fosterrearing

FOSTER REARING
Using
Bengalese Finches

It is often written that gouldians are bad parents ! ! ! ! ! I personally think this to be utter rubbish and actually think the complete opposite and think they are in fact the best parents in the finch world........but only when they are adults, whilst young the last thing on their tiny minds is baby sitting, they don't mind making the babies (if you get my drift '"lol") but they are not ready for settling down and playing happy family's when still a juvenile.

It is my firm belief that most young gouldians are not very dependable when it comes to parenthood, yes they will pair up & mate, they will nest build etc and may even start to incubate the eggs but then maybe abandon the nest, some will even sit their eggs right through to hatching but then throw out the tiny hatchling from the nest as soon as they hatch which is soul distroying for even the experienced finch keeper. It is so disheartening to lose eggs & chicks from this behaviour after all the hard work of finding a compatable breeding pair of gouldians.

I have found that keeping and using bengalese finches as foster parents overcomes this problem, bengalese finches make exceptional foster parents and will readily except the change over of gouldian eggs for their own, then they will happily rear the gouldian chicks as their own, they feed the chicks correctly without any problems and you will be left with a nestbox of healthy chicks instead of ruined eggs or dead chicks on the cage floor.

Gouldians in their second or more breeding seasons make brillient parents and do none of the nasty's mentioned above and will readily rear many healthy nest fulls of gouldian chicks.

I on a personel note like to breed my birds whilst still young which gives me the young chicks to develope my blood lines and allows me to select for the currant years shows & exhibitions, it also allows me to sell young guaranteed proven breeding pairs to my customers, doing this is especially gratifying when I supply new hobbyists
with pairs of gouldians that they will breed at the first time of asking and helps to keep these newcommers in the hobby which is really what it is all about.

THE QUESTION OF IMPRINTING

Gouldians raised by bengalese retain all the natural characteristics of the gouldian and not the bengalese. The argument that fostering gouldians under bengalese will cause a phenomenon known as imprinting is complete and utter rubbish. I now rear every gouldian I bred which is approximately 200 per year using bengalese as fosters and not one of my many customers have any problems using the birds as guaranteed pairs or crossing them to their own birds, nor do they experience any problems what-so-ever with parent rearing using my gouldians for breeding as long as the birds are not to young.

THE ARGUEMENT OF QUALITY

Do the bengalese feed the gouldian chicks as well as the gouldians ..............the answer to that is YES and in some cases even better ......... Once you have established a good team of proven fostering bengalese love them to death, any bengalese finches you are not sure of dispose of as soon as possible, always breed your own bengalese from good quality clean stock so as not to keep bringing in new birds which could bring in with them god only knows and which then puts at risk your entire aviary.

You may read/hear that foster reared gouldian chicks are smaller and weaker than those reared by gouldians themselves and the overall quality is poor, All I can say to that is NOT in my case, All my birds are very good sized healthy gouldians and as well as a breeder I'm also a exhibitor of gouldians infact I'm a very successful exhibitor of gouldians consistently winning bird shows so there goes that arguement out of the window about losing quality when fostering.

BENGALESE CAN TRAIN GOULDIANS

Sometimes gouldians can frustate you by not eating whats good for them, if you introduce any new foods or vitamins/minerels to them they dont even look at them so this in turn means they are not getting a varied diet but if you put into their cage a bengalese he/she will readily go and eat thus training the gouldians who will follow. Because of the bengalese readiness to eat anything when fostering they are feeding the gouldian chicks with all the goodies you are giving them which means the babies are getting a much better start to life than they might have gotten using gouldians as parents.

Always remember to get your birds on a healthy varied diet with plenty of variety, Top quality seeds,vitamins & minerals play a vital part in the successful breeding of gouldians, seed only diets give poor quality chicks with lots of problems to come for those chicks.

My motto is "FEED WELL, BREED WELL"

FEEDING THE CHICKS

My daily feeds for the foster rearing bengalese consists of:-
Seperate pots of top quality gouldian finch seed mixture, top quality foriegn finch mixture, conditioning seed, roasted egg shells, mineralised grit and a small pot of charcoal granuals ready for when the chicks fledge.
A daily rearing food mixture that is made fresh every day and given twice a day is:-
25% sprouted seed, 25% soaked seed, 25% Ce-De egg food & 25% EMP egg food, to this I add a small amount of finely chopped carrot & apple, then a hard boiled egg is mashed up complete with shell and stirred into the mixture, after feeding in morning the remainder is fridged to be fed at teatime, always microwave for 8 seconds after removing from fridge or you will give your birds a chill on their stomach. Any soft food mixture left over is disposed of.
They are supplied with fresh greens in the form of chickweed or cress or lettuce etc.
Finger bowls are attached to the cages containing powdered down cuttlefish, iodine blocks & other powdered minerals, millet sprays are added every 3rd day.

Once again please remember "FEED WELL, BREED WELL"