Expert: Chrys Meatyard - 8/11/2007

Question
Me again, and this time I have eggs! My blue pair have 2 eggs now and are getting ready to lay another! It's my green/yellow pair I'm worried about. The female laid one egg about a week ago and wouldn't brood it. I wasn't to worried because I had heard that sometimes females will lay one egg but won't sit on it until she lays another. But she layed another that same night. The shell wasn't formed and she didn't even lay it in the nesting box! I figured she probably layed the second egg early due to calcium deficiency so the next day we went out and got a calcium supplement, a grape shaped and flavored calcium block(her favorite), and a special stress food enriched with calcium. By the time we got home she had eaten her first egg! So I put some marbles in the nesting box to simulate breeding and she loved and accepted her marbles. Then she layed a third egg outside the box and right onto the edge of the food bowl. The fourth egg was destroyed the same way! What can I do to discourage this behavior? What is the incubation period in parakeets? How can I tell if the eggs are fertile?

Thanks in Advance!

Answer
Hi, Erika,

What do you mean by the shell wasn't formd?  If this bird is laying soft-shelled eggs, she is like you suspected calcium deficient.  This means she could become eggbound.  Eggboundness is an emergency situation for a bird and if this happens, you would need to get the bird to a certified avian vet or emergency vet hospital immediately or the bird will die.  You need to get this bird a cuttlebone and/or liquid calcium supplement from the pharmacist (you have to ask for it behind the counter).  I would not allow this bird to lay eggs until you can get the calcium problem under control.  "Enriched" food doesn't really work, and you need to have your birds on a better diet to begin with than just all-seed.  The all-seed is a very poor diet for keets and won't help any babies be healthy (parents have to be healthy for the babies to be healthy).  The bird is eating her eggs because of the calcium deficiency.  Evidently, it's a serious deficiency or she wouldn't be eating her eggs (it's a desperate bird that eats her eggs for the calcium).  

Keets don't like substrate in their nesting boxes.  This might be why the bird is laying her eggs outside the nesting box.  Marbles in the nesting box won't stimulate breeding.  They will most likely keep the bird away from the box.  

Incubation period is 18 days (beginning when the female starts incubating 24/7...not when the eggs are laid).  

Again, I wouldn't allow this pair to breed right now.  It would be detrimental to the health of the female and the babies produced.

You can candle eggs to tell if they are fertile.  There's information on my website about candling.

Chrys