2 males 4 females. Keep laying eggs. One has been on her eggs over the 23 days. Should I remove eggs. She looks weak heavy breathing male feeds her but she gets out only for a minute then back on her two eggs.
They are in coconuts. Another female just laid three eggs which were found on floor of cage. I put them into coconut and she’s on top of them being a good momma. Help !!
Hi,
You can’t breed birds this way. You can only have one pair of birds per cage for breeding. Breeding birds get very territorial. You are lucky none of them have been killed yet. Parakeets are extremely aggressive when they nest. You need to remove all of the coconuts and throw away the coconuts and the eggs. Those coconuts are not good for birds and shouldn’t be sold. They are not nearly large enough for parakeets to use as a nest. A parakeet nest box is very large. You have to realize that they may lay and hatch up to 6 eggs, and the chicks are nearly full size when they leave the nest, so a nest box has to be large enough to accommodate 8 full size parakeets! If the nest is too small, the chicks get crushed and die as they grow. You are going to have to make some changes to try to discourage the egg laying. Otherwise, birds are going to start killing each other. They will also raid each other’s nests and destroy eggs or kill any chicks. If you want to breed, you have to buy a breeding cage and a nest box for each pair. As for the bird that is breathing heavy, she is sick and needs to be taken to an Avian Vet.
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
