stick to hard seed mostly.

I have an outdoor aviary lit by nature and my birds almost always produce hens. I get maybe 2 males to every 10 hen chicks. Luckily for me hens are in demand.

I've wondered if it was a temperature thing but my parrot finches which share the aviary produce the complete opposite. There I get mostly males. Again thankfully always in demand.

ac12 wrote: The other thing that I read, that affects sex of chick, is food.
The more food, of what they want to eat, the more chance of a F.
Less food, more chance of a M.
I forgot the reasoning of this, but it seemed to make sense when I read it.

If my memory on this subject is correct, it is about fitness. Fitness in the biology sense is about the number of offspring produced. Some say the reason for life is to pass on genes. Females are expensive (and not just in terms of diamonds). They require large amounts of protein, carbs, calcium, etc, to produce young. In the absence of resources, the females would be hard pressed to produce healthy, viable offspring. In the presence of high resources, this would not be a problem and most offspring would survive. A male on the other hand, just needs to mate and let the female deal with the metabolic burden. His contribution is limited.

THEREFORE, if a pair were to have more males, then these males can mate with other females, passing on their genes with limited cost, whereas if they were female, it would be costly, and the chance of survival of the offspring as well as the mother is reduced.


I may be wrong but that's my general understanding.