Breeding Gouldians, cages vs avairy

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STUART WHITING
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Hi there peeps,

As an experienced uk breeder and exhibitor of British and various foreign finches for around 37 odd years other than keeping the odd few Gouldians on occasions I've not yet managed to concentrate my efforts in breeding them,

Here in the uk I'd say that most breeders seem to breed their Gouldians in double breeder stock cages inside their birdrooms mainly because the uk weather can't exactly be trusted at the best of times and aswell as having carefully selected pairs to breed quality exhibition birds like an experienced canary breeder would do.

What I'd like to know is that do many of you Gouldian breeders over in Aussie prefer to breed yer birds in flights / avaires on a collany system or would you prefer to breed with 1 pair per breeding cage within yer birdrooms :thumbup:
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vettepilot_6
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Most aussies only have aviaries. .there is some that have cages...I prefer normals in aviary. ..same head colour when possible. ..
The Bitterness of Poor Quality Remains Long after the Sweetness of Cut Price is Forgotten
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finchbreeder
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I've only bred in avairys, put them into different avairys to control what goes with what. 1m x 1.5m x2m avairys with 1 or 2 pair in each seem to be fairly popular here.
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Tiaris
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I breed my Gouldians mostly as single pairs "carefully selected to breed quality exhibition birds like an experienced canary breeder would do", but I do it in large outdoor aviaries. I've tried colonies many times including this year with limited success compared to single pairs. My main priority in breeding Gouldians is to produce large active birds with strong colour and impressive body type (smooth flowing curves from bill-tip to tail from every angle). I cull heavily to exclude small weedy birds, puny heads, lack of draw, straight posture, poor hen chest colour & lack of blue collar on hens. I really like big, imposing, typy, colourful and active Gouldians which command your attention. I aim for constant improvement in quality every breeding season.
I mostly breed black-headed normals but in the last 5-6 years I have also been striving to develop a quality stud of yellow-headed normals (which still have a way to go to reach the standard of my black-headeds). My black-headeds have always included the yellow-headed gene as roughly half my black-headeds are yellow-billed. With BH to BH pairs I usually intentionally pair a yellow-billed BH to a red-billed BH (my red-billed BHs are all BH split to YH as they all have a yellow-billed parent). I do this as my red-billed BHs pass on the best colour intensity traits and my yellow-billed BHs pass on the best body type traits so I aim for a combination of both in their progeny. In developing and improving my yellow-headeds, I have use many mixed head colour pairs, but always with known genotype birds (for head colour) and only using matings to produce all known genotype progeny. Any matings which could produce same head colour young with different genotypes in the one clutch are avoided. This way I know the genotype of all my Gouldians without the need for test mating and I can confidently pair birds up with the goal of producing specific genotypes in their young.
STUART WHITING
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vettepilot_6 wrote: 12 Jun 2017, 09:58 Most aussies only have aviaries. .there is some that have cages...I prefer normals in aviary. ..same head colour when possible. ..
Cheers finchbreeder, much appreciated :thumbup:
STUART WHITING
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vettepilot_6 wrote: 12 Jun 2017, 09:58 Most aussies only have aviaries. .there is some that have cages...I prefer normals in aviary. ..same head colour when possible. ..
Cheers Dave, much appreciated mate, must admit that I'd prefer the normals and same head colour pairings aswell :thumbup:
STUART WHITING
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Tiaris wrote: 12 Jun 2017, 10:21 I breed my Gouldians mostly as single pairs "carefully selected to breed quality exhibition birds like an experienced canary breeder would do", but I do it in large outdoor aviaries. I've tried colonies many times including this year with limited success compared to single pairs. My main priority in breeding Gouldians is to produce large active birds with strong colour and impressive body type (smooth flowing curves from bill-tip to tail from every angle). I cull heavily to exclude small weedy birds, puny heads, lack of draw, straight posture, poor hen chest colour & lack of blue collar on hens. I really like big, imposing, typy, colourful and active Gouldians which command your attention. I aim for constant improvement in quality every breeding season.
I mostly breed black-headed normals but in the last 5-6 years I have also been striving to develop a quality stud of yellow-headed normals (which still have a way to go to reach the standard of my black-headeds). My black-headeds have always included the yellow-headed gene as roughly half my black-headeds are yellow-billed. With BH to BH pairs I usually intentionally pair a yellow-billed BH to a red-billed BH (my red-billed BHs are all BH split to YH as they all have a yellow-billed parent). I do this as my red-billed BHs pass on the best colour intensity traits and my yellow-billed BHs pass on the best body type traits so I aim for a combination of both in their progeny. In developing and improving my yellow-headeds, I have use many mixed head colour pairs, but always with known genotype birds (for head colour) and only using matings to produce all known genotype progeny. Any matings which could produce same head colour young with different genotypes in the one clutch are avoided. This way I know the genotype of all my Gouldians without the need for test mating and I can confidently pair birds up with the goal of producing specific genotypes in their young.
Wow Graham, this is exactly the sort of info I was hoping to come across :thumbup:

As an exhibitor aswell as a breeder I'm constantly looking for quality of birds rather than quantity, I much prefer the normal BH, YH and RH birds meself aswell,

I can clearly see that yer into yer Gouldians in a big way as I presume that you probably exhibit yer birds aswell and am looking for nice large bold round shaped birds,
We tend to aim for quality feather here within the Gouldians and try to avoid any birds that are coarse feathered, skinny, no shape, small, especially pinched in the head, bad colour and posture, sadly there are many birds like this over here but is just a case of me now traveling half of the uk in search of quality Gouldians :D

As you've probably seen from me new birdroom thread that I'll be concentrating me efforts in cage breeding me Gouldians in double breeder cages within me birdroom which I'm still currently constructing inside the interior.

There are a few quality breeders here in England but have actually found that some of the best birds have been coming from Belgium over the last few years,

Thank you for taking yer time Graham, much appreciated :thumbup:
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shnapper20
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hi stuart, Ive been colony breeding gouldians for over 10yrs now. They are out door bred in large aviaries, I have no shutters, no heating but do have heaps of places for them to get out of the wind. I have 24 breeding pairs and let them have 2 rounds per season then I pull the boxes. This will generally give me around 100 young to pick the eyes out of the following season. When i first started I had lots of loses, but hardly have any now. They have toughened up, when I was visiting tasmania I came accross a breeder who got snow and ice on his aviary, yet his gouldians still bred well. There is supposed to be a breeder in the blue mountains nsw that has similar success.
STUART WHITING
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shnapper20 wrote: 12 Jun 2017, 16:40 hi stuart, Ive been colony breeding gouldians for over 10yrs now. They are out door bred in large aviaries, I have no shutters, no heating but do have heaps of places for them to get out of the wind. I have 24 breeding pairs and let them have 2 rounds per season then I pull the boxes. This will generally give me around 100 young to pick the eyes out of the following season. When i first started I had lots of loses, but hardly have any now. They have toughened up, when I was visiting tasmania I came accross a breeder who got snow and ice on his aviary, yet his gouldians still bred well. There is supposed to be a breeder in the blue mountains nsw that has similar success.
That's interesting cheers fella,

Yea to be honest I don't really intend to use heating in me shed as I believe that Gouldians providing their kept in the right conditions from the start are quite a bit hardier than many seem to realise,

Many breeders here in England seem to wanna breed during the winter and provide heating in the birdrooms, my birdroom is brick built and lined both sides that I feel I don't really need to use heat,
I'd also rather breed me birds on a more natural system and breed during the summer months which I believe would be around the same time as your wet season IE about now :D

I don't really have the room for avaires and is why I'm hoping to cage breed me Gouldians in me birdroom :thumbup:

Thanks for sharing
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D0NKEY
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I also agree with the majority, aviary breeding is the way to go. I tried setting up two pairs in cabinets 75x45x45 with zero luck this year. One pair wont go to nest, the other lays and abandons eggs. I think the depth needs to be looked at, 45cm may not be very secure for them.
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