colony breeding gouldians

Has any one got any experince with colony breeding gouldians.
I colony breed and have great luck. many books and articals talk against it because of the inability to control genetics. How ever if you for example put 4 red head white breast blue bodied gould cocks with 4 red head purple breast yellow bodied hens then why wouldnt you have just as much control as indiviual cages. I have never read of this approach but it makes perfect sense to me. after all aviary raised and breed birds in my opinion are healthier
stronger birds so if you have had any experince good or bad I would love to hear from you. forrest

I agree that aviary birds are may well be stronger, but why in the world would you want to mix varieties that way??

I quess you missed my point entirely. have you herd of double splits?

Ohh I get your point I just see no point in polluting varieties like that. I've done my share of Gouldian breeding and just don't get it. It ranks right up there with producing hybrid animals.

I did the genetc math and 50% of the young will be dilute and the other 50% will be natural green bodied so if you were trying to produce large numbers of dilutes this might be an option. any way this was totally not point of my discussion I just typed color type with no thought because this is not the topic I was inquiring about any way. hybrid animals? do you think the off spring might be sterile? never seen that before and Ive been exclusively breeding Goldians for 12 years now and have a breeding stock of 250 exceptional pairs and 85% of those raise there own young.

No worries. I understand this is not hybridization, and I have no fear of hybrid induced sterility as a result of your scenario. I apologize for dragging this off your intended topic, I just have a real problem with mixing types/color varieties, as well as hybridization of plants and animals for strictly aesthetic or money making purposes purposes. In this instance if I get back in Gouldians I want to be sure the birds I get will produce true to form and not have a chance of throwing something else. I do hope you get a more on topic resposne than my ranting though. Good luck with your birds and enjoy them as much as I did when I was able to work with them.

I agree, I personally would want to keep the pairs as pairs instead of mixing and matching. Esp if you are selling babies off, they tend to be green, if you have them seperate, you will know exactly what is going to turn out as you are breeding color to its color. But finches are social, and do well in groups. A good gouldian friend are society finches, and most gouldian breeders keep a few of these on hand as they are more than happy to raise your gouldian eggs, they are just happy to have eggs in their nest regardless to who they came from.