Help Help Gouldian Dramas

[wayno.fuller]

Ok have a new aviary set up for Gouldians, have read that many different bit's of info my head hurts, have tried to use the most repeated bit's of advice to get this right. BUT have ended up with one Red head cock,3 black headed cocks and only three black headed hens, hopefully new red head hen in 2 weeks ( Fingers x). Was told by local breeder to put nest's and nesting materials in on 1st of January ( Today for those living under a rock) . Nest's with materials added along with heaps of material options, straight away red head cock is into it carting bits and pieces to a nest box next thing one hen is in there with him then all hell broke loose the biggest black head male cock bird is dragging him out . Have witnessed several full on fights usually ending up with both crashing to the ground. The other cocks are all showing intrest in the same hen, so i guess she must be the only one ready to breed???. I dont no weather to take aggressive cock out and leave red and black to breed or do I take old red out till I get a red hen ( Been trying for 3 weeks).
These birds are all new to me and i have no idea of ages etc. The only obvious thing i have seen is the two cocks fighting have two extra long tail feathers and the others dont. The red head cock and the three hens all came from the same seller.
Thanks for reading and any advice welcome

[djb78]

Hi Wayne, it depends on if you want to keep the same head colours breeding together or you don't mind them mixing. I personally like to breed same head colours together but this would be your choice.

[wayno.fuller]

I feel the same but the other cock has bee singing and dancing he arse off and the hen shows no intrest and when he lands on the perch to look into the nest box she all but tries to fly straight through him.

[wayno.fuller]

The old breeder i got the birds off said leave all the cocks in together even though they out number the hens as this would encourage them to pick a mate and do the buisness. If I remove red cock will she seek another mate now ??

[Misso]

You are going to have added competition at the moment due to more cocks then hens. sometimes thats a good thing.to keep the cock birds from getting lazy.

iv never had gouldians fight like you described, id just keep an eye on them, they are still probs sorting out a pecking order. make sure you have twice the number of nesting boxes to pairs in the aviary. example 4 pairs of goulds, 8 or so nesting options.

can you not ring up the seller and ask how old the birds are? and to also find out if they are related?

i used to put nest boxes in christmas day a few years ago, i then lost a few clutches due to the heat, i now hold off a little longer before putting nest boxes in to avoid the hotter days. in saying that its up to each individual and there location and circumstances on when they put their nest boxes in. my aviaries are all tin and wire with little tree cover so they get hot, if i had insulation and tree shade i would probs start my gouldians earlier.

i too try and keep head colours together ( as best i can ) sometimes i pair different head colours together.

enjoy keeping gouldians

jarryd

[wayno.fuller]

Re fighting for docile birds 99 percent of the time they can scrap. Everyone has said the same thing they dont fight WRONG!! Even when I ringed all the birds for ID the other day one hen and one cock both latched on to a finger.

[wayno.fuller]

Sorry so many things going through my head. Not knowing the age of other two hens are they likely to come into season soon or will it be next year?. What is the likely outcome of breeding red to black heads???

[iaos]

The other hens will come into season, just give them a bit of time.

The two cocks birds I gave you, one was born 2011 and the other 2010.

Cheers
Ian

[djb78]

When putting nests in for breeding I also like to wait for most of the hot weather to pass, I like end Feb to start if March. Yes always have more nests than pairs. Having extra cocks can be a good thing as well as a bad thing, more cocks can get breeding season moving more choice for the hens to pick from ECT, but can also be bad due to disruption to breeding pairs from spare cocks and who's the real father of the young. These are points in which only you can decide what's going to happen in your aviery . As for colour if the head of any young if you go red head with a black head will be red headed and black headed young and red black headed young, maybe someone that knows more about colour genetics can answer the colour outcome better.
I know that there's so much info on this subject in previous threads and trying to get your head around all of it would start giving anybody a headache as there are alot of experienced people breeding them in many different ways but the good side is if one thing doesn't work try another way and hopefully sooner than later you will find what works with your birds to produce god healthy young, took me a few years to get good results with breeding most of my birds and alot of trail and error with peoples advice.

[wayno.fuller]

Thanks for all the replys guys