Baby ribbons

Bough a red/yellowheaded purple breast, blue back male and a normal greenback, blackhead, purple breast female, and after abit of thinking I decided to keep them together as a pair so that I now have 2 unrelated pairs

This way I can also sell unrelated pairs – from the chicks they produce, as well as get some more splitt for blue, greens

The canary followed the buy along with the cage and almost 10kg of birdseed, and I’m not sure if I am keeping her or not…she is very charming, but I never really saw myself as a canary bird man..

The black yellowehead whitebreast and the 2 uncoloured males are from the 3rd clutch

The 3rd clutch hatched the 02.03.2011

They fledged normal/olivegreens

2males and 1 female.

So far only the female has coloured out completely, and the males are lagging behind. It looks as tho the male that’s most coloured up atm is going to be blackhead yellow and finish colouring up in about 2 weeks time. The second male..anytime between 2 and 3 weeks I’d guess, and I am stil hoping he will be yellowhead

The second clutch hatched the 01.01.2011

3weeks old they jumped out of the nest

They fledged green 2 and gray 1

On day 40 they still begged the parents for food

12.05.2011 – 4months and 11 days after hatching the two greens coloured out completely whilst the gray one lagged behind.

They are all females and they all grew up fully coloured out.

The gray one turned into a yellowhead, whitebreast blueback. In blue birds the red and yellow colours are suppressed and in this case the yellow turned gray, so she looks like a gray head.

Ok, I decided to redo this post drastically and go more in debt since it’s been 6 months since the last post.

Clutch 1: Four chicks hatched 07.11.2010

They turned out to fledge green 3, and gray 1. – I studied theyr baby pic and noticed that the gray one was pink instead of flesh coloured like the others so you really can tell at an early stage. (Gray fledgelings turn blue when they colour out)

3weeks after they hatched they jumped out of the nest box.

7 weeks and they started singing – all 4 turned out to be males.

07.03.2011 – The most colourfull of the juveniles died..fell behind a piece of furniture and got stuck there and died

There seems to be a mixture of reasons for this – trapping for petshops (Stopped in the 1959 export ban on australian wildlife) attack by air sac mites, neglect/misuse of the natural habitat , and a poor survival rate from juvenile to adult through the rainy season.

Despite being one of the most colourful,and popular birds kept in captivity, surprisingly  little is known about it’s life  in the wild.

 The save the gouldian fund run by aviculturist Mike Fidler is trying to discover and thus prevent the reasons for the decline and help boost the remaining populations. By studying the birds in the wild they have allready discovered very interresting things about the finches like how the red heads and black heads aren’t really the best match for each other, And that if you pair a red head and a black head the survival rate of the offspring goes down.

This is just a few of the things that is  also helpful for us avicultutists who will then benefit from a greater understanding of the birds we keep and lets us take better care of them.

I have included the links to they’re homepage and they’re facebook page so be good and take some time to read up on the current status of this superb bird! And maybe even make a donation to help the ongoing conservation work

http://www.savethegouldian.org/

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Save-the-Gouldian-Fund/172756969409137?ref=ts

and a great link with great pictures of gouldians and other finches in the wild in australias northern territory

http://www.fabulousfinch.com/gouldian-finch-pictures.htm

A bird in the hand

Fledgeling/Juvenile goulds abut 4 weeks old