P. W. Teague—Gouldians



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her not to do. The amazing part is that Gouldians could have lived

under such treatment as I found on my return. Fortunately I took the

precaution to add “ Yadil ” to all the automatic drinkers otherwise

my losses might have been heavy. Even a strong, hardy tri-coloured

Parrot Finch died from the slap-dash ” treatment of this village lass:

however, it proved to me that English-bred Gouldians can stand a lot

and it also proved that I had evidently got stamina into them anyhow.

My absence I shall blame for my poor breeding results, although it

should be understood that not every pair of Gouldians will breed.

I mated six pairs which were in good trim when I left in June, but the

only ones to be successful were the two pairs of second generation birds

which reared two from one pair and five from the other. The five left

the nest in October, but the sharp early frosts we had then killed

two in one night, so I brought the remainder indoors with their father

who completed the rearing. These young ones were in the “ between

time ”, the stupid period, that is, partly feeding themselves and partly

being fed by the male. The hens at this time are often on the look-out

to commence another nest, leaving the cock bird to finish off feeding

the young. These stupid young birds haven’t sufficient sense to have

a good “ fill up ” to carry them through the long autumn nights, and

they would not feed with a lantern in the aviary. Here let me give

a warning not to remove the young from the parent birds until you

are quite sure they are all feeding themselves. This lack of a good

“ fill up ” before going to roost also caused the death of four young

Cordons the same night through this same severe frost: although they

appeared to be feeding themselves, they paid the penalty for their

independence—the stupid period again. For safety I also brought

the other two young Gouldians indoors which were hatched earlier

in the season.


I found the second generation Gouldians much more ready to nest

than first generation birds and proved most excellent feeders. My second

generation birds stood the winter splendidly in their unheated out¬

door aviary, without artificial light, and despite the snow blizzard

and severe weather we had. These aviaries, as previously mentioned,

are shuttered up with “ Sunralite ” or “ Windolite ” shutters, but

this did not prevent the water being frozen to a solid block of ice



