The following information has been compiled from our experience in caring for and breeding Lady Gouldians. If you research this subject, I'm sure you will find there is a diverse range of opinions on what seed, supplements, cages, lighting, nests/nest materials, perches, etc. are best for gouldians. The products and methods we use and recommend are those that have provided the absolute best results for our birds.

Supplements

We have used a wide variety of supplement products. Of all of them, the Morning Bird products were the easiest to use and achieved the best results with our gouldians (and other finches) with respect to overall health, strength, vitality, coloration, fertility, hatching rates, chick growth and development, and ease of molting. As a result, we use and recommend the Morning Bird product line. On our website, each Morning Bird product has its own page that provides information on what the product is used for, ingredients, and dosage/administration. Please feel free to print any/all of those pages for future reference. Also, if you have any questions on the use or dosage/administration of a product, please don't hesitate to contact us.

In our opinion, the basic Morning Bird "necessities" for gouldians are: Calcium Plus, Liquid Iodine or Powdered Kelp, Miracle Meal, Feather Fast/Breeders Blend/Hearty Bird, Crushed Charcoal, and 63 Trace Minerals Powder.

Calcium -- Gouldians need calcium and vitamin D3 two days each week when they're not breeding or molting. When they're breeding or molting, they need calcium and D3 three to four days each week. Adding Morning Bird's Calcium Plus to their drinking water is the easiest way to provide the calcium and vitamin D they need.
Liquid Iodine or Powdered Kelp -- Gouldians need iodine one day a week when they're not breeding or molting and two days a week when they are breeding or molting. The iodine helps to prevent infertility and baldness. Morning Bird's Liquid Iodine can be added to their drinking water for an easy way to provide this supplement. Or, the Powdered Kelp can be sprinkled on soft food.
Miracle Meal -- Gouldians need a certain amount of protein in their diet, which cannot be achieved by eating seed alone. Miracle Meal provides that necessary protein as well as vitamins, minerals, and amino acids the birds need. One of the great things about Miracle Meal is that it doesn't have to be refrigerated and can be left in the cage all the time -- unlike real eggfood, which should be removed after 2 - 3 hours.
Feather Fast, Hearty Bird, and Breeders Blend -- these products contains all of the vitamins, minerals, and amino acids that gouldians need during their molting, resting, and breeding periods.
Crushed Charcoal -- Gouldians eat charcoal to help their digestive system because it removes toxins from their body and "sweetens" their gut.
63 Trace Minerals Powder -- contains minerals that aid in the digestion process and serve as catalysts for many enzymes, hormones, and essential bodily functions that are necessary for good health and vitality.

In order to ensure that our gouldians have the protein, vitamins, minerals, and amino acids they need, we add the Calcium Plus and Liquid Iodine to their drinking water per the above. We also offer Miracle Meal in a cage cup as a "free choice" food and they eat it like we own stock in the Morning Bird Company (I wish!). In addition, we mix Crushed Charcoal, Powdered Kelp, 63 Trace Minerals Powder, and powdered oystershell together and offer it to our gouldians in a cage cup as a "free choice" item that's left in their cage. We call this mixture "Convenience Mix" and offer it for sale (found on the Supplements tab). Doing so ensures they're getting the charcoal for digestion -- as well as enough iodine (from the Powdered Kelp), calcium (from the powdered oystershell), and vitamins/minerals (from the Trace Minerals Powder) in case they aren't getting enough calcium or iodine from their supplemented water.

Hearty Bird, Breeders Blend, and Feather Fast contain the vitamins, minerals, and amino acids that gouldians need during different periods of the year. Feather Fast was developed to be given when a gouldian is molting -- the most stressful time for the bird since it follows the rigorous breeding period and is a time when the birds are replacing all of their feathers as well as shedding their beaks and toenails. We have given Feather Fast to our birds during breeding season and found that it significantly increased the hatch and growth rate of chicks. In fact, most of our hatchlings have a few feathers when they emerge from the egg! When given year round, we noticed that Feather Fast also increased their energy levels so they are more active and get more exercise during the resting period. More exercise equates to stronger birds. ;o) Breeders Blend was designed to help stimulate the breeding cycle in gouldians and provide the necessary amounts of vitamins, minerals, and amino acids the birds need to remain strong and healthy during the breeding season. Hearty Bird is a concentrated, high potency supplement that was developed to provide the vitamins and minerals gouldians need during the resting period and for proper growth and immune system functioning at all stages of development.

In addition to the Morning Bird product line, we also offer our birds:

Twin Beak Aviary's Herb Salad™. Herb Salad™ contains 100% organic ingredients -- the leaves, roots, bark and flowers of 22 plants that animals in the wild seek as a means to obtain required nutrients for their healing abilities. Herb Salad™ isn't just for sick birds. It's also very beneficial in maintaining the good health of a healthy bird. While our birds are strong and healthy, they still eat Herb Salad™. We provide Herb Salad™ as a "free choice" item at all times to help our birds maintain their good health by allowing them to "self-medicate."
Insect and/or fruit flavored Palm Oil Meal. Palm Oil Meal is a powdered form of hydrogenated Palm Oil that contains essential fatty acids and vitamin A, E, and K, which birds need in order to process/use fat soluable vitamins as well as to prevent eggbinding. For years, we added wheat germ and cod liver oil to seed and offered it to our birds to provide the essential fatty acids. But, it was time consuming and resulted in a lot of wasted seed, not to mention that our birds didn't particularly like it and we still had hens that experienced eggbinding. Last Fall, we began offering Palm Oil Meal to our birds with excellent results -- none of our hens have experienced eggbinding during the 2007-2008 breeding period and feathers are richer and more vibrant!
Fresh eggfood. See our eggfood recipe on this tab. Eggfood is a rich source of protein, vitamins, and minerals that birds need to maintain their health. We offer fresh eggfood daily during breeding and molting and once a week during the resting period. Just remember to remove fresh eggfood within 2 - 3 hours of serving it. We also serve the eggshells to our birds for another source of calcium.
Fresh vegetables (and fruits for our fruit-eating species). Just like humans, birds benefit from the vitamins and minerals found in fresh vegetables. We offer veggies twice a week when the birds are breeding and once a week when they're molting. We usually do not offer veggies during the resting period because we want the birds to slim down in preparation for the next breeding cycle.

Seed
I spent two years developing a mix of seed our birds would eat and not waste. That doesn't mean it's the best mix on the market -- just that our birds actually eat it and I know it's a blend that provides a good supply of protein, fat, amino acids, vitamins, and minerals. Plus, it's fresh (which means it sprouts well) and doesn't contain any preservatives, artificial colors/dyes, pellets or other additives like a lot of commercial seed blends do. We provide seed in our cages and flights using Soda Bottle Feeders (found on the Cage Accessories tab). These feeders hold more seed than a standard cage cup, provide some exercise and foot stimulation (holding on while eating), reduce seed waste (hulls not dropped in the seed as with cage cups), and help contain the mess inside the cage. Also, these feeders help our environment by recycling plastic soda bottles into something useful.

We also offer spray millet. During breeding season, we provide it to our birds regularly (replacing it when they've eaten a spray) since the birds feed the spray millet seed to their chicks. During their molting and resting periods, we provide spray millet once a week -- otherwise they can quickly get too fat.

Cages

The cages we chose to use (and sell) are manufactured in China by YML. They are inexpensive, easy to assemble, and safe. We like the 30" x 18" x 18" dividable breeding cage YML makes for a number of reasons, including: 1) each cage comes with 4 cage cups that allows us to offer Miracle Meal, Herb Salad™, "Convenience Mix" (the blend of powdered oyster shell and Morning Bird's Crushed Charcoal, Powdered Kelp, and 63 Trace Minerals Powder), and Palm Oil Meal to our birds as "free choice" items at all times; 2) they're large enough for the birds to feel comfortable in, which means better breeding success; 3) they can be divided easily and quickly if a second pair of birds needs to be housed in the cage; and 4) they can be stacked two or three high (depending on which stand is used) so more birds can be housed in a small amount of room space. However, we also are fortunate to have the space to house birds in two large (7ft x 6ft x 7ft) walk-in flights. The walk-in flights have made a noticeable difference in the strength and size of our birds (building muscle from the ability to freely fly), so we will be constructing additional walk-in flights in the near future.

Perches

We believe a mix of perches is best for the health of a bird's feet. Each of our cages and the flights have manzanita perches and Sandy perches. The Sandy perches are made of manzanita and coated with a material that does not abrade the soft tissue on a bird's foot but does help to trim nails and beaks. Because manzanita and Sandy Perches are made from real wood, they vary in diameter, which provides more exercise for the bird's feet. Also, we have found that manzanita perches are the easiest to clean.

Lighting

Lighting is one of those things where you do the best you can knowing that you won't be able to provide the same benefits that a bird would have outdoors. We use the full spectrum daylight bulbs only because they are the best in bringing out the color of the birds and most closely mimic the wave lengths of natural sunlight. Other than that, the birds receive no benefit from the lights used on their cages. :o(

We also use timers on our lights and set the timers so the birds receive 14 - 15 hours of daylight each day -- 15 hours during breeding season and 14 hours throughout the rest of the year. Timers also are convenient in that you don't have to remember to turn the lights on/off every day. ;o)

Nests & Nesting Material

Nests/nesting material is a very controversial topic. There are many who swear you should never ever use bamboo or wicker nests because the birds can get their feet/toes caught in them -- which can easily result in a bird losing a toe, foot, or leg. This is true. There is a higher risk of injury associated with bamboo or wicker nests. But, that risk is no higher than the one you take when you use rope-type perches. We lost a yellow hen last year when she got her toe caught between the fibers on a rope perch and ripped off her toe nail. The nail became infected and we couldn't treat the infection fast enough to save her. It made me sick! This year, one of our male gouldians got his toe caught between a cage bar and the handle on the cage. In his struggle to free himself, he dislocated his leg at the hip and partially ripped off his toe. We were able to re-set his hip, but had to amputate the toe. Fortunately, we survived the ordeal and is doing fine. The moral is that you do your best to "bird proof" their houses and hope for the best ... because these little buggers will still find a way to hurt themselves if they can.

We use both the plastic nest boxes as well as bamboo and sea grass nests because some of our birds will only use one or the other. If they have no preference, we offer the plastic nest boxes because they pose the least amount of risk with respect to injury. However, the only time we've lost a bird in a nest accident was when one of our society males entombed his mate in the nest to keep her in there to incubate the eggs she had laid. Ugh!

As for nesting material, in our opinion, it's whatever the bird wants. It truly is a bird's preference. That's why we offer a variety of nesting materials to our birds (and sell the same variety) and let them choose what they want to build their nest.

Water drinkers

We use Water Buddy water drinkers as well as water fountains. Either one is perfectly acceptable. We prefer the Water Buddies because the birds can't muck up the water with seed, etc., but their cost has skyrocketed over the past couple of years which has significantly reduced their economical value (unless you don't mind spending a lot of money). We also use and carry plastic and glass water fountains. Glass water fountains are recommended when administering medications.

Breeding and other general care

We keep our male and female gouldians separated when they're not breeding. This seems to minimize stress on the hens and increases their desire to breed when re-paired. We typically set up our pairs of gouldians to breed in October. After they have successfully reared three or four clutches of offspring (the number of clutches we allow them to rear depends on their health), we separate them (typically in early April) and they go through their molting period (April - May). After molting, they have a resting period (May - Oct) and get plenty of exercise in our walk-in flights. With the proper diet, housing, and breeding conditions, gouldians can and will breed year round. However, we don't recommend breeding them year round because they do need to molt and have a long rest period in order to ensure good overall health and longevity.

Cages should be kept clean and dry. One of the quickest ways for gouldians to become ill is from exposure to damp, dirty cage floors which allows fungus, mold, and bacteria to develop and thrive. As such, we replace cage trays with clean ones every 3 - 4 days and sterilize used trays with bleach before using them again.

We keep the temperature of our bird room between 72 and 76 degrees and relative humidity is maintained around 50% during the breeding period -- since eggs need a higher level of humidity to hatch. However, the higher humidity also means that fungus, mold, and bacteria can develop more quickly, so cage trays are replaced more frequently. During the molting period, we increase the temperature in the bird room to 80 degrees and decrease the relative humidity to 40%. During the resting period, the birds experience a variance in temperature and relative humidity since it occurs during our summer and we open the windows when it's not raining.

With respect to breeding, there are two opinions regarding human contact: 1) birds should be left alone when incubating/rearing young so as not to cause the parents to abandon the nest; and 2) owners should perform nest checks, handle eggs/babies, and mess around in the cage. In our opinion, it's all in what the birds get used to. If you don't mess around in their cage, check the nest, handle the eggs/babies, then the birds won't be used to it and very well could abandon the nest if you do any of those things when they have eggs/ babies in the nest. Because we band our gouldian offspring, we mess around in their cages, check the nests, and handle eggs/babies frequently so they are used to our presence and don't abandon the nest. In fact, our birds are so used to our presence that we have to literally pick up most of our hens when we want to check the nest or handle the eggs/babies because they won't leave the nest for anything! We even have some hens that will try to hold the eggs or babies with their feet when we pick them up!

One hard fast rule we adhere to when pairing gouldians for breeding is not to pair two blue mutation gouldians to each other. This means we do not pair blue males to blue or silver hens, "Pastel" or "Blue SF Yellow" males to blue or silver hens, or silver males to blue or silver hens (see the Articles tab for information on gouldian genetics). Since the blue body mutation is created by two alleles that mutate the bird's genetic composition, pairing two gouldians that both possess the two mutating alleles produces bad results -- infertile eggs, embryos that partially develop then die before hatching, or weak and/or deformed offspring. Although our blue mutation lines of gouldians are healthy, robust birds, we choose not to take any chance with this.

As with other aspects of keeping gouldians, there are different opinions on what birds should and shouldn't be paired together. Some breeders believe you should not pair two white breasted gouldians, two orange headed gouldians, or two "yellow" bodied gouldians together. All I can say to that is that we have paired white breast to white breast, orange head to orange head, and yellow body to yellow body without any loss to the health or robustness of the offspring. In our experience, the health and robustness of the offspring depends on the health and robustness of the parent birds. If you carefully select healthy, robust birds as the foundation of your breeding stock, they should produce healthy, robust offspring. If you have unhealthy or weak birds, they will typically produce unhealthy or weak offspring. Just remember, the birds can only pass to their offspring the genetic traits they possess -- along with any diseases or infections they might have.

Check back again for updates to this article!

Michele Faires