Aussie Finch Forum

Well, I was rather excited and worried the other day as I finally have got a female gouldian to decide to nest. In my aviary I have a few canaries and 2 pairs of society finches + some gouldians. I have a total of about 6 different nest boxes in which, 1 is used by the 4 bengos to sleep in.

Guess which one the gouldian wants to nest in...

Yup the one the bengos sleep in.
Typical though, too lazy to make its own nest I thought. But the question i was wondering was how successful this adventure was going to be with time sharing of the nest, as the gouldian was there by day, bengos by night. But what really did suprise me was in the end the woman with the black head won and successfully evicted the unhappy societies. Now its gouldian by day and night, hopefully some babies soon to come.

I'm glad you got your gouldians to finally nest. The Society's are an adaptable crew so I'm sure thay won't mind a new camp but don't assume that the Goulds don't still have an eye on them. I've had Gouldinan parasitizse star nest on two occasions so whle it's not an outright eviction it just goes to show how lazy they can be.

Why make your own home when you can steal another I have always started my gouldian nests for that reason,they are lazy and poor builders.

I always put coconut fibre in as a nest base for any nest that the gouldians may use.
only cost $2 each for the coconut fibre at cheap as chips, meant to be for pot plants but I rip them into bird size pieces and put it into the nests.

Great tip Mick. I will look out for some on the weekend.

Any other money saving tips for nest materials? What about a substitute for feathers?

get a years worth of feathers by buying a pillow for about $10, just microwave the feathers for a couple of minutes on high to kill any mites that could be in there

Damn you the man!!! Top tip. Will snoop around for cheap pillows now.

WHAT build their own nest ...pffft my little pair of right royal , nose in the air toffs wouldnt think of such manual labour.
About the only thing my Goulds do is eat and poop all else is left for me to do. Such a hard life for a little bird

Some birds like shredded white tissues as a substitute for feathers.
Have noticed that the only time a Gouldian seems to have a well made nest is when someone else feathered or human made it for them.
LML

mickp wrote:get a years worth of feathers by buying a pillow for about $10, just microwave the feathers for a couple of minutes on high to kill any mites that could be in there

Like the idea of using pillow feathers as a supply for the birds.......but I would hope that the pillow factory does some serious feather cleaning before they can sell them for human use!