Expert: Chrys Meatyard - 4/17/2006

Question
Please help me! My female lovebird is one year old and the male is younger and they layed 3 eggs, the first one March 16, second one March 18 and the last one March 20. But I am worried because its been 33 days with today and i dont no if they are rotten or something and they havent hatched can you please help me!?

Answer
Hi, Cassandra.  Thanks for posting.

This is not an emergency situation!  Not all eggs laid hatch.  If they did, there would be more birds in the world than people!!!  

You are correct.  If your dates are correct, the first egg laid should have hatched on/about 3 Apr, the second egg laid should have hatched 2 days later, and the third egg laid should have hatched 2 days after the second one hatched.  Properly incubated lovebird eggs should hatch approximately 18 days from the onset of incubation.  Therefore, these eggs may not have been fertile to begin with, the embryos died in their shells for some reason, etc....there are many reasons why eggs don't hatch.  I don't know the specific reason why these eggs didn't hatch without looking at them myself.  

Actually, I recommend you not breed your female lovebird until she's another 8 months older.  Female lovebirds do best when they are 18-24 months of age when bred.  To stop them from breeding, do not allow them to have a nestbox or anything that resembles a nestbox.  Are you sure you have a true male/female pair?  Females can lay eggs without the benefit of a male.  If these eggs aren't fertile, you could have 1 female laying eggs and the other bird be female, too.  

When I have eggs that don't hatch, I open them to see what is (or isn't) inside (what's going on inside the eggs).  You may want to do this yourself to see if they were fertile or whether an embryo started to develop then stopped, whether there is a foul odor inside, etc.

Chrys