Aussie Finch Forum

yep im with tiaris and blackhead all the way. Summed it up very well

I like the blue Gouldians the best. Black head purple breasted cocks are stunning and i also like the black headed white chested pastel blue cock. Both of these colours are truely beautiful in the gouldians.

Domestic finches tend to be a little bigger than wil ones. But thank goodness. No where near the difference between the domestic and wild Budgies.
LML

sweet some great post! i think that every colouring can be impressive and of course some liked more than others.

You may be interested to know that Qld Finch Society is in the process of developing a Gouldian standard as a guide for the showing of gouldians. You would know that zebra finches, budgies, canaries are judged against specific standards. We hope to have the same standard agreed for gouldians. It is currently in draft form and will be provided to a number of specialist gouldian ethusiasts before being run by the major showing bodies.

Thats great news, I asked when I first joined the forum if there was a standard for them.
Ive been trying to keep only birds that fit my idea of a good gouldian based on some things I read in other bird standards. The crossing of the wings on the back for example is one thing I dont like.

I fully agree it's not something i like. I would love to se what they come up with. Would be great

To pose a controversial question...

So who decides what the standard should be?

Is the ideal going to be oversized birds with chunky proportions, just as it is with the species mentioned above?

Why is bigger always better, even when it no longer represents what the original bird looks like??

I have always preferred bush budgies to show budgies, and the shape of wild-type zebs to show birds. This has nothing to do with colour mutations either.

I realise that it's all personal preference, but what's with this fixation that the "extreme" is the ideal?

ok, you can now let me have it... ;)

I really do hope that the persons charged with the compilation of the standard make their judgements with the wild gouldian conformation in mind. The colour range is another issue that can be included.

Even with this standard in place, if shows are held with people judging, each will have their own interpretation of the standard. Showing of course could have a terrible effect if a particular bird is held up as the best, its possible that the progeny of a Champion bird are purchased and included in that many breeding programs that the diversity of the gene pool is reduced.

You only have to look at some of the show standards for dogs to see where this has been commonplace to the detriment of the breed as well as the individual dog.

I agree with the last couple of posts and for these reasons I don't necessarily think its a good idea for non-showing finch breeders to pay any attention to show standards. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and everyone will have a slightly different idea of what constitutes an ideal specimen of any species. If everyone pursues breeding towards their own idea of the perfect Gouldian (or any other species) then we can improve quality within our own collections whilst maintaning genetic diversity within captive stocks overall. The differing tastes among breeders for large birds vs small, fat vs thin, red fusion bar vs none, etc. will in itself provide the wide range of features which will keep our captive Gouldian population strong & varied. It would be a boring old world if we all felt obligated to breed in exactly the same direction for each species and our captive stocks would become rather one-dimensional.