Stinking HOT Melbourne weather.

[AMCA26]

It seems as thou things have settled down here with the hot weather passing and the most pairs of the Blues sitting with about 30 fertile eggs and a few pairs laying again. Thank God for that.

[finchbreeder]

While here it has dropped to the high 20's and the birds are just mucking about.
LML

[AMCA26]

While high 20s would be cool for ur side of the country, u would be looking for jumpers to put on?

[finchbreeder]

Bit of a nip in the air of a morning, what with it being under 20 at that time of day.
LML

[Alistair]

Gee it must get really hot in Melbourne,I live in Queensland and hang all my boxes in the shade and don't have a problem with heat.

Over the years the knowledge has been put the boxes in at Christmas, I've noticed my birds rarely lay before the end of March, so this year I put them in at the end of February, when you think that people breed them until Sept, Oct just how long a breeding season do they want?

Every year I have last years birds as breeding stock so the first nests are usually quite varied, every year I have some that don't breed , I put that down to my lack of knowledge as a fancier.

I have stopped supplying my Gouldians with live food, they show absolutely no interest in Meal Worms, White Ants or Maggots

When you consider these birds originate in the North of Australia you would have to wonder at the heat affecting them adversely?

Alistair.

[gouldianpaul]

Hi Alistair

When we had that long spell of temp's in the high 30's/low 40's during Feb/March it wasn't the adult birds that I was having trouble with, it was the 1 or 2 day old chicks and chicks dead in the egg....This was mainly due to the humidity dropping to the 20% during this time.

Even though it gets quite hot up North during the wild gouldian breeding season I beleive the humidity remains at an ideal level (between 40%-50%).

So I believe that so long as you take adequate precautions your adult birds will be ok in hot weather....but we cannot do much to save the young chicks when the humidity drops to about 20%.

Regards
Paul

[AMCA26]

Spot on Paul. Was only the young and eggs.

[vettepilot_6]

If you have high heat and low humidity....A simple way to raise humidity in an aviary is a large shallow (say 75mm deep by 1mtr by 500mm) dish filled with rocks then topped up with water..... Water will evaporate slower with rocks creating your required humidity.....do this in hot houses for plants...sometimes 3 or 4 of them...