I have a 3 years’ old female cockatiel who has started to lay eggs and she has no mate. How to stop her from this? She has laid 2 eggs in 3 days?
Shall I remove the egg whenever it’s laid? How to save her?
Hi,
Each time she lays, she in likely to lay 4-6 eggs, every other day. Right now, she’s not a chronic layer, so don’t worry too much, as she is also old enough. I’ll give you a list of changes to try, that should help discourage more egg laying. Some females still lay over and over and end up needing hormone treatments. As for these eggs, there is no evidence either way to prove that letting her sit on the eggs will help, so you can throw away the eggs.
Keep in mind that to lay eggs, she needs longer daylight, warmer weather, abundant food, and a quiet, private environment. The goal is to reverse these conditions.
Limit her light to 8-10 hours by covering the cage early each evening
Do not give her anything to use as a nest – no bird huts or tents, no box, bowl, etc. If she decides to sit in a food bowl, remove it and replace with smaller cups.
Do not give her anything to shred such as paper or cardboard.
Rearrange the toys in the cage frequently.
Move the cage to a different place in the room. Move the cage about once a week, or whenever she shows signs of nesting – settling on the cage floor for example. This disrupts her idea of having a stable place to lay eggs and raise chicks.
If you feed a lot of fresh foods, stop offering any for a couple of weeks, and then only offer them in small amounts about 2 or 3 times a week. You can resume normal feeding later when the birds aren’t being hormonal.
If she is let out of the cage, do not let her get in any dark cozy places and don’t give her free roam. When you let them roam around, this mimics searching for a nesting site.
When you handle her, limit any petting to only the head and neck – do not pet a bird on the body. Only a bonded mate is allowed to groom the body. We can’t be a mate, so touching the body is off limits.
If there is no metal floor grate, then do not use any bedding or paper in the cage tray – leave it bare and clean it daily.
Thank you for asking Lafeber,
Brenda
