Expert: Riley - 3/31/2007

Question
I've had my pet budgie for around 5-6 years now, and recently she's been very affectionate. Hasn't bitten me out of anger at all since Christmas I think. But she started chewing a hole in a cardboard box next to her cage and she's chewed it large enough to crawl inside where she's been ripping up the paper instructions.

Last night she was sitting on her top perch in her cage and squatted and all of a sudden I heard something like a marble drop. I looked in and realized. "omg! she's laying eggs" She's never done this before. And now I'm kind of worried. I read somewhere that female pet budgies will only lay eggs when they're in "love" with their owners. I'm flattered, lol, don't get me wrong, but now I'm worried about egg-binding, and is she going to try to care for the eggs? Should I take the box away? Because I think that's what triggered her maternal instincts. Any help would be much appreciated. Anything that would help me keep a healthy female budgie, she's my baby.

Answer
Hey Jacqueline,

It's perfectly normal for a female keet to lay eggs without a male bird around.  It's breeding season and her hormones are very active right now.  She is laying infertile eggs.  As long as the egg she laid has a firm shell, she probably won't become eggbound.  A bird becomes eggbound when she doesn't have enough calcium in her body and the egg shell is soft.  A bird can't expell a soft shelled egg.  She will incubate these infertile eggs...allow her to do so until she abandons them on her own.  Then you can remove them and throw them away.  Don't take the box away until she abandons her eggs, then remove the box.  Be sure she has a cuttlebone available to replace any calcium loss.

Riley