Ask Lafeber

Breeding season 🤦🏻‍♀️

I have 4 GCC. Mom, dad and their two babies from their first clutch in 2017. Every Sep/Oct they start nesting behavior. I’ve used dummy eggs in the past but I feel so bad seeing my girl, Opal, lay two clutches every year as she gets confused I think. My two bonded pair will mate no matter what. They always go underneath my bed as I’ve closed all drawers etc. Here’s the thing, she doesn’t lay her eggs in one spot so I don’t know if I should provide a box and use the dummy eggs that way or try to curb the situation by putting them to bed an hour earlier etc. and just replace each egg I find? One year i did what one breeder suggested-I put all seven of the dummy eggs when she laid her first egg. It worked then but I tried it last year and she didn’t go for it. What can I do to make her comfortable and any suggestions on how to use the dummy eggs? Each year I reverse everything you’re supposed to do to get your birds to mate and it just doesn’t work. I’m not a breeder and I don’t want to be. Opal was supposed to be a boy according to her breeder….that obv wasn’t the case lol. They’d make wonderful breeders but I won’t do that. Thank you for taking the time to read this. Be well!

Hi,

It’s important to avoid all hormone trigger when you have birds that have a history of egg laying. This means permanently, all year long. The first thing you commented on is they go under your bed. Allowing birds to roam around on the floor is a huge trigger, as well as being very dangerous for the bird. They need to remain on their cage or a playstand and not be allowed to roam. When they roam and explore, they are looking for a nesting site. Under a bed is perfect! You have to commit to not allow this, which can be achieved with training. You can’t let them have anything they can use as a nest or a bed. They may like things like this, but it isn’t good for them. Definitely NO happy huts, bird tents, boxes – nothing they can get inside of. Birds do not need beds and they do not need anything to sleep inside of. This isn’t something they would do in the wild. A nest is only for breeding season and then they abandon it. I don’t think dummy eggs really work. In some cases they seem to encourage egg laying. Egg laying should be discouraged by not giving them anything to nest in. Leave the eggs loose on the cage floor and don’t do anything to make them comfortable. You aren’t being mean – this is tough love and sometimes it is necessary to do what is best for your birds. Limit light to 8-10 hours by covering the cage early each evening. If you offer a lot of fresh foods, cut back on those. One trigger is abundant food. Offer less food at a time, and stop feeding fresh foods when it gets near the time they start trying to nest. It won’t hurt for them to do without fresh foods for a while. You can give them small amounts of fresh foods about 3 times a week. If you handle these birds, limit any petting to only the head and neck. Move the cages around at least once a week and rearrange things in the cage. Hormones and unwanted egg laying are issues with all pet birds at some point. We have a playlist of webinars on the topic, so I will give you the link to those. Most importantly you have to avoid all trigger. Even allowing one thing can result in egg laying. So you definitely need to stop the free roaming and letting them get under things no matter how much they like it.

Thank you for asking Lafeber,

Brenda