Expert: Chrys Meatyard - 11/11/2007

Question
Hi Chrys,
  After I asked my last question a couple of months ago my brooding female died of egg binding. About a week later the other female died of the same thing. I knew the risks when I decided to breed them. I couldn't figure out what I had done wrong. I had done a ton of research, I added calcium vitamins to their food, and they had fresh fruit and veggies available, along with seed. Although none of the birds ate the fresh fruit and veggies because when I got them from the lady across the street she hadn't offered them fruit and vegetables. After that I decided to not breed budgies for a while. I went ahead and built the aviary I was planning (bigger than I planned) and about a month ago I got 3 females and 1 male from the pet store. I was not planning on breeding them and did not offer a nesting box. They were just my pets. I noticed that Summer (my female) and Sprinkles (my male) were getting really close. I had plans of splitting them up so they wouldn't breed. Before I could there was an egg on the cage floor. I put the nesting boxes back in and she has claimed one for herself and my older female claimed the other. Sprinkles prepared the box for her and she spends a lot of time in there. I moved the egg into the nesting box but she won't sit on it. I'm going to see if she sits on it after she has more eggs. I'm worried because she's only between 6-8 months. My question is if she won't sit on the eggs is it possible to incubate them in a chicken egg incubator? We could borrow one from my Mom's friend.
Thanks in Advance,
Erika

Answer
Hi, Erika,

Your females are too young to be bred.  They need to be at least 1 year old.  I also don't recommend colony breeding...it usually doesn't work.  She may not incubate the egg that was laid on the cage bottom and put in the nestng box, but this shouldn't affect any other eggs laid.  Yes, it's possible to incubate them artificially, however, are you prepared to start handfeeding the babies yourself once they hatch?  The babies will be really tiny and you will need to handfeed them each every 1-2 hours around the clock (24/7) until they are about 5-7 days old?  This means you will need to set your alarm clock for every hour at night until they are about a week old and feed them during the day, too.  Then you'll need to handfeed them every 4 hours.  You have to be available to do this or have someone else available to do this.  You can't incubate then put the hatched babies back in with their parents and you can't foster them to another bird after hatching.  In addition, you have to know what you are doing when incubating...do you know how to do this?

Chrys