Hey guys Mike from Brisbane Birds. So 18 months ago I did a video that reviewed
the three nests box designs I used for Gouldian Finches. You can see one here,
one here, and I've got another one just over here. So the main reason I did this is
because I found I was having a lot of Gouldian Finch chicks being thrown out
the nest or falling out the nest and I want to do something about that. So I
started looking at what Gouldian Finches are doing in the wild. Now unlike most finches
Goudlian Finches in the wild actually nest in tree hollows so they always have
this narrow sort of tunnel of the tree hollow to climb down into before they
get into the nest chamber. So what I thought was this is the traditional nest
box I use which is basically a budgie box size and it's got this veranda on it
with sides and the sides that stop the birds,
other birds attacking from the side and trying to get in when the parent bird
sitting on the perch. Well I found that a lot of that the chicks were
falling out or being thrown out by competing pairs of birds or by their
parents and so what I did was I looked into a few different designs. So we've
got this design over here and what this actually has is a small tunnel
internally, which makes it really easy to manufacture for the guys that make all
nest boxes because it's still a nice cube there's nothing protruding from it and
so what this does is it stops the chicks basically falling out the nest because
there's a tunnel that they have to go along first and they have to basically be
mature enough to be able to get up to that tunnel in the first place before
they come out the nest. Now the third nest box design was this
one here which is actually a small lorikeets nest box and as you can see
it's got a fairly large tunnel with a ramp and the nesting chamber is down
here. So the Gouldian Finches need to be mature enough that they can climb up
this ramp before they get out here and get thrown out or fall out. So I guess
the proof is in the pudding as they say and I can tell you that we've had one
breeding season we're just starting a second one,
and if I go through the results from the second breeding season that we've just
started where I've got three nest boxes full of chicks. In fact I've just had a
few fledged today. I can tell you that from the small lorikeets nest box and
the one with the tunnel I've lost zero chicks, in particular zero chicks coming
out the nest being thrown out, falling out etc. This one here I've had two
chicks come out the nest been thrown out, fall out, or whatever, I've found them on the
floor in the morning. Luckily I found them soon enough that I've been able to
put them back in that nest. I guess the question is you're probably asking is
how do I know which which nest box they came out of in the first place because
none of the birds are ringed at this point or have legbands. So
luckily for me for three nest boxes or nests were all
separated by probably half a week to a week so the chicks in each one of these
nest boxes are visually different in size and development. So it was pretty
easy for me to tell that the chicks came out of this one. So hopefully that gives
you some idea and some inspiration as to how you could change your practices when
breeding Gouldian Finches and maybe it saves a few of your chicks this
season or maybe next season. Now hopefully you found this video
and the updates are really useful. Please subscribe to my channels. I'm on Facebook
and Instagram and of course YouTube. So I'll leave you with a little view
of some of the chicks. It's a pretty warm day here in Queensland but theres a
couple of chicks over back there. There's three out there
So thanks very much and please subscribe and I'll see you next time, cheers.