Expert: Chrys Meatyard - 5/15/2006

Question
My budgies are breeding for the first time and I'm afraid the female may be laying too many eggs. She has laid five so far, first two were infertile and she destroyed them the day or so after she had laid them. There are three in there right now. The breeder box is flat on the bottom, should there be a sloping toward the middle? I've seen some like that.. but I bought this one from a breeder.. I don't know.. Should I worry about the amount of eggs that she has laid? Will she be able to keep all of the eggs warm? Are they fertile? (First clutch...) She stays in the box most of the time and comes out every once in a while to grab a bite of food or water and then she heads back in. Um.. They have a cuttle bone and seed.. Is the diet okay? I wasn't expecting them to actually breed.. I'm worried about them. Please respond as soon as possible!  

Answer
Hi, Andrea.  Thanks for posting.

A normal clutch of keet eggs consists of 6-8 eggs.  At a day or 2 old, your female keet would not have been able to determine if her eggs were fertile or not...it takes 7-10 days in order for her or anyone else to determine this.  I suspect her first 2 eggs were destroyed for some other reason or were destroyed accidently.  

Nestboxes can come either with an indentation in the bottom or without.  The indentation just keeps the eggs from scattering around in the bottom on the nestbox.  You should only worry about the number of eggs she has laid if the amount goes over 7 or 8.  Any more than this could be double-clutching.  The worry would come from calcium depletion and physical effects from laying too many eggs in a short amount of time.  In other words, it's natural for birds to lay eggs, but laying too many in a short amount of time can deplete her body from vitamins and nutrients needs to stay healthy.  Yes, she will be able to keep all eggs warm, as long as she doesn't lay more than fit under her body...again, the normal clutch is 6-8 eggs.  I don't know if they are fertile...has she mated with a male?  Females can lay eggs without a male, but the eggs won't be fertile.  You can candle the eggs at about 7-10 days after being laid to see what you can see inside.  If you need more info on this, let me know.  

I don't like parrots to be on all-seed diets, especially keets.  Keets are prone to fatty liver problems.  Seed contains a lot of fat and little nutrition, so I don't consider seed a healthy diet for any parrot.  Cuttlebone is good for supplementing calcium loss in egg laying.  See my website for additional information on parrots in general, including diet:
http://www.angelfire.com/falcon/birdinfo/index.html

Whenever you put a male and female parrot together, they will most likely mate and breed!  It's only natural!  If you don't want them to breed, you'll need to separate them.  

Come back if you need to.

Chrys