Aussie Finch Forum

I have a clutch of 4 Goulds that are around 11 days old, the hen will soon mabey tonight not sit on the babies, its going to go down to 5 degrees 2nite. can the babies survive that????

Jarryd

Hey Jarryd i not sure if they will survive or not, can you add some sort of heating around near the nest.

It's a bugger having a species that has a preference for nesting when the days are short when you aren't in the tropics. I can't find the picture but I once saw on the Save the Gouldian site http://savethegouldian.org/index.html that Mike Fidler et al have installed incandescent lamps underneath their nest boxes so that the heat they provide assists in keeping any unincubated chicks warm. They also have lamps suspended so that they hand about 20cm from the ground and these provide warmth for any fleglings or sick birds that find themselves on the floor at night. That being said Gouldians do have a reputation, sufferinhg from blond syndrome, so they may not actually seek the warmth they need if your aviary is large and the heat sources not closely spaced.

Yes they can.If you loose some its always sad.But at least the ones that live will have good genes.Thats what i think anyway,living here a bit colder then where you are.I dont give mine anything special.I would hate to breed them soft only to sell them to someone and have them kick the bucket at the first sign off cold.

thanks for the replys guys.

had work at 5 so did'nt see if the hen was out, my mum rekons she was in the box, so thats good. yeh i don't wanna put any heating in the aviaries, guess il just have to wait and hope that they make it. the pairing was rh/wb/gb cock to a rh/pb-wb/gb hen so i was hoping to breed some white chests!! the hen is around 4 years old too, so it would be nice to get some young from her. another thing is my aviarys arn't insulated, just tin, so mabey i need to look into that in the future.

Il let you guys know how they go.

Jarryd

good luck Jarryd with them,keep us updated.

will do gomer, just went on BOM and it now says it will go down to 3 tonight!!!!

Sooo Cold!!! would you get in the minus's somtimes gomer???

Jarryd

normally 3 to 4 is the lowest,

As pointed out one good thing is that the survivors will be genetically able to withstand colder temps , i know its harsh but what can you do ??
Good luck with them I hope they all survive for you . Cheers deb

As some of you know i had the situation of a hen due to stop sitting on her 4 babies at night, well they were around 12-13 days old, and the night time temp was due to drop to 5 degrees so i posted to the forum asking if they could survive that with no feathering yet.

good news was the hen sat on them throughout that night, the next night the hen was out on the tree roosting, it was ment to be cold again so i made the desision to take the nest box out of the aviary and brought it inside. good thing i did that night it dropped to 2 degrees!!!! coldest night for the month of April in 50 years!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

im sure they would have all died if left in there. i set my alarm before sunrise so i could put the nest box bak in. and the parents went in straight away and feed them. i repeated this for 3 nights till they got some feathers on them, as the temps were cold. whist inside they had no heat souce and our house is freezing atm cause where do renovations and we have no heating!! so i assume it was only a few degrees warmer inside then out.

last night was there first night out in the aviary all survived.

fingers crossed they will fledge.

i know in this discussion we metioned that the genetically stong would surive, im not sure if any gouldian at that stage regardless of genetics would have made it though the night with no heat souces. 2 degrees is very cold!!!

tonight will be 6 degrees so its still a test for them and if they survive i assume it means there abilty to handle cold increases?

thanks for the imput on the topic

Jarryd