Aussie Finch Forum

hi all been offline for a long time anyway, does anyone feed gouldians maggots, or termites, or flying insects. cheers breeding time

Hi Paul,gouldians on their own will rarely touch livefood but in a large mixed aviary of finches they learn from the other finches to eat it.In my early days i had a blue and split gouldian in an aviary with other finches that required livefood (bushfly maggots) and the gouldians ate just as many as the other finches did,especially when they had young.I believe this was why i had so much success when i bred them 20 years ago. Craig

It would be a rare individual that would take live food but I can't discount it. I asked Sarah Pryke about this once and she hadn't observed it in the wild. Many birds will feed nestlings only what they were fed in the nest themselves so it might be possible to train a few that were fostered under something that does utilize live feed but unless you were going to use these live food conditioned birds to foster rarer parrot finches then what would be the point? Certainly you can breed Gouldians in an aviary with live feeders (like wax-bills or softbills) and they don't go near the live food but they can be a little too inquisitive, pushing other birds out of their nests or even "parasitising" your more expensive birds.

I do find that Gouldians will eat some live food when they have chicks in the nest, but I have not noticed it at other times. They don't chow into it the way Parrot Finches or Waxbills do, but they do partake. It's the same pattern with boiled egg and other protein foods - much more interest during breeding, and during the moult.

Incidentally, one of the best nests of Gouldian babies I ever bred where being fed by Parrot Finches. I don't know why, but the RFPFs took over feeding and the Gouldian parents seemed pretty happy to sit back and let them do it. Huge healthy babies emerged from that nest! They would likely have received more protein and fat than the Gouldian parents would have selected for them.

I am with Craig on this one.

On their own they won't take live food. In a mixed aviary they will pick it up from the other birds as i have clearly observed at some of my friends aviaries in WA.

Gouldians in the wild will not take live food. The save the Gouldian fund does crop analysis when they do the research in the Kimberley every year and the food contains 90 percent sorgum.

cheers


case

Our Gouldian's will eat maggots any time of the year