The power of selective breeding and mutations...

Was taking a few pictures of my birds today and caught my normal male turquoisine sitting next to my full red fronted opaline dilute (yellow) male turquoisine - same species, but looks completely different due to mutation and selective breeding to increase the amount of red.

Gouldian chicks

After a period of somewhat austere diet during late summer, most of my gouldians have gone into breeding mode together this fall.  My attempt to colony breeding several pairs in a large flight cage did not go so well.  The adults were too busy fighting to do their parental duties well.  Multiple hens laid in the same nest and chicks were tossed or killed.  So now, they are separated into individual pairs in their own breeding cages again.  I did end up putting some remaining fertile eggs from the colony breeding nestboxes under societies and 5 chicks have fledged - parentage unclear.


before fledging - 4 normals and 1 yellow




one chick with odd head color - reddish feathers already showing