My surprised Yellow Gouldian fledgings

[Don]

I bought a pair of yellow goulds less than 2 months ago, this is my first and only yellow gouldian, , a week after I got them the hen laid 2-3 eggs on the cage floor while in quarantine, one egg cracked, I put the other 2 eggs in a nest, they threw the eggs out, the seller told me these 2 are a little over a year old. A week later there were 3 eggs in the nest, I didn’t expect much from these eggs, I gave them egg food but they never eat it, I gave dried commercial egg food (Cede) they didn’t like it either, they also didn’t touch the nesting food. 2 of the 3 eggs hatched, the parents didn’t eat anything but seeds and millets. I was a little concern for the hatchlings since their parents didn’t eat/feed them any protein food. I banded them about 2 weeks ago. Today they came out of the nest and they look healthy to me. So glad they make it this far, I hope they will learn to eat egg food.

[summert85]

Congras, it is beautiful!

[finchmix22]

How cute! They can always surprise us, can't they?

[Don]

Thanks! I'm very excited to have them. I have another normal gouldian pair with 5 hatchlings 10 days old.

[G8love4finches]

Great looking chicks!....What a nice surprise!....Congrats!

[ac12]

Congrats

I wish my YBs would get down to business.
I've been getting nothing but duds.

[debbie276]

good looking birds, congratulations

[monotwine]

Congrats on your new youngsters!

Gouldian may not ever take to eating the egg food, but then you need to remeber that their natural breeding trigger is unripened or milky seeds. So give them half ripe green seeds (chickweed, grasses or homegrown millet) plus soaked sprouted seed and they will be happy enough. The sprouted seeds have higer nutritional benefits and they are softer and therefore quicker for the parents to prepare to feed young and easier to digest. With food easier to feed you may find they have bigger clutches. I find during breeding my Gouldian take alot of canary seed which if I recall is higher in protein.

The seed diet plus a good vitamens and supplement should be all they need to rear healthy happy babies.

My gouldians eat egg food now (and mealworms, as this is for my insectivorous finches), but only because they followed my other birds doing it. Before they had no clue what it was. So if you really want them to take egg food, after their breeding season try putting them with other trainer birds to discover new foods.

[finchandlovebird]

Congrats. You have A LOT of Gouldian fledgings to enjoy.

[Don]

Congrats on your new youngsters!

Gouldian may not ever take to eating the egg food, but then you need to remeber that their natural breeding trigger is unripened or milky seeds. So give them half ripe green seeds (chickweed, grasses or homegrown millet) plus soaked sprouted seed and they will be happy enough. The sprouted seeds have higer nutritional benefits and they are softer and therefore quicker for the parents to prepare to feed young and easier to digest. With food easier to feed you may find they have bigger clutches. I find during breeding my Gouldian take alot of canary seed which if I recall is higher in protein.

The seed diet plus a good vitamens and supplement should be all they need to rear healthy happy babies.

My gouldians eat egg food now (and mealworms, as this is for my insectivorous finches), but only because they followed my other birds doing it. Before they had no clue what it was. So if you really want them to take egg food, after their breeding season try putting them with other trainer birds to discover new foods.

Thanks everyone for welcoming my young Gouldian to the world. Monique, I plan to bring these outside after the quarantine period and when it's warmer, I didn't expect any of my gouldians to breed during this cold winter months. My other gouldian pair likes to eat egg food everyday, hopefully they would show the new pair how to enjoy egg food. For now I add some vitamin in thier drinking water.

[monotwine]

Wishing you all the best. Wow babies out of quarantine birds. They sure were desperate to start breeding!

Sounds like you have it all worked out. Best wishes for future clutches from this pair.

[lovemyfinch]

Congrats, those babies look just perfect

[AngieCort68]

Oh babies. I love to see the little ones. So cute. Congrats.

[Don]

Congrats

I wish my YBs would get down to business.
I've been getting nothing but duds.

Hang in there Gary, birds are full of surprises, you never know, at some point they will decide to produce clutch after clutch till you run out of cages for them.

[tt101]

Congrats

I wish my YBs would get down to business.
I've been getting nothing but duds.

seriously tell me about it, i had 2 dud clutches but this third time the female seems to be responding to the males mateing dances and they have been spending a lot of time together so this time could be promising. also congratulations don on your beautiful babies, when my societies had their first clutch i didnt find out until 4 days after they hatched and it is the most exciting experience ever. you have some beautiful babies and parents and i cant wait to see what they look like once they mature