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What wild Gouldian genetics can tell us about breeding Gouldians. Why a lot of breeders get more females

Natalie,
I had seen this before and was most fascinated by it. I set up 4 pair of Red heads in an aviary without other birds to see the results. Though there were a lot of nest raids and a couple of tosslings, overall I did get pretty much a 50/50 ratio of the sexes.
However I have gotten mostly boys when I breed Yellow head to yellow head............. so it may take a while to see the true numbers.
This study done was based on thousands of gouldians...I have only bred a couple hundred So I need to have many more before I could concur on that

CandoAviary wrote: This study done was based on thousands of gouldians...I have only bred a couple hundred So I need to have many more before I could concur on that

For reference, it's also only based on the Black and Red head morph -Shortly after this research was released I contacted her directly and asked why the YH wasn't included.

She explained to me she didn't include the yellow head in the study because in proportion they are practically nonexistent in the wild and they are really looking at the wild population as a whole, not at the individual morphs..

I can't remember exactly, but she said the stats were something like 1 in 250 or 1 in 500 birds that are YH in the wild, not a high percentage or likelihood that a particular hen would have to choose a YH mate or vice versa..

That being said - so far my Tang/Gidget pairing (YH to YH) has also yielded more boys.
A separate audio interview Dr. Pryke did mention that perhaps hens that really favor their mates will also produce a lot of males because they want more like them in their environment.. so that could be an alternative theory to why perhaps we get a lot of boys when two YH are paired together

You know what they say, Blondes have more fun