Livefood and increasing fertility

[finches4life]

Hi there everyone a couple of quick questions.

I have no trouble getting my gouldians to lay eggs but the fertility rate isnt great ranging from 1-3 eggs are fertile. How do you get a better fertility rate

There not young either. Is it diet or something else? I've read you need to put a porch on the nestbox so the male can mount the female better and that not hitting the target is a big cause of infertility I have tried egg food(minutely interested), silverbeet mealworms and cucumber not really interested in any of it also have a canary bird in there as a teacher - I know because I put my mobile phone on video record and face it on the plate and leave it there for about 40mins canary loves it no such luck with my ruddies stars and goulds. They eat egg and biscuit mixture but only when its dry won't touch it if i mix it with water as they say to do on the instructions. I give my goulds finch mix, calcium and idione bells as well as shell grit.

Is soaked seed a must?

Livefood?????? PFFFFT

Tried mealworms over and over no interest from ruddies who apparently love live food as well as the stars. Was begining to think all people who recommend live food were full of S""T. Then I was landscaping my backyard one day and found a nest of termites munching on one of the decorative sleepers in the ground. For birds who I reckon didnt eat live food they'll all nearly had a heart attack when i put the sleeper in the aviary stars goulds and ruddies were going beserk over them. FINALLY!!! they do eat livefood trouble is i live in hervey bay so very hard to get termites in the city.

I am breeding mealworms now if you feed them mealworms what size do they have to be? I figure the regular size ones maybe too intimidating - do you have to feed them baby ones? cause termites are microscopic compared to grown mealworms.

If that doesn't work im going to try breeding maggots and feeding. Any help, advice and constructive criticism would be HUGELY appreciated it feels like i've come to a dead end at the moment. I'm down but not out. LOL

[jusdeb]

Welcome finches4life ..

Gotta like a person that goes PFFFT ...

Cant help you sorry however your local bird club is chockers with finch breeders so Im told , so may be worth joining if only to touch base with what other breeders are doing in down town Hervey Bay (food wise ).

[djb78]

Hi finches4life not an expert but maybe able to help a bit, infertility has many causes ranging from age, diet, related and environment. How old are the birds as they get older they get more infertile. Imbalance of diet can also affect them- myself not very knowlageable about vitamins and minerals required but have heard that leb cucumbers are good. If the birds are siblings will also decrease your fertility chances but also increase genetic deformities. Now if you don't have stable perches or nest sites yes the chances of proper mating to take place have decreased. Now live food, no it will no help with fertility but can help get some finches in the mating mood when it becomes readily available. As for your finches not taking to the basic live food,maybe mix them together mealworms and maggots and termites when available. Ive had to brake mealworms up when they got to big. Hope some of the more experienced finch breeders can shed more light or fix up anything that I might have gotten wrong.

[Snowman]

Hi finches4life , gouldians mate in the nest box, not on the perch . I use budgie style nest boxs for the size, for that very reason. Snowman

[Gerry Marantelli]

Nutrition is a real problem in fertility for many animals. One area of research that I am involved in is showing up calcium as a big driver of clutch size and fertility rate in frogs. I guess as eggs consume significant amounts of calcium, birds deficient in calcium may have trouble producing fertile eggs too.
When it comes to live food, another area I work in, nutritional content of the food species is highly variable. Mealworms are particularly low in calcium, and while you may be able to increase the value of any particular species with better growing techniques or food sources, there is a limit as it is simply not the nutrient that that species need, so no matter how much you try, it will only take up a certain amount. So in a nutshell you can only achieve so much with mealworms. I would suggest fly pupae or maggots as they are much higher in calcium, a better size and if the wagtails around my insect facilities are anything to go by – the birds love them (we have several wagtails that just sit around the rooms waiting for escapees – one is so fat it can hardly get off the ground! (Not something I recommend – but he is wild and out of my control.)