Ihave a 1.5 female cockatiel and 1 year male.
They are ok friends only i assume. Later my female layed eggs at the bottom of the cage today i add 4dummy eggs to the ones she layed . I don’t want her to lay more she is young . Since i added the other 4 dummy eggs she goes down try to collect them to sit on them and then leave them. I am not sure if she will lay tomorrow she does every other day. What do i do now.
Hi,
There is no strong evidence that letting her sit on the eggs or giving her fake eggs will discourage more nesting. It can possibly encourage more eggs. What tends to work better is to take all of the eggs away, and make some changes to discourage egg laying. If she continues, then you may have to take her to an Avian Vet for a hormone implant. If you don’t stop her from laying too any eggs, she will end up dying, regardless of her age. It’s the toll that forming and laying eggs takes on her system that will end up killing her, because they aren’t intended to lay eggs more than once a year.
You need to do all of these things to discourage egg laying. Keep in mind that to lay eggs, she needs longer daylight, warmer weather, abundant food, and a quiet, private environment. Your 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.
When 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 handle her, limit any petting to only her head and neck – do not pet her 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
