Hi my mom has 3 budgerigar
2 male 1 female. Thought about adding another female. For I fill like the male is lonely. The 2 males got into a fight which has never happened before, but the female laid two eggs.
I don’t know what to do? Someone said to toss the eggs, but I’m not that kind of person. Any suggestions will help. Thanks
Hi,
You need to discard the eggs. They probably aren’t even fertile. Eggs have no development when they are laid. They have to be incubated around the clock, for at least 48 hours, for them to begin to develop.
Unless you have observed the female being bonded with one of the males, and observed them mating, then they probably haven’t. The males are fighting over the female and one will end up killing the other. If the female isn’t bonded to either male, she is likely to kill them both now that she has eggs. And if she is bonded with one of the males, she will kill the extra male. There is no good ending here as long as there are eggs in the picture. You can’t breed birds with an extra bird in the cage. It will be killed. You can only have one pair of birds in a cage for breeding. And female budgies are extremely territorial and aggressive when they start nesting. If you can tell one of the males is her mate, then you should remove the extra male. But unless she has a nest box, she’s not going to be able to properly incubate the eggs. If she’s on the cage floor, and any do hatch, they are not likely to survive. If the eggs are on a metal grate, they aren’t going to ever begin to develop, so there’s nothing wrong with throwing them out.
Do not add another bird – it would likely be killed instantly. If you do remove one male, and the other male & female are happy together, then you can get a mate for the extra male and let them live in their own cage. It’s never a good idea to have an odd number of birds in a cage. You are finding out what usually happens. Even if they are all the same sex, birds will tend to pair off and leave the odd bird out. It gets bullied and picked on. If there had been 4 birds in this cage, it might have been fine, however, if one starts laying eggs, it changes the dynamics. You can make some changes to discourage egg laying, and then you might be able to have 4 birds in the same cage. But I would not have 3 together again.
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
