my breeding results

[vslopes]

when i asked if adding 2 or 3 pairs of societies to the flight whose not to take the eggs out from the gouldians but to have just in case a way to have some of the babies they stop feeding to survive i had some babies that where out of the nest for 2 weeks die because they stop feeding and i been reading that the societies even help feeding the babies

[debbie276]

Gouldian chicks will feed gouldian chicks also. Are you sure there is no illness going through your aviary. That is rather odd that they would get to that point and not survive.
Adding society's to the aviary in my opinion would make the problem worse because society's will push the pairs off their nests and try to take over. You could have the potential of disrupting all your nests.

[debbie276]

Did you notice if the droppings were discolored, yellow maybe, in the chicks that died?

[debbie276]

I only got 12 babies alive I lost 4 on their molt ,from one pair I got 8 babies the other pair got 3 and the blue pair got one alive

Loosing chicks during the molt sounds like "failure to thrive". There is a disease, cochlosoma, that will cause failure to thrive. Symptoms are debilitation, shriveling and staining yellow of the fledglings, difficulty molting, non-digested seed in their droppings. Chicks will die shortly before or after fledging or simply fail to thrive and die before weaning.

and most of there problem whose aggression with the other pairs after the babies atch they jumped out and dragged the babies out I only got one alive

If your adults are shooting out of the nest fast they sometimes drag out the chicks by accident. Deep nestboxes help prevent this.


I'm not saying that your birds are ill, I am not a vet, but it may be something to look into.
Really hope you can get to the bottom of the problem.

[vslopes]

the last 2 that die the breast bone whose very pointy and looked like going lite the droppings here like hater when i move them to a small cage in the last five weeks i give them iverlux endocox and worm out gel of course one at the time and as prescribed is very likely like you say failure to thrive wat do you give them in that case? i got ronivet 12

[wildbill]

vslopes

aviary
you have a nice aviary so conditions are good. I don't like the idea of the flight being completely open -especially for gouldians. I would cover the back and side in completely. get your fresh air from the front only plus you have the top covered which is good and stops vermin or birds landing on the roof and contamination the shelter floor with dropping.

nest boxes

nice design and very similar to my own boxes so they should be plenty good enough. I wouldn't hesitate to use those at all. good privacy too


shelter

shelter looks good and should easily accommodate what you have. greenery is a nice touch but not necessary and i'd hate to have that hanging in my aviaries or i'd be in for a lot of crap talk from other breeders in australia. but each to his own.

Bengalese

be smart -don't do it!

gouldians

you might be just having a bit of trouble with just first year breeders and year two breeding will improve. I am running 9 aviaries and one in particular had 3 pairs which let all young die in around the 10 day mark.....why I don't know. so I removed all nest boxes and they will go.
aviary next to them all birds reared their young or almost all. same to the next aviary. could also be the results from a trouble maker cock bird disturbing the colony.
I had a video camera set up inside my shelter. all appeared good from the flight but there was a lot of disturbances from the odd breeding cock bird in the shelter. without that camera peek -you have no idea what's going on inside. you only require one trouble maker -no more.
I think some birds are either good parents from the beginning or get better or they are no good at all. as to your 3 disasters from 3 nests i'd class those birds as pet shop material and wouldn't waste any more time on them or retire till the season. if it happened again...sell them! but i'm running 55 pairs in total so I don't want anymore problems than what I have.
I am not sure if I read about green feed. if you do try lettuce soaked overnight in a multivitamin mix. it doesn't effect my gouldians and they eat a whole lettuce per day and some of these birds are $700 to $1000ea. remember your not feeding them a worthless lettuce -you are feeding a multivitamin treat which they really love.
above all you are dealing with the blue mutation and believe me some parents don't like the look of the pink young. mouth marking are different so if you have 3 greens and a blue -they target the blue and fail to feed it. I think they or some gouldians class the mutation as a intruder.
gouldians are a lot harder to get going and breeding compared to diamond sparrows. they are easy. its a challenge. hard to believe here in Australia you might be having a good breeding season and another breeder 100 miles away can't breed any.
this year all looks good for me and I am at 100 aviary bred young but my mate about 150 miles away has 10 pair and bred 3 young.
that's bird breeding for you. take the good and the bad and you can bet one thing -if you lose a bird it's always the blue! the greenbacks are a way stronger bird.

going light

here we class that as any bird which has dropped weight quickly and looks crook -lifeless -droopy wings -head under the wings and when there real bad on the floor of the aviary. you can easily tell by a very sharp breast bone. if you get those birds I think the party is over for them. first off hospital cage and heat followed by ronivet as its a pretty powerful drug but once you start you will be doing it on and off till they finally drop over.
it can happen to any bird but the blue gouldian is the top contender for it. not as good immune system as the greenback plus the possibility of picking up a disease from Bengalese if foster when young.

[MariusStegmann]

I agree with what Wildbill said. Sometimes you just get a bad breeding season. A friend of mine (also on the forum - ckrit) had a bad gouldian cock that went into all the nests and threw the chicks out. He eventually put in a camera and managed to identify the culprit and got rid of it. Getting bengales / societies to do your breeding for you is not the answer. A year ago, I got one pair to help me if a chick gets abandoned. Their population exploded and now they are about 15. Mine won't feed chicks if they did not hatch them out. I once put 6 gouldians eggs under the one pair of societies and they only managed to raise 3. My gouldians do better at being parents than the societies. It looks like the societies in South Africa do not carry the virus that is deadly to gouldian chicks, but I don't know about the Societies in N. America. I believe in starting small, and then when I am successful, I increase the numbers. Do you know where your breeding stock came from? Were they parent-raised? I believe that parent-raised gouldians breed 100% better than gouldians raised by foster parents. I also believe that is the reason that so many people have problems with gouldians tossing chicks and not feeding them properly.

[finchman]

On the societies; if you do go that route I would also not recommend adding them to the aviary. Would suggest separate breeding cages with trios of societies. Also; as Debbie pointed out the gouldians won't generally sit on 1 egg so I add 3-4 artificial eggs when leaving a single fertile egg with the goulds. Good luck! I hear a lot of negative comments about societies, but as stated earlier when it comes down to losing babies or fostering I know what I'll do.

[debbie276]

above all you are dealing with the blue mutation and believe me some parents don't like the look of the pink young. mouth marking are different so if you have 3 greens and a blue -they target the blue and fail to feed it. I think they or some gouldians class the mutation as a intruder.

I don't find this to be the case in my birds at all. It is understandable for you to have more problems keeping Blues alive in Australia, but here in the US they are more established and much stronger.

[lovezebs]

finchman. and others.....

The only time I lost Gouldian chicks, was when I attempted to breed in a large flight (which had Societies in it along with my Gouldians.

The Socies, took over the nest, drove the Gouldian parents off. They then procedeed to hatch the the G Chicks. However, the Gouldian parents kept returning to the nest, the male pulling the chicks out (some died), the female, plucking them.

Same two G parents, placed in a breeding cage, laid, hatched, and successfully reared their own chicks, no problem. They were, and still are excellent parents.

Since then, my Socies are in a different flight, and not allow anywhere near my Gouldians .

My Gouldians, raise their own babies (and I haven't lost any infants).

[vslopes]

thanks for all the good info my gouldians where parent raised and this whose there first year breeding sow i will try next year again and see if the ones that didn't raise any babies will miss again and then i will see if i should replace them i really not to concern with how manny babies i get i just hate to see all those babies dye i even try to hand feed some of the ones they throw out of nest but no luck

[Paul's Amazing Birds]

Fostering is something new to me but decided to try it just this morning when I discovered 2 natural canary nests in a secluded part of the aviary.

One nest was on the floor in some dry brush and the other was up off the floor but also in some branches. Natural nests from this particular hybrid have weak support walls and always seem to fall apart after the babies hatch so I decided to take all 5 eggs and place them with a Society pair that had 3. Not sure if one pair of Societies can handle 5 chicks (or even canaries at all) but I do know that these eggs would be wasted otherwise. The Society hen is sitt'n steady now and the other two hens will be introduced to their new boyfriends later this week in a more controlled environment.

Paul

[Chrismurdoch3]

Gouldians aren't typicaly great parents their first year give them another try next breeding season and see if your results are better.

In my experience my 2-4 year old hens were typically my best breeders. With few exceptions of other gouldians being great breeders their first year and after their 5 year. But I also selectively bred my gouldians in separate cages per pair I have never tried a community breeding flock.

Keep giving them the best environment and best diet you possibly can and hopefully your luck will turn around

Best of luck to you

[Chrismurdoch3]

Gouldians aren't typicaly great parents their first year give them another try next breeding season and see if your results are better.

In my experience my 2-4 year old hens were typically my best breeders. With few exceptions of other gouldians being great breeders their first year and after their 5 year. But I also selectively bred my gouldians in separate cages per pair I have never tried a community breeding flock.

Keep giving them the best environment and best diet you possibly can and hopefully your luck will turn around

Best of luck to you

[MariusStegmann]

Paul, I have heard that Canaries cannot be fostered under Societies. Apparently the way canary chicks beg are very different to finches.