On Xmas day your birds are given their nest boxes - app two to each pair. Your birds should already have paired up   and when they get the nest boxes,   that cements their relationship.    Have the boxes far enough apart on a wall so they cant see in each other's entrance. Have a perch on front of box for landing on.  Make a fist of green couch grass and place it inside the box, (that is fine runners of grass) Wrap it round your hand and make it round  with a hollow inside and place in the next box. Have more grass handy as they usually patch it up.  The nest MUST be   covered all over the top,  (under the lid of next box)  that means you cannot see the eggs when you open it.  DO not touch the grass once the birds enter and prepare to breed.

This takes place during January,  and don't over crowd the aviary.  6 or 7 pairs is plenty for 13 ft by 8 ft high by 5 ft wide.  We use fine gravel on the floor and hang the seed container up out of the rain and dew.   

By the end of February you should have young flying. Gouldians lay up to 8 eggs, NEVER touch them.   You can take a quick look but don't touch.  You should get 5 or 6 out of each clutch.    Ring the young at about a week. after flying, but do NOT use blue or red rings tho. LEAVE THE YOUNG WITH THEIR PARENTS FOR two months at least. More if you can. Then remove them TO THE AVIARY NEXT DOOR so they can see their parents.    This way they do not fret or get stressed. If you remove them   where they can't see their parents and can't chat through the wire they get stressed and die. 

No gouldians DON'T feed their brothers and sisters, the parents do the lot.  Wrens do this but NOT gouldians.  In the wild they live in flocks, but breed in hollows in tree trunks, with very little grass or nesting material.   Hollow logs are popular.  Must have lots of air.

Gouldians seldom eat white ants  (for protein) but sometimes they do.

The gouldian finch is not by choice insectivorous as claimed by some aviculturists.   Studies of the gouldian reveal three aspects of its evolutionary development that does not support such a premise.  The eye-sight of gouldians is inferior to all other Australian grassfinches. Tests carried out prove that gouldians have problems with eye-sight in  both dim, shaded and bright light conditions when compared to the result of tests carried out on other species of Australian grassfinches.  Examination of the gouldian's beak, the only real aspect of its claim to be of the mannikin species, shows the design best suits husking and breaking small seeds or tender shoots away from the parent plant.  The thick base and relatively short protrusion provides the power to tear and break seeds away
from the stem and the hard internal walls of the beak are designed to crack or break seed prior to swallowing.   The breeding season for gouldians in the wild is in winter as we know it, but the survival of the young is totally dependent on when the best seed grasses are available.  Building therefore should be constructed to conserve heat. Walls and ceilings should be  insulated and temperatures should never fall below 16C.

Remove the next boxes at the end of July,   as the young moult in October -a very stressful time, and birds bred after July  often tend to die in this period.    Leave all the young free flying until you mate them at XMAS for
next year's breeding.