Ask Lafeber

Cn a Female Budgie Take Care of Her Fertile Eggs Solely by Herself?

My male budgie escaped from the cage( no one in the household was present to control the situation) and left his female after she laid four eggs for the first time after about two weeks. He cared for her all the time even after she laid the eggs. He fed her by the nest box and spent time together in it with the eggs. They nibbled each other, and everything was good. However today, I found out that the male budgie is missing, and this is the 3-4 day. I don’t like opening their nest often to avoid disrupting their feeling of safety. I started to be suspicious when I found that the food consumption was lower than usual, and didn’t see the male budgie get out of the nest, nor the female so I thought they might be focusing on the eggs. On the third or fourth day, I checked the box because the female budgie peeked her head out of the nest box and got out of it often when I was around. Today, I confirmed that the male budgie is missing, and the female budgie is there to take the whole responsibility. Are female budgies able to take this role as a single parent or should I let a new male budgie join her? What can I do to help her?

Hi,

Putting another male in the cage would be the worst thing you could do. The female would most likely kill him in order to protect her eggs. If she doesn’t kill him, he might kill her or go in the box and destroy the eggs. Budgies need time to bond before they even consider breeding. And they choose their own mate in the wild, so they do not always like the mate we give them. If you do get another male for her later on, there is no guarantee she will accept him or he will accept her.

Unfortunately there isn’t much you can do to help her. Since this was their first clutch, she may end up abandoning the eggs without the male to help. The eggs may not even be fertile, and that would be the best scenario. If the eggs hatch, she is going to have a hard time caring for them. But they are almost impossible to keep alive if you try to hand feed them from day 1. All you can do is wait and see if she keeps sitting on them and if they hatch, unless you are willing to discard them now. She needs a lot of food available to feed chicks. If you are only feeding seeds, this is not adequate for nutrition, so things may not go well. She should be on a nutritionally balanced diet like pellets, with leafy greens, chopped veggies and a small amount of fruit. You should also already be offering her an egg food along with these other foods. This can be a commercial dry egg food or you can cook an egg with the shell washed, crushed and cooked with the egg. Breeding birds usually will eat foods they never would eat before. If chicks hatch, and if she feeds them, you will need to give her more food several times a day. She will go through a LOT of food. If she doesn’t have enough, she will let the chicks die. Whether the eggs hatch or not, you need to remove the nest box as soon as the chicks have left it, or if she abandons these eggs. She will not need another nest box unless you get her a male, and only if they get along and bond as a pair.

Thank you for asking Lafeber,

Brenda