Gouldian Breeding Stats

[Boma]

Just a comment about 2 pairs of my Gouldians. Over 2 seasons my best black headed pair (of which I paired up) bred 19 young - all cock birds. Over the same period my red headed pair (of which they paired up themselves) bred 22 - 20 hens and 2 cocks. Guess they will have to breed for a few for years to reach a 50/50 split of cocks to hens.

[STUART WHITING]

Very strange that is mate, I've also heard about this before and another very similar case quite recently where another known Australian breeder of finches also experienced this with red faced parrot finches and bred a lot more of one sex than the other........Graham " black cobra "

I've also heard that there is some kind of connection to this as regards to full spectrum lighting and ultraviolet lighting in some people's birdrooms and something to do with the balance / imbalance of certain species of birds when breeding,

Obviously the lighting factor is only a mild part of the occurrence because if birds are bred outside in flights like most Australian breeders do then it's obviously more intense info that is needed to fathom out why birds breed all of one sex on some years,

Be interested to know of anymore in depth info on this subject if anyone knows of why birds breeding cycles are sometimes like this

[D0NKEY]

There was a study done with zebs (a link was posted a while back) which suggested naturally paired birds produced more hens as opposed to human paired birds.

I dont know myself, i reckon over time it should even out too.

I placed three pairs in each aviary section last season and let them choose thwie mate. The pairs which were dominant and obviously chose their mate first produced more hens closer to 75%. Again i reckon a coincidence.

[STUART WHITING]

There was a study done with zebs (a link was posted a while back) which suggested naturally paired birds produced more hens as opposed to human paired birds.

I dont know myself, i reckon over time it should even out too.

I placed three pairs in each aviary section last season and let them choose thwie mate. The pairs which were dominant and obviously chose their mate first produced more hens closer to 75%. Again i reckon a coincidence.

Very interesting mate and something that I'd very much like to find out more about as I'm sure others no doubt would too

[POLAR GOULDIANS]

Hi Boma,

You're not looking at the results from far enough back.

They produced 21 Cocks and 20 Hens.

Almost a perfect 50/50 split !

[Tiaris]

Fair point. I also have pairs which produced mostly males, others which produced mostly females but over the whole season's young Gouldians from all pairs only 1 extra male from roughly 80 young bred.