I got a gouldian..

[lem2bert]

Stine

What a beautiful little baby !! I hope you can get him in his own cage and that he does better for you .

I have two gouldians in a flight cage and you will simply be amazed at the transformation from baby to adult colors !!!

Best of luck and congratulations !!

[lovezebs]

Babs

Oh yea

[Stine]

The gouldian is in it's own cage now, with a heat lamp. I have lots of cages, the issue is a suitable place to put them (I have cats, which limits my possibilities). I sacrificed a pair of budgies that had been separated for breeding (but hadn't started yet) and put them back in the main cage so the gouldian could have their cage.

I wouldn't say the pictures are showing the exact colors - the last two are taken with a flash and it does make the green color in particular more vibrant.
I really hope you are right about the red head - I'll have to admit I think those are the prettiest ^^
I'm not sure which breast color I like best, but to me it does look faintly purple even in its baby feathers. I don't know what white breast baby feathers look like though, so I'll just leave you to guessing at that
I'll just be looking forward to seeing what the little one will become.

[Babs _Owner]

Stine

Glad to see the little gouldie is out of the "zebra den"

Let us know if the puffing up subsides and the little birdie can relax and focus on molting. Molting in itself is very stressful.

Once you see even one white or purple feather, you have your breast color. ;)

[Finley16]

I don't know anything about zebra finches but welcome to the forum ..sure hope things turns out well...

[lovezebs]

Stine

How is the Gouldi baby doing?
Any improvement?

[Stine]

Yeah, it doesn't have the shape of a golf ball anymore ^^ At least not when I'm looking at it. But it will usually see/hear me approaching the cage before I see it, in the current cage, so it could just be morphing back into a gouldian when it notices my approach. But in that case, I guess the fact that it bothers to morph back is still a good sign.

It hasn't touched its egg feed though, as far as I can tell. It's just eating dry seed and spray millet. I think I might switch the egg feed cup and the dry seed cup tomorrow, see if that makes a difference.

Also, it's making a sound sometimes. I'm not quite sure how to interpret that sound and whether it's a good sign or not. It's a low squeaking sound that changes its tone a little. At first I wasn't sure whether it was my budgies chattering in an extremely quiet voice, the drains in the wall behind the cage making a strange noise or the gouldian saying something, but the area below its beak is moving when the noise comes, so I think it might actually be singing or something?
I found a singing gouldian on youtube and the sound is not exactly identical, but it resembles it somewhat..

[lem2bert]

Stine

Awwww ! Sounds like it is doing a little better. You can also try removing the millet spray for a few minutes and sprinkling some of the millet onto the egg and watch to see if that draws her to the egg ! Sounds like your doing a good job !!

[wilkifam]

Nice! Glad it ended up in a good home. DON'T house it with Zebras! Really bad idea. Get it into a cage with another Gould if you can.

[Babs _Owner]

lem2bert

They will only go for the eggfood here and there, when they are used to it, they will gorge on it in the morning.

Dont take out their seed!! This is their primary diet and they need that throughout the day.

If its making a whispering soft trill an holding its head up high and as it does this you can see the throat vibrate., then you have a male just starting out his song!!

Very exciting!

[lem2bert]

Babs

I would never advise to take out the seed

What I said was to sprinkle millet spray onto the egg and and take the millet spray out for a (few minutes) but also to watch the bird while doing this. I only mentioned that when the post stated the bird was eating seed and millet.

[Babs _Owner]

lem2bert

Oh my! That was supposed to be for Stine . I tagged you on accident.

[Stine]

No worries, when I said I wanted to switch the feed cups I meant I'd put seed in the one I usually put egg food in and egg food in the seed cup - not that I'd remove the seed cup.

[lovezebs]

Stine

Here is another video of a male singing....

https://youtu.be/HmBkFlRsx54

This guy, sounds very much like my boys. When you get a few of them singing together, it's quite interesting both to watch and to listen to. They become very involved in their songs, and the other males listen very attentively, sometimes with their eyes closed

Here are a few of my boys in the Zone....

Let your boy listen to some of these songs, he'll probably enjoy it.

[Stine]

An update from my little gouldian - he's worrying me again ^^

I still don't think he's eating his egg food, but I give him soaked/sprouted seed with vitamins on every day and he seems to at least eat the canary seeds from my sprouting mix.
Now, for the past 4 days or so, he has begun looking quite bad. So what I want you to tell me is that he's just having a really heavy, ugly molt and there is nothing to worry about - that he is not plucking for some reason.
Some pictures: