Juvenile Gouldian question

rottielover · Post by **rottielover** » Tue Sep 04, 2007 10:21 am

When do your juve's finally get their adult colors in? I've read anywhere from 2 months to 12 months. So I'm wondering what the average for your birds seems to be?

Reason for asking:

I was able to purchase 3 birds from a local breeder. Two are blue's hatched in April and May of this year, and one is a "split for blue" that was hatched in Augest of last year.

However all the birds still have the juvenile appearance, with only a hinting of their color's that you can make out. I expected that based on the hatch dates that the oldest bird should be in adult colors, and that the other two birds would be in the middle of a heavy molt.

However, I don't see hardly any feathers coming out, and I don't see any pin feathers that I can make out.

Post by **Sally** » Tue Sep 04, 2007 12:58 pm

I haven't had many juvies, but it seemed like it was about 6 months for their first molt. Your April and May juvies will probably start soon, they are only 5 and 4 months old. I would have expected the August juvie to be fully colored out by now--that's a full year. Could the breeder have made a mistake on the date? Can you contact the breeder? There are lots of Gouldian breeders on this forum, so they will have better advice for you.

rottielover · Post by **rottielover** » Tue Sep 04, 2007 1:01 pm

Sally,

That was my first thought as well. I have left a phone message for the breeder to make sure.

I will see if I can get a few pictures and try and figure out how to post them....

Post by **Hilary** » Tue Sep 04, 2007 7:39 pm

It's possible the hatch date is correct, too. Some birds take forever to molt out, though you'd expect some of the color to be showing by now.

rottielover · Post by **rottielover** » Tue Sep 04, 2007 9:25 pm

OK I still haven't figured out how to get a photo to show up in a post, so I've created a Picassa online album...

http://picasaweb.google.com/scott.iver/Gouldians

All the pictures are labled.

I would really be greatful if you'd take a look at the juvie's, I'm sorry for the quality of the pictures, I tried to snap them without disturbing the birds too much.

The Juvie's are in a breeding cage right now, my quarenteen cage...

albert · Post by **albert** » Fri Sep 07, 2007 4:41 am

I think you are right, you have 2 blues and 1 normal, but the normal looks like a male to me.

Too bad I lost my blues and could not find any locally.

Good luck!

Albert

rottielover · Post by **rottielover** » Fri Sep 07, 2007 3:13 pm

Well just in the last couple of days they have started to molt [more/better] (not sure what the terminology should be)...

Anyway, I've noticed that all three of the juvie's are showing "black specs" on their masks (the small feathers around the head, the juvie feathers are falling out and revealing the black feathers under them).

I've also noted that on their backs, breast's and undersides they are all starting to color up some.

I am a bit shocked that this started "all of the sudden" as it did. When I first brought them home they were barely showing any adult colors at all, and in just a couple of days are starting to "color up".

Marigold · Post by **Marigold** » Sun Sep 09, 2007 12:08 am

Last year for a couple pf months I had my Ladies on the Dr Marshall products. I heard such great things about it so I decided to give it a try. I can't remember why I quit using it now. This was the only time I every changed my Ladies suppliments and regretted it. I now use Bird Care or Morning Bird.

The chicks that hatched 07/06 on the DM products are finally through their molt. For 16 months their heads were still gray...

The 01/07 and 05/07 chicks are going through their molt now. They are on the BC and MB products.