Aussie Finch Forum

Can anyone help me with a banding system for keeping track of bloodlines within a species?
What is everyone using?
What do they use for Gouldian research?
Is there a specific colour used by finch breeders to identify the year a finch hatched? Similar to what Budgie and Canary breeders do. I can only find an American colour system used by the National finch and Softbill Society (NFSS) http://www.nfss.org/bands/index.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Perhaps we need to develop a banding system that is species specific and can be documented and used throughout the country where birds can be identified and linked to their bloodlines, similar to a family tree. I know many finch breeders within Australia are against closed banding for whatever reasons (the Europeans have been doing it forever), nevertheless this may be done with split ring/bands.

Hi Lonchura, I use numbered aluminium year colour coded and a computer program “Birdrec” Version 8.0 by ken York A Budgee breeder on the central coast of NSW. It enables me to track pedigrees ,siblings ,5 generation family tree. breeding cards for nest boxes for my Gouldian's and Gloster Canaries and more . Not a bad program.

The Finch Exhibitors issue various size closed rings using the same colour sequence as the canary guys.
If you use the correct size for your selected birds though they need to be applied to young still in the nest.
Most birds bred in Europe are raised in cabinates so not such a problem. Aviary bred birds are more sensative to nest interference.

I use a breeding record system created by a member of this site. There are quite a few members using this program you will have seen the little bird icons in some of our signatures. The site is totally free and easy to use.
http://www.finchbreederdatabase.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
With legbands there are quite a few topics on the forum about this with several methods of keeping track of individual birds
viewtopic.php?f=39&t=3765&p=20176&hilit ... ing#p20176" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;