I have two breeding pairs of budgies, Both have laid eggs. One has 10 the other has 7. They do not sit on the eggs at night only during the day. Do you think these eggs will be viable? They like to keep swapping nest boxes so I think they have laid eggs in both boxes. Previusly only one of the pairs hatched 7 out of 8 eggs and when full grown you could tell that they had mixed parents. Its now been 24 days from the first egg.
Hi Brian,
The problem is that you have more than one pair in a cage. While parakeets can be colony bred, it is mainly only done by for-profit breeders who breed for volume rather than quality and health. The best way to responsibly breed birds is to only have one pair per cage. When you try to colony breed, you have no control over which birds mate. I’m surprised they have only been laying eggs in each other’s boxes and not raiding the boxes to destroy the other hen’s eggs, which more often is what happens. They will even kill each other’s chicks in order to insure that their genetics are passed on instead of their rival’s. Your hens have laid far too many eggs – it is not healthy for them. When left unchecked, birds in captivity will end up laying eggs until they eventually die from the stress to their system. None of these eggs will hatch since they have not been incubated around the clock. You need to remove the nest boxes and force the parents to rest from breeding for at least 6 months. In the wild they would only lay one clutch per year. In captivity, you can allow up to two clutches per year, as long as the parents are rested for several months between clutches. This means removing the nest box as soon as the chicks have left it, or as soon as the eggs are past due. If you plan to keep breeding these birds in the future, you need to separate the pairs so each pair has their own cage. If you keep them all together, I would recommend that you not give them any nest boxes or let them use anything as a nest. If the hens lay eggs, discard the eggs. You need to stop the breeding cycle for now, and you really should stop it permanently unless you plan to give each pair their own cage. If you have kept the previous offspring, you should never let them breed with each other or the parents. You should never allow related birds to breed. The genetics of captive parakeets are already weak due to inbreeding and volume breeding. It’s up to individual owners to prevent further inbreeding from taking place. It causes weak birds, short lifespans and often deformities. Also, if these are English budgies, they should never be colony bred. They have been carefully bred, with only one pair per cage, over generations for quality genes and no longer have any instincts to colony breed. This may be another issue with your birds.
Thank you for asking Lafeber,
Brenda
