I have 5 pairs of budgies in different cages. Among them the female of a pair laid only one egg inside the nest box. It’s been 4 days since the first egg was laid. Neither the female nor the male is going inside the nest box anymore. I want them to breed. I don’t understand what to do. Why is it not laying eggs anymore? Please help.
Hi,
It’s not easy to breed birds and not all birds make good breeders. What you have to do is make sure everything is set up the right way, but that is no guarantee that the birds will breed. So to be clear, you have each pair in their own cage? How close are the cages? Some pairs need a visual barrier between them and any other pairs. Are your birds about 1.5 – 2 years old? Younger birds aren’t ready to breed and are more interested in mating than settling down and caring for eggs. Is this the first time this pair has laid an egg? Most pairs are not successful with their first clutch. If this pair has bred before, did you rest them afterwards? The nestbox should be removed and the pair rested for 6 months after every clutch, whether the eggs hatch or not. Laying eggs is hard on the female, and she needs time to recover and rebuild the calcium and protein in her system before she lays eggs again. If a pair is bred too often, she may lay fewer eggs each time and the eggs are less likely to be fertile. They need to be eating a nutritionally balanced diet like pellets – seeds are not going to provide the nutrition they need. They should also be eating leafy greens, chopped veggies, some fruit and an egg food – this can be a cooked egg with the shell washed, crushed and cooked with the egg or a commercial egg food. The best thing to do is give the pair some privacy and see what they do. If it doesn’t work out this time, rest them and try again in a few months.
Thank you for asking Lafeber,
Brenda
