Expert: Chrys Meatyard - 5/15/2006

Question
Well, we now know that the bright yellow parakeet I found last May (05) in my school is a female! Her cere was an ambiguous color (I've read that female yellow parakeets have a cere differently colored from other parakeets' ceres). She has decided to adopt an accessible corner of a bureau drawer (in the "birds' room" --we have 2 parakeets and one cockatiel)as her nest.  We found this out when she started "disappearing" for long periods of time--now for most of the day and night, except to eat. She has been engaging in hanky panky with the other parakeet.  Today, we accidentally discovered an egg in the drawer while she was out taking a break.   So, is there anything I should do for her?  I don't know how old the egg is and I don't want to disturb the area (so there may be more eggs in there).  How --if the eggs do hatch--do I care for her and the babies?  

Answer
Hi, Harriet.  Thanks for posting.

If your female keet has mated with a male keet, chances are the eggs she is laying could be fertile and hatch.  If she hasn't mated, they will not be fertile (females can lay infertile eggs without mating with a male).  If you want any eggs laid to hatch (if they are fertile and develop properly), just leave them alone.  The female will care for them (you don't need to do anything).  The problem you are going to run into is that the male feeds the female while the female incubates the eggs and cares for the babies when they hatch.  If they are not together free flying in the room, the male can't care for the female.  I've seen a couple of cases where a lone female has done it all, but this usually shouldn't be the case.  Your female will most likely start incubating the eggs when a second egg is laid...they usually don't start the incubation process with the first egg (incubation process is when the female starts sitting on the eggs all the time except to defecate).  When the incubation process begins, start counting days...it takes about 18 days for keets to hatch.  Eggs are laid 1 every other day usually and they hatch in the same order laid (if they are fertile and develop properly).

If the eggs are not fertile, they won't hatch of course.  In this case, I recommend you leave the eggs anyhow and let the female abandon them on her own.  If you don't, she could continue to lay and lay eggs until she has a full clutch (about 6 eggs).  This would not be good for her.

Another option would be to remove the eggs and destroy them now and put her and her mate in a cage of their own with a nestbox and let them raise babies.  You don't have to do anything except decide if you will handfeed the babies or not after they are about 3-4 weeks old.  Handfeeding will ensure they are tame so you can sell/give them away/keep them as pets.  If you don't handfeed them, they will not be tame.  See my website for more information on handfeeding, etc.:
http://www.angelfire.com/falcon/birdinfo/index.html
This is assuming you want to raise keets!  If you don't, then you need to keep females and males separate because they will pair up and lay eggs.

You need to decide what you want to do and go from there.  Come back if you need to.

Chrys