personal experience with gouldians
Posted: Thu Dec 13, 2018 11:24 pm
I'm a beginner and ended up (long story) with 2-3 month old gouldians.
They were 3 blue backs and 1 split to blue , all males.
I hope sharing my experience and mistakes may be helpful to others.
I didn't realize gouldian r not like society and should wait until after moulting before moving to new home.
Nor did I know that blue backs have a very high mortality rate before becoming adults.
I tried to read everything I could find online but except for hard to survive and delicate birds because of too much inbreeding to get blue color, couldn't find much on how to raise them.
I hadn't known anything about moulting and color chg.
The craigslist person I got them from was 1st time raising babies.
1 got very sleepy and puffy within a couple of days. Another was a bit sleepy within a week. Craigslist person said normal for moulting time.
But after couple weeks very sleep one definitely not looking well and very unhappy and just head tucked in alk the time.
Craigslist person accept him back, would have given me 1 in exchange only but I didn't want any more now I realized they were struggling and I didn't know what I was doing.
I got some expensive bird seed with egg food and some egg food which were the 2 things they would really eat, very finicky. I gave them added vitamins. This seemed to help.
I got some featherfast and switched them to this vitamin which seemed to make a big difference.
1 1/2 months and they were doing much better.
But the 2nd one that had been sleepy since the first week started getting really sleepy again during a cold snap and stormy weather.
All indoors with heat lamps during night. Unfortunately the heat lamp timer was bad and turned off the heat lamp during the night and my remote thermostat went haywire
And next morning I so sadly found him dead.
I week later the last blue back one started fallen from his perch and the split to green wasn't looking very well.
It was night time and I was desperate sure I would find at least the blue one dead and possibly both by the next morning.
I decided to just go for it and stop being careful.
I didn't feel I could do anything worse at this time.
I turned off all heat lamps (which I had now been keeping on round the clock because I didn't trust timers)
And I turned off their lights on there side of the cage to let them rest as much as the wanted, half of the room still had lights on timer.
I gave them Moulting food I got from Amazon, it contained salt and I had read salt was bad but I was certainly done worrying about that since I didn't expect them to be alive by morning.
I wiped down and sprayed vinegar ( at thim point it was more because I was afraid my society and canary in other cage could get sick from them.
Since the olive green split to blue gouldian didn't want the blue one near him and I was afraid he might hurt or kill the blue one I put a makeshift divider between them.
I left them that night very sad dreading the morning. The blue one had managed to get vack on a perch but had to lean against the bars to not fall.
I had set up a hospital cage for him but he got so upset when I tried to catch him that I felt I should let him die in peace in his own cage in his own way.
The next morning I went into the livingroom in dread. I found them both flying happily.
By afternoon the blue one had found his way to the other side of the divider and both were happy to be together again.
It has been 2 weeks now. I don't know if they will make it through the winter.
They seem to be about half the size or so of an adult. And they have some color on back but seem to still have a ways to go before fully chg color. It been now about 2 months since started moulting.
From an article I read blue backs especially need good sterilizing of environment.
The vinegar I use every few days especially if they start to look very sleepy.
I have some apple cider vinegar but I'm not sure if it is safe to put a drop or 2 in their drinking water?
They were 3 blue backs and 1 split to blue , all males.
I hope sharing my experience and mistakes may be helpful to others.
I didn't realize gouldian r not like society and should wait until after moulting before moving to new home.
Nor did I know that blue backs have a very high mortality rate before becoming adults.
I tried to read everything I could find online but except for hard to survive and delicate birds because of too much inbreeding to get blue color, couldn't find much on how to raise them.
I hadn't known anything about moulting and color chg.
The craigslist person I got them from was 1st time raising babies.
1 got very sleepy and puffy within a couple of days. Another was a bit sleepy within a week. Craigslist person said normal for moulting time.
But after couple weeks very sleep one definitely not looking well and very unhappy and just head tucked in alk the time.
Craigslist person accept him back, would have given me 1 in exchange only but I didn't want any more now I realized they were struggling and I didn't know what I was doing.
I got some expensive bird seed with egg food and some egg food which were the 2 things they would really eat, very finicky. I gave them added vitamins. This seemed to help.
I got some featherfast and switched them to this vitamin which seemed to make a big difference.
1 1/2 months and they were doing much better.
But the 2nd one that had been sleepy since the first week started getting really sleepy again during a cold snap and stormy weather.
All indoors with heat lamps during night. Unfortunately the heat lamp timer was bad and turned off the heat lamp during the night and my remote thermostat went haywire
And next morning I so sadly found him dead.
I week later the last blue back one started fallen from his perch and the split to green wasn't looking very well.
It was night time and I was desperate sure I would find at least the blue one dead and possibly both by the next morning.
I decided to just go for it and stop being careful.
I didn't feel I could do anything worse at this time.
I turned off all heat lamps (which I had now been keeping on round the clock because I didn't trust timers)
And I turned off their lights on there side of the cage to let them rest as much as the wanted, half of the room still had lights on timer.
I gave them Moulting food I got from Amazon, it contained salt and I had read salt was bad but I was certainly done worrying about that since I didn't expect them to be alive by morning.
I wiped down and sprayed vinegar ( at thim point it was more because I was afraid my society and canary in other cage could get sick from them.
Since the olive green split to blue gouldian didn't want the blue one near him and I was afraid he might hurt or kill the blue one I put a makeshift divider between them.
I left them that night very sad dreading the morning. The blue one had managed to get vack on a perch but had to lean against the bars to not fall.
I had set up a hospital cage for him but he got so upset when I tried to catch him that I felt I should let him die in peace in his own cage in his own way.
The next morning I went into the livingroom in dread. I found them both flying happily.
By afternoon the blue one had found his way to the other side of the divider and both were happy to be together again.
It has been 2 weeks now. I don't know if they will make it through the winter.
They seem to be about half the size or so of an adult. And they have some color on back but seem to still have a ways to go before fully chg color. It been now about 2 months since started moulting.
From an article I read blue backs especially need good sterilizing of environment.
The vinegar I use every few days especially if they start to look very sleepy.
I have some apple cider vinegar but I'm not sure if it is safe to put a drop or 2 in their drinking water?