Expert: Chrys Meatyard - 6/7/2006

Question
she has a mate, or she has 3.  i don't know if we have 1 male and 3 females, or 1 female and 3 males.  how could i tell?  also, how long does it take for the eggs to hatch.  update:  she has just laid another egg today.  we would love for her to have babies and to raise them.  we are hoping that we would be able to hand feed them so they get used to us from the beginning.  how can we do that?  do we need to feed her anything special?  we are now feeding them "premium parakeet food" by 3-d pet products.  thank you so much for your help with this.  i am very excited!
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Followup To

Question -
our parakeet has laid an egg in a box we provided.  i don't know when this egg was laid.  my six year old just happened to open the top of the box and see the egg in there.  she knew enough not to touch it.  the female hasn't been going in the box and i am worried that the egg won't hatch.  is there anything i need to do or should i just let nature take its course?

Answer -
Hi, Adriana.  Thanks for posting.

Is this a single female laying eggs or does she have a mate?  Normally, a female keet doesn't start incubating (sitting on) her eggs until the 2d egg is laid (they lay 1 egg every other day).  You don't need to do anything, but sit back and see what happens, presuming you want to allow your keets to produce offspring since you put up a nestbox.

Chrys

Answer
Hi again, Adriana.

There is a WHOLE LOT you need to learn before attempting to do what you want to do, especially if you don't even know what sex each of your keets are!  Basically, a male keet has a blue cere, females' ceres are brown/tan/beige/white, depending on what color mutation the birds are.  Eggs start to hatch about 18 days from the date the female starts incubating her eggs.  Incubation begins usually when the 2d egg is laid, but could begin with the 1st egg or the 3d...depends on the individual bird.  Incubation is when the female sits on her eggs constantly.  

Handfeeding parrots is the best way to ensure they imprint on humans and become tame.  Visit my website for information on everything involved in doing this...you have a lot to learn:

http://www.angelfire.com/falcon/birdinfo/index.html

Your keets should already have been on a healthy diet before laying eggs...it's too late right now to change this.  All seed is not a healthy diet...this is also explained on my website.  If you want to change their diet, do so when they are less stressed and not laying eggs, and change their diet gradually.

Also, if your keets are all in 1 cage, you'll need to separate the pair-bonded pairs into individual cages in order to prevent nestbox raids by other females and to prevent other females from killing any babies and other females in the same cage.  This is very important.  

This might seem very exciting and it can be.  However, if you don't know what you are doing, it can also be very heartbreaking if babies are lost because of your lack of knowledge.  This is why it's best to gain the knowledge first before attempting to breed any kind of animal, including parrots.  Also, think about what you are going to do with any babies, i.e., are you going to sell them, give them away, etc.  If so, you should ensure they are tame once they are weaned (yes, you'll need to know how to do this, too, if you are going to handfeed) so you can do what you want to do.  Otherwise, you could get stuck with all the babies, as well as the adults.

Come back if you need to.

Chrys