(Erythrura gouldiae)
Development of a good strain of normal Gouldians is not that difficult if you apply basic “Husbandry” and don’t dabble in the confusion that surrounds our hobby. We apply the same principals for all our birds – The Blues, The Australian Yellows, our New Limes and Turquoise Blues.
By Don Crawford
We do consider our strain of pure blood normals to be the most important bird in our breeding complex. Normal Gouldians are so necessary when used to improve the development of all the mutations we are working on at present. When we select our stock birds, we do consider the cosmetic look of a bird to be important for its visual pleasure. However our main focus is to develop birds with the correct breeding traits, which we have always considered much more important in our breeding stock, such as building a grass tunnelled nest for their own breeding security.
To read more about Don Crawford’s ideas on the successful breeding of mutations, take a look at Don’s article: “Combining the Mutation With the Normal is the Future: …We have a very different philosophy breeding our mutations. To keep your birds to a high standard…” read the full article
High fertility is a major propriety with good size hens that lay four or more eggs. We also consider hens to be more important when breeding and four eggs to be the ideal nest size.
Another important trait if not the most important is dedicated feeders. The young will thrive when you have good feeders and attentive parents. Stress free breeders are also very important while inspecting nests and ringing the young birds.
Cold-tough birds are another major advantage when winter breeding as any weakness will show in egg bound hens.
This is only an outline of the breeding structure that we try and create in our Gouldian breeding colonies. We have not ventured into the other important aspect of hard work and dedication which really doesn’t need any introduction.