Aussie Finch Forum

Hi all.. Feels like forever since I've been on here!
We have our first surviving gouldian chick who is getting louder and louder by the day and finally has feathers but I'm confused, he's all black??? All the pictures I could find of chicks before their coloring comes in are light. I know he is all gouldian as there is only 1 female n 2 males in the cage with a pair of quails so there's no chance of x breeding or anything...
Am I just being silly?? Lol

How interesting, are you able to take a pic?

melanistic chick perhaps ? some sort of deficiency maybe,Perhaps that could be why there is only one survivor. Or you may have some sort of mutation.

bluebutterfly213 wrote:How interesting, are you able to take a pic?

I appologize now as it isnt that easy to get a picture without stressing parents out and thats the last thing I want... but here are a couple and you can clearly see how black it is...

gomer wrote:melanistic chick perhaps ? some sort of deficiency maybe,Perhaps that could be why there is only one survivor. Or you may have some sort of mutation.

I dont think that there is any problem as he/she is twice as loud as any other baby finch we have ever had and mum and dad are both feeding him regularly.. I think the melanistic mite be on the money.. apparently it happens quite a bit in gouldians n I had never cocidered that...
I'm putting the fact that there is only one chick down to both parent only just comming into their secon year of life and this is thier first fertile lot of eggs...

He does look quite dark, is it the feathers that are dark or the skin? I have seen some of my gouldians with really dark skin even though they started off pink.

im not really sure.. since its their first i really am scared about spooking them so im didnt really look in untill the other day and thats when we noticed the black feathers... it will be interesting to watch as it grows up to see how it turns out...

Its hard to tell from the photos but i think its a normal coloured chick.Feathers just coming through can cause the chick to look very dark.

my chicks (normal ones) looked very much the same at that age.

they can change colour if the parents arent giving enough water....