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Fostering with Society Finches
By Gary & Barbara Solomon, Frisky Finches - Copyright 2006

We believe fostering or raising Lady Gouldian finches with society finches contributes to a lack of success breeding Gouldians for several reasons.

1. Please see our new article The Lady Gouldian Finch and protozoan infections; Canker, Guardia, Cochlosomosis & Cryptosporidium. These protozoan organisms are spread by fostering (Hatching & Raising) Gouldian finches with society finches.


2. Gouldian finches that are parent raised by Gouldians make much better parents and breeders. The reason for this is quite simple. Society finches stop feeding their babies as soon as they leave the nest or shortly there after and from that point forward they are on their own. This also happens when baby Gouldians are fostered by society finches. They quit feeding them in short order.

Gouldians however do much better breeding if they are taught how to eat, drink and “feed new babies” from their natural parents.

After the young Gouldians leave the nest box the father Gouldian continues to feed and teach the young birds for another 3 to 4 weeks before they are weaned. During this time the hen usually goes back to laying and incubating a new (2nd) batch of eggs and by the time the first brood is almost ready to be weaned the new batch of babies are hatching out (approximately 22 days later). When this happens the first hatch of young birds will follow the fathers lead and actually re-enter their nest box out of curiosity and start feeding the newly hatched babies themselves. This helps teach the young bird’s to be better parents and breeders.

All of our birds are "parent raised" by Gouldians for this reason. If everything is done correctly you can safely get up to 3 clutches of young from a pair of birds per season.

This article is copyrighted 2006 for Frisky Finches and is not meant to be reprinted, replicated, or republished without our expressed written permission. Thank you.