Hi Naren,
Since the male and female are not getting along, I would go ahead and take the nest box down and discard the eggs. Even if they are fertile, they have not had time to start growing yet. They have to be incubated around the clock for at least 48 hours before any development begin. The number of eggs is normal – the hen will lay an egg every other day. She is not capable of laying two eggs in a day, so either you didn’t notice an egg one day, or possibly you have two hens. For now we will say the other bird is a male, but since he is being so aggressive, the pair may not be compatible as breeders. The female can’t sit on the eggs and take care of chicks by herself. First clutches almost always fail anyway, so it is better to take the box and eggs away and keep the birds separated for now. There is also her injuries to consider. While the leg may be the only obvious injury, she probably has injuries you can’t see. She is probably sore and she needs time to rest and recover. You should not give the nest box back for at least 6 months, and only if the pair has been reunited and are getting along well. If they continue to have fights, I would split them up and not put them back together. Some birds are simply not compatible, and some birds do not make good breeders.
It’s important to have everything they need and the right environment for breeding birds. If they are too young, aren’t being fed the right food, not compatible or if there is too much human activity near the cage, these can all cause the type issues you are seeing. Ideally, the parents should be at least 2 years old. Younger birds really are not ready to settle down and care for eggs and chicks, and they will make mistakes or develop bad habits that can ruin them as breeders when they get older. The parents should be eating a nutritionally balanced diet such as pellets or our foraging diets – a loose seed mix will not provide the nutrition they need. You should also offer dark leafy greens, chopped veggies and a small amount of fruit. When they are set up with the nest box for breeding, you should start offering an egg food daily. There are commercial egg foods made with dried eggs, or you can cook an egg with the shell washed, crushed and cooked with the egg. You will give them egg food before egg laying and until all chicks are weaned. The nest box should be attached to the outside of the cage as high as possible. The cage should be in a quiet, private area where there are no people around them other than to feed them. It is very important not to over breed your birds. They need to be rested after each clutch whether they hatch chicks or not. You need to remove the nest box as soon as the eggs are past due, or after the chicks have left the box. Otherwise the parents will try to breed again right away. If they are still weaning chicks, they may stop feeding the chicks to start a new clutch, and let the chicks die. They should be rested for 6 months, and only be allowed to have two clutches per year, which is one more than they have in the wild. In the wild, breeding season is once a year, and then the season changes signaling the pair to stop nesting. In captivity, we provide the perfect breeding conditions year round, so it is the owner’s responsibility to limit how often a pair breeds.
Thank you for asking Lafeber,
Brenda