Aussie Finch Forum

Hi folks, based on your personal experience, can you recommend if it's OK to mix Gouldian head colours? Some breeders say you end up with "dirty" head colours, others say the colour of their chicks are intensified by crossing any colour head to a black head hen. Who do you believe?

Also, would a hen readily accept a mate of any other head colour? Will she reject a mate based purely on the colour of his head?

when I started with gouldians, head colour didnt matter to me and they were all in the same aviary.
so long as there was an equal number of males & females no problems, they would pair up with whoever.
now I split them up, rh's in one aviary and bh's in another. this allows me to try & breed pure head colours.
it also seems to help with the sex ratio's of the young birds, 50% cocks, 50% hens. when the head colours were all together I was always breeding more cocks than hens.

I started the same way as Mick. Luckily the ratio of cocks and hens they produced was just about 50% 50% for me.
All my birds (in my opinion) have coloured well with the exception of one RH hen she was not as clearly defined head colour as the other hens. She was a R/Y from a YH cock and RH hen.

However I have two BH hens from a BH cock and RH hen that have exceptional colour when compared to other hens from the same clutch/pairing and from a BH to BH pairing. So needless to say they will be staying.
Got a pic of one of the stronger coloured hens next to a normal coloured. Hope pic shows the difference

With dads Gouldians always head colours in the one aviary, after speaking to some Gouldian breeders last year we are going this year to mix the head colours. What do they do in the wild? They dont go and pick out the same head colour. You can get the bad coloured birds in the heads by still breeding yellow to yellow etc etc you just have to keep what you think are the best birds you bred. One guy we spoke to on geting a large Gouldian was he goes by the width of the birds head. Everyone will have there own ideas i guess.

I also used to get what I could get and put them in the avairy and see what happened.
Have just carefully matched head colours and balanced 1 pair reds to 2 pair yellows.
Now I will see if it makes a difference.
LML

according to scientific research from someone or other ( ) if you have different head colour breeding pairs you get more cocks than hens, and also it says gouldian hens have the ability to change their offspring's gender while still in the egg. There are some recent articles on the web, and in the Australian aviary life magazine on the matter.

the research you mention was compiled by Sarah Pryke at save the gouldian.

Last year I bred a red headed male to a black headed hen, the ratio was about 4 to 1 of cocks to hens.
All the cocks have good colouration , while this is what one of the hens looks like...note the red spots odn the head.
I apologise for the bad picture, it was the only one I had. Framed.

Wow she is really dark. Do you think when she moults again she will get a bit more red?

Very interesting. Still a nice looking hen though!