Ask Lafeber

Unknown Budgie Egg????

Hey Lafeber,

Background (all BUDGIES):
1 female, 1 male MATED:
Kids: Batch1 – 6 months old(3 females, 3 males), Batch2 – 1 month old(2 unknown gender)

The first 6 kids were totally fine, we supported our pair in their mating. All 8 of them lived together in a cage, when we saw the parents mating again. We tried separating them, but they mated twice and she got pregnant, so we put the two of them in a separate cage w a nesting box. Then, the male got in an accident and he started healing separately. She laid 7 eggs, 2 hatched, and she raised them on her own. Now the two are grown and also living with their 6 siblings.

So, we decided to throw out her nesting box but she got aggressive to have it back. There were only 4 eggs in there, none fertile, but we don’t know where the 5th one went (there were originally 7 in total). The female was also behaving weird and hormonal like mating behavior with her kids, and so we keep distracting her because NO WAY we want her to mate with her kids.

But then today, we just look and at the bottom of the cage, in their vegetable tray, there’s a new egg. It’s not an old egg, and when we looked through a light, it has liquid and a group of small air bubbles in it. She doesn’t sit on it, doesn’t have a large anus hole, no large poop, and no brown cere. And we never saw her mating with her kids which is our worse thought but isn’t possible.

None of the kids who are girls have big poop or big anus holes either. And her mate that was in an accident has been injured and living separated, and she is very aggressive towards him so NO way they mated.

None of them are reacting to the egg or anything, and we think it may be infertile bc I have read female hens will often just lay infertile eggs. Should we throw it out?

Do you know any trustworthy place we can give away budgies? We really don’t have family friends who can take them in, as they have either pets or infants.

Please help! I know she can die from constantly giving birth and I don’t want that to happen, we have already watched our birds get hurt and it’s hard to take care of 10 birds!! 🙁 We only have two cages, one large one smaller, and so we can’t separate the males/females in the kids when they mature either. Thank you so much for the forum I really appreciate it and sure others do too!!

Hi Hiver,

Yes, you do have quite a situation going on! You have made a lot of common mistakes that many small bird owners make. When asked about breeding, I always first advise that you have an outlet for the chicks when they are weaned. Weaned chicks cannot be kept with the parents. And the chicks need to be separated by sex. The reason is that once chicks are weaned, the parents have the instinct to drive them from the nest and territory, which is nature’s way of preventing related birds from breeding. While they can sometimes get along OK for a while in captivity, the problems start when the chicks start getting sexually mature. They become mature at much too young of an age in captivity, so it is important to keep them separated by sex so that they do not breed when they are too young. While they may be able to breed at 6 months old, they should not be allowed to breed until they are about 2 years old. Young females are at a higher risk of becoming egg bound and dying, and both sexes are too immature and while they may mate, they are not ready to settle down and care for eggs or chicks. So your mystery egg is very likely from one of the young females, and it needs to be discarded.

I’m not sure how the male got injured, but fighting is very common in the situation you have. You are very lucky the adult female hasn’t injured or killed any of the chicks yet. The behavior you described is likely a mix of aggression over the chicks still being around, and hormonal behavior over wanting to mate, and territorial behavior. The longer these birds are together, the more likely they are to get hurt or worse. If you can’t find homes really soon, you will need more cages until you can get these birds placed somewhere. As you said, you can’t let the related birds breed, and they definitely will because they don’t know any better. To clear up one thing – birds do not get pregnant. All gestation occurs outside of the body in the form of incubating the eggs. Eggs can be laid without a male present, but of course they will not be fertile. Any eggs you find now need to be thrown away. Even if the eggs are fertile, there will be no development until the egg is incubated for at least 48 consecutive hours. So you can throw the eggs away and they will not have any development at all.

In the wild, a budgie pair will only breed one time per year, during breeding season. In captivity, they do not get the environmental signals that they would in the wild, so they don’t know to stop breeding. It is the owner’s responsibility to limit how often they breed in a year. At the very most, they should be allowed two clutches per year, with a six month rest in between. It doesn’t matter if they want to breed – you have to take the nest box away, and if necessary, separate the pair. There are other changes you can make to discourage breeding – limit their light to 8-10 hours by covering the cage early in the evening, move the cage to a busy place in the room and keep moving it around the room once a week or so, rearrange toys and perches in the cage, stop offering fresh foods for a while and do not let them have a nest box or anything they can get inside of, no large food bowls, no nesting material and nothing they can shred like paper or cardboard. Breeding is an instinct, not a desire. You don’t have to give them a nest box or ever let them breed. It’s not personal, it won’t affect the pair. Limiting or preventing clutches is necessary in captivity. Or as you mentioned, the hen can literally die from laying too many eggs or having too many clutches in a short time.

You have only tried to do what is best for them, and again, many small bird owners make the same mistakes. There isn’t enough information out there and it seems natural to let them breed. You might check to see if there are any bird rescues in your area or animal shelters that will take small birds. Many pet shops will take them. But you need to either give them away by sex, or make sure where you take them, they know the birds are related and should not be allowed to breed or be kept together other than same sexes. Budgies can be kept in a colony, but you can’t provide nests or nest boxes and eggs should be thrown away when any are found. The main issue here is the breeding female, because they can get vicious over territory and breeding. I hope you can find homes for all of them very soon. Good luck!

Thank you for asking Lafeber,

Brenda