FINCHforum

2017 was without a doubt one of my worst breeding seasons on record for the past 5 years breeding mutation gouldian. It really didn't matter what I did or what I though I knew-whatever I did was wrong and I just could not get then to breed at all
They were very slow to pair up. ran batch upon batch of clear eggs and there were many pairs that just plainly refused to breed outright
The season as usual started in January and by about august I had bred roughly 30 young.......and that was from roughly 30 pairs So I got roughly one young from each pair Well not really one colony of 8 pair bred nothing!
Right near the end of the season one colony had a go and got into it and produced 20 quick young and bounce my total up to 50 young for the season. Overall 50 young to some probably sounds better than nothing.
But I live in a rather cold climate and to breed outdoors during that time and all my aviaries are outdoors in natures cold and wintery elements and heated too and I ran up a $3400 power bill to boot...So 2017 went down as a total breeding season disaster

What a difference a year makes.

2018

Early January I swing into gear and again line up roughly 30 pair of assorted stock in say 5 different aviaries. Mostly first year young birds in a variety of mutation. Risky first year birds at any time as is an outright leaning kerb for them and places a lot of pressure on the breeder too. Nothing happens for the first couple of weeks then it started raining on and off. Not sure if this actually triggered them off but I often saw them out on the wire hanging upside down in 20C plus and enjoying the rain.
Meanwhile I had inspected various nest boxes and notice the cock birds were active and some were doing a great bit of weaving and closing in the tops of the nest boxes. Not many days later eggs start appearing in the boxes but a little pre-mature as the hens were still not that dark in their beaks and most of the eggs were clear. As a rule I usually give them say 6 days from when the hen lays the last egg. I mark the date on the box and check and if no sign of life after candling -toss the lot.
Round two was much better and the results are in now. Rough count I have say a bit over 90 hatched or out flying about and its only heading towards the end of March. Out of the 90 young hatched i'd say a good 30 plus would be out of the boxes flying now and their parents back on eggs so its appears to be a pretty big breeding year.
I see no reason why these birds couldn't produce 200 young for the season as they are housed and fed under the very best of conditions. time will tell there I guess.

wildbill

Glad to hear that you're off to a good year this time around .

wildbill

Keep your breeding pairs the next season. Next season should be magic!

I should throw up a few photos and I might in a few days time too. only problem -at the moment I have to stay clear of the aviaries as there are quite a few young on the floor and birds crashing about and I don't want damaged goods
once they settle-all good

just thought i'd take a photo of some new arrivals out in the past day or so. here they are just getting ready to camp down together for the night. these are all young from the new lime mutation in Australia and been about for roughly 5 years or so. all birds shown are splits. still not many of these birds about and full mutation birds are selling at $700 each and splits $350 each
until they molt some may also be carrying the white breasted gene plus the hidden blue gene too

young lime with possible splits

young blues with splits

Today I was surprised to see that this Gouldian baby apparently has no color at all. Mom is a blue back, Dad is a yellow split. Has anyone else experienced a pure white Gould mutation?

Looks strange I’ve never seen one

White bird looks like a silver

Hi!

I have an all white male Gouldian. He is double factor silver. They are so pretty.
I am hoping he will breed with my blue split to silver hen.

i ended this years Gouldian breeding season in Australia with roughly 150 young on the perch. way too cold to carry on with nightly temps below the zero mark.
I breed a few blues and splits /limes and splits plus a few cinnamon splits. i also had a couple of cinnamons drop too. at $1800 each that was no picnic. I thought about chasing the 200 mark but decided it was not worth the effort.
150 may sound pretty good in the 5 months they were breeding but in reality I was running 30 breeding pairs
best of all i have some good young stock for next years breeding season.