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I have several questions i would appreciate an answer to if anyone is interested in taking the time to do. I already asked about the owl's. I also had a question about ghoul's. Do you recommend that you only breed same head colors together? I read that in groups they will always choose like colored head for a mate and if they only have a choice of a different color head the hen will be the deciding factor in the babies??? Yet the people I bought mine from said that was not at all true and it didn't matter, it was all in the genetics. My birds will be old enough to start breeding come time to pair them up in May for breeding and I really want to be completely prepared before then. If I need to buy more birds or not to fill out my flock or what ever. Do saffron's do better with two hens to one cock or jut one to one? I had read they do better with two hens?? Sometimes I think a person can do too much reading and that maybe there is too much information out there!! HELP!!!

Welcome to the forum! I can only help with the gouldian question. Gouldians do indeed change the sex of the offspring based on head color. You will get close to a 50/50 split with the same head color, which the Wild Gouldian Fund and numerous breeders have found helpful. If you breed off head colors, there will be a slant toward one sex, as one is hardier than the other. Then hens do this to ensure survival.

I've had 100% survival rates with the same head color, but I do have early deaths with off head colors.

Make sure the birds are at least 2 years old, this helps with them being mature enough to raise the chicks, but do have handfeeding supplies (including a 1cc syringe and crop tube) on hand. My last clutch ended up being too large and I had to handfeed to keep one alive. Get a large breeding cage that you can visually seperate the breeding pair from the rest of the birds, and I have found that a budgie sized nestbox attached to the outside works the best.

Do look through the finch forum here and see what has been posted, there is good info in the old posts!

Hurrah!! I finally figured out how to use this site.
I'm just a hobby breeder. I only have one pair of several kinds of finch. I turned my family room into a bird room, it has one very large flight aviary set up with plants and everything and then there are three smaller similar aviaries plus three cages. Right now my societies for fostering are in the cages. The girls are in the larger of the two smaller aviaries and the boys are divided into the two smaller of the other two. The large flight is being renovated. I read up for a long time before I bought my birds so that I would be sure to take proper care of them. Besides I'm not a total novice, I have always had a bird, just not these little guys. I've had several, from a parakeet to a hahn's macaw. I'm new to the breeding for sure!!
My ghoul's will be 2 come this breeding season and ready to go, but I have an orange head male and a black head female. It wasn't supposed to be that way but things happen. I ordered two red heads but when it came time to ship the red male was sick so they asked if orange would be okay, then when they were catching them they accidently hurt the red female and asked if a black would be okay, so here I am!! Do you think I should buy mates to match them instead of breeding them together?

You can always try setting them up together and see how they do. I had a black head paired with a dilute orange head and they never mated. I had 2 clutches of clear eggs before I re-paired her with another male. She took to a red head male, so you never know.

Also, have liquid calcium on hand and start giving it now. There are directions for resting and breeding season. Goulds are notorious for egg binding, so know your avian vet as well. I would also get liquid iodine or powdered kelp to give to them. It improves their overall health (keeps them from going bald) and improves fertility.

You can also start offering leafy greens, egg food and other high protien foods to get them geared up for breeding season.

Tell me if this sounds about right?! The book I read said in Febuary to start them on vitamins and calcium. March give them a feather growth aid of some kind with the extra minerals.April start adding in some extra canary,hemp and flax seed to the seed mix already being fed. About second week add Nekton E 4 days on 3 days off thru May. In May pair up and put in nest boxes. Introduce hatchling food so they get used to it. July reduce vitamins and calcium a little. November stop vitamins and calcium. Last week take out boxes not being used. December quit all breeding, remove all nests as soon as babies leave. As soon as babies loose spots outside of beaks seperate birds by sex and young into seperate cages. I don't know, that is later at starting the breeding then the other books said to start on breeding finches in general. They said to start pairing up in March. Are Ghoul's that much different than other finch ??
I had bought flaked kelp instead of powdered, is that okay? I probably went overboard, like I usually do. I bought dried greens, dried herbs, insect food, dried worms and flies besides live worms, spiulina, egg shells, oyster shell, charcoal and about anything else I thought they might need. I even buy bottled water for them. Too much?

I'm not sure about the vitamin suppliments except the iodine and calcium. I offer fresh foods, dry greens, and some powdered suppliments that they can choose to eat, but I don't force anything except the calcium in the water. Gouldians are pretty picky, you could put the pair together now, just visually seperate them from the rest of the flock.

You won't be able to tell the sex of the chicks until they color, but you can leave them with the parents until the next breeding season, I do. The biggest reason to pull them out is to set the pair up for breeding again so they don't inbreed.

You don't need any feather growth aids if the birds are taken care of well.

Here is the current reccomended diet:
Fresh foods
Soft food (egg food, high protien foods like mealworms)
sprouted seed
dry seed

and have calcium, powdered kelp, and other minerals that are helpful.

I buy a lot of my supplies from here: http://www.ladygouldianfinch.com/

Make sure to purchase nesting grass and a large nestbox that attaches outside the cage. Have a bath available for both birds. I also have a light next to the cage to simulate sunlight to help absorb vitamin D.


Here are a few older photos of the finches, including young chicks being banded. The ones in that photo are between 3-8 days old.




Here are a few photos I took this evening. I need to clean out the cage and scrub the perches, so please excuse that.



I know the perch is a mess, but here are 3 chicks with their dad. Note the chicks just starting to color up.


I always have millet available for the chicks when they are weaning. I also keep food in a gravity feeder so I don't have to disturb them to feed several times a day, 9 finches go through a lot of food in a day!

Here are some photos of the finch I had to handfeed. It was burried under it's 5 other siblings and wasn't strong enough to get up to feed each time. I took over and it is now weaned and healthy.

These photos will decrease in age.









And a video of a begging finch. It had already been fed, it just continues to beg. This is part of the danger when handfeeding, they don't stop begging when they are hungry! Click the image to open photobucket and the video.

In addition: When gouldians are ready to breed, the males will get a white beak that is tipped in orange or red (depending on orange head mutation) and the hens will get a solid black beak.

Interested males will do a courting dance with a pretty song, but you won't catch them mating on perches, they mate in the nestbox. Part of courting is building the nest so put a handful of nesting grass in the nest and put more on the bottom of the cage so they can bring in the grass.

Another addition:

Here is a great website on keeping finches. It discuses diet, breeding (general for all finch species) and other items.

http://www.finchinfo.com/diet/index.php

Thank you for all your advice. That ladygouldian site is where I bought most of my things like the kelp flakes and the insect food and egg shells etc. Everything I give my birds has been sprinkled on their food or in a seperate dish so they can choose to eat it or not. The thing I have the hardest time to get any of them to eat is the fresh food. I've tried a lot of the things on the lists that I've read like different veggies and their tops and some fruits, but they usually don't touch them. They like the dried greens and herbs and I grow grass in a pot and cut it for them that they love but that seems to be it for the fresh stuff. As far as soft foods, I give them egg food that somme eat and some don't, same with when I hard boil eggs and chop them up. They definitely get a wide choice of food, it is up to them if they eat it or not! I read somewhere that ghouls don't need grit, just oyster and egg shell and charcoal?? Mine get grit beings they are in with my other finch so far, but was just curious?!
So do you keep your pairs together year around or do you seperate the sexes during the off breeding season? I had thought to just leave my finch together year round, I just took out all the nest and nesting materials, cut down on all the extra high protein foods like all the live mealworms and cut back on the amount of light time ( I have full spectrum light system on all my aviaries). When I did this my parrot finch went into molt which I thought was the right thing, but then the next thing I knew before the hen was fully recovered from the molt the male was breeding her and she ended up dying from egg binding and an egg breaking inside her. So then my fire finch started showing signs of trying to build a nest so I divided all my birds right away!! The dummies all wanted to breed in the middle of winter, December. I guess I learned the hard way. Now I have to buy a new female parrot finch. My blue cap is still dancing and singing, trying to court the other males in the aviary with him; the dummies!!

I usually leave the birds together as I sell the chicks. This way they aren't alone. When I had multiple of each sex, I would seperate the sexes on the off season.

I do not feed grit to the finches as gouldians hull their seeds and do not need it to break the shell on the seed. I do offer charchol and eggshell though. I don't sprinkle these on their food as it is a bit wasteful. I offer it in a seperate small cup that they can choose to eat out of. The finger cups that LGF sells work great for this.

I offer lots of leafy greens, but I don't put it in a dish. I leave the leaves whole and hang them wet near the top perch. The birds will play in the wet leaves and then nibble. Like all birds, you need to continue to offer these foods since they don't always try things right off.

Remember that gouldians and possibly some of the other finches are from the southern hemisphere. The seasons they may want to breed are not what we would think of as prime breeding season. My last clutch was hatched in fall. They fledged around Thanksgiving.

If you want to leave them together, look at the other link I provided. They have a seasonal diet that has the birds go through the changes they would find in the wild, which will make them go through the seasonal changes. I also control how much light they get, which helps with the seasonal changes. The only problem with this is when southern California goes through heat waves in the winter messing up the cycle!

Unfortunately, I don't have a problem with a heat wave in the winter months; I live in Nebraska! With the wind chill it is about 7 degrees today.
I did the whole diet change and light change thing but it didn't seem to make much difference. After reading on that site you rcommended I can see why on the ghoul's. According to it they breed in Australia during the dry season when it is cooler and the daylight is shorter, like our winters here. It said the parrot finch are like the society and will breed year round but the blue caps are supposed to like breeding in the warm summer days, so don't know what is up with my idiots. The site didn't have anything on most of the other kinds that I have. It is a really good site though, very infomative; thanks for the tip!!
I think I will just do like the one book said and follow it's cycle. Start feeding the breeding diet come Febuary with the extra calcium and foods etc. and then pair them up in March and just see what happens. It's not like I'm depending on this for a living or anything, thank the Lord. I'd starve!

I know that one!! I don't sell my chicks until they are fully colored, and depending on temprature and what the chicks are willing to eat, that can take up to a year!