Expert: Chrys Meatyard - 8/24/2008

Question
Can I take the eggs from my Fischer Lovebirds and place in the nest of my Peach face lovebirds (successful parents and mating again) to be cared for.  Five eggs layed, one hatched, seemed fine and later didn't survive.  Awaiting the other four to hatch.  I'm not sure if the fischer parents are going to care for their young and want to save the babies..at least until I can pull and hand feed. Pls. help.

Answer
Hi, Karen,

You can try it, but it probably won't work.  It really depends on the individual birds involved.  The peach faces will most likely not accept the eggs of the other pair because they will know they aren't their own eggs.  And if the other 4 eggs hatch, the peach faces won't really be ready to start feeding these offspring so soon.  But, again, it just depends.  However, if the peach faces already have an egg or 2 or more, you can try to sneak in the other eggs, one by one, and see what happens.  You would need to do this early enough so the peach faces don't end up with more eggs than they can probably incubate.  In other words, if the peaches have 1 or 2 eggs, you could sneak the other 4 eggs under them, but don't wait until the peaches have 3-4 eggs.  3-4 eggs of their own, plus 4 of the other pair, would make too many eggs for the peaches to incubate and/or care for.  You'd end up with several eggs that could not be incubated because the parents wouldn't be able to keep all of them warm enough for proper development inside the egg.  Parrots lay a number of eggs that can be properly incubated...they don't lay more than they can handle.  This is Mother Nature.  

What makes you think the Fischer's won't care for their offspring?  Just because one died doesn't mean they will be bad parents.  Hatchlings can die for many different reasons, doesn't necessarily mean the parent birds are/will be bad parents.    

You can also incubate these eggs manually yourself with an incubator.  But you would need to handfeed them from day one yourself.  This can be a difficult task since they are so small when they hatch.

I recommend you wait and see if the Fischer's care for their own offspring properly.  If they are not feeding them, this is one thing.  However, if the hatchlings are sickly when they hatch, didn't develop properly during incubation, etc., moving them under the peaches aren't going to help.  You'd need to have the deceased hatchling checked (necropsied) by a certified avian vet to find out the cause of the death.  Could be something that might affect all the eggs/hatchlings.  If they aren't caring for the second offspring that hatches, then you can make the decision as to whether to foster the others to the peaches.  By that time, perhaps the peaches will have an egg or 2.

Timing is critical when trying to find surrogate/foster parents for birds.  In other words, when I'm breeding my parrots, I try to have at least 2 pairs breeding at the same time so I can foster eggs/hatchlings to another pair if/when necessary.  There are also really good parents and there can be parent birds at the opposite end of the spectrum.  Some parrots will foster any hatchlings (close to their own size and if they are in the "breeding" mode) and there are some that won't even care for their own.  Most of my homing pigeons will foster just about any other bird's eggs if the timing is right.  It really just depends on the individual birds involved and the timing.

Chrys