Our new 8 meter tank

[wickedglass]

funny fish though.
we've been renovating the house and had this space to play with, so that's what we did. the cat and dog are slowly losing their marbles over it ... the dog for the quail and the cat ... well, the cat for just about everything in there. we have a bunch of finches (gouldian, star, long tail, cuban, emblema and an orange waxbill), a pair of chinese king quail and 3 neophema (scarlet chested) parrots.
we tried to give the place a south american feel to it with bright terracotta and succulent greens, large leaved elephant ear plants, creepers, orchids and ferns (although the ferns are currently experiencing the neophema nemesis ... doh).
we've had the gouldians in there for about 4 weeks now, and provided nesting opportunities for them ... currently they have 13 eggs.

[wickedglass]

the cocks and the hens share the brooding, usually, but as we only have 2 (as of today 3) hens, the hens have been laying their eggs in 4 different nests, so I think that there's a couple of cocks who will be single fathers ... although in a colony situation, who knows, the girls might yet share themselves around more and help all the boys out!

[Mattzilla]

that looks awesome!!!!!!

i am not a huge fan of people keeping birds as pets but a huge aviary like that is great

[Dan]

Hey very nice!!!!!
Quite the sight :)

I breed gouldians as well.
I have red and yellow headed
Also white breasted and yellow backed gouldians as well.

Congrats on the eggs :)

[wickedglass]

while I'm on a roll, here's a couple more pics ;)

there's a water feature in there ... but don't worry, it's covered with mesh so the birdies don't fall in and drown ... I'm thinking of putting guppies in, maybe ... or our yabbie.

[wickedglass]

and a couple more of our new cuties

[scott bowler]

hey that is awsome how good to use the area for that . i have had gouldians over the years they are a awsome little bird . i love the avery well done love it envy comes to mind to how i feel

[DiscusEden]

That is fantastic!

I've had many birds over the years & promised myself gouldians, but I keep putting it off. Mostly because I'm next to a national park, so I'm cheating by watching the wilds, and a speaker on snakes I saw said he has many calls from people with snakes in their aviaries, curled up in the ferns at face height. It freaked me out a little, but glass might fix that. You've got me thinking again now.

Do the gouldians make much noise? Do they get on with the other peaceful finches & parrots? I've only seen them in single species aviaries before.

[wickedglass]

thanks for all the nice comments

gouldians, as well as beautiful, are full of other suff, too ... peace-full, quiet-full, cuti-full .... while the do call, they call quietly, not unlike a grasshopper at times. we're inner city, so most of the birds we have need to be quite low noise, as the neighbours bedroom is directly behind the terracotta painted wall. we have neophemas in there and the finches don't bother them at all ... or vice versa. generally I think it's more about other birds bothering the gouldians, but birds like the neophema species won't bother them at all ... cockatiels on the other hand are more rambunctious. any larger parrots shouldn't be put in with the finches.

[wickedglass]

oh, almost forgot, there's lots of other finch species that get on ok with gouldians. search for "finch combatibility chart" on google and see what you come up with.

[Dan]

Awesome pics

love the bath time pic.

Gouldian colours are amazing!
The young are really dull green who knew they moult into such beauties :)

[sammigold]

Beautiful chris, just wonder though, how do you stop them from flying into the glass window...?

[wickedglass]

hey, sammi,
they actually don't fly into the glass. and if they did, the aviary isn't wide enough for them to get up enough speed to hurt themselves. they fly up and down the length of it, sometimes at breakneck pace, but I think they can see the glass and know it for a barrier.

[Robdog]

Some of those birds have beautiful colours on them. My bro in laws father has a huge avary. About the length of a tennis court and half as wide. Awesome. Just like watching fish. Different species for different levels of the avary, top, middle bottom.

[Merrilyn]

These photos are so gorgeous, I think they deserve another look.

So here's a bump for you Chris.

[Bald_noggin]

Nice one wickedglass. That look awesome! :shock: :D

That 'scarlet-chested hen' looks very similar to a 'Torquise Parrot'

We have a pair of Torquise Parrots at home but they don't seem to be very good at breeding. :cry:

Love the Finches too!