Is it normal when you have 3 pairs of parakeets and one female chooses to breed and lay eggs, that the other two females keep destroying her eggs. I’m a first time birds parents so this is odd behavior to me
Hi Shelly,
This is actually very expected and normal behavior if you are trying to breed them and have more than one pair in the cage, or other budgies have access to the breeding pair. Other hens will also kill the chicks of another hen. You can only have one pair in a cage for breeding. Breeding birds are very territorial. Budgies can be particularly vicious. In the wild, even in a situation where a flock stays closer together during breeding season, each pair has their own territory and any birds that venture too close to the nest will be chased off, or killed if they don’t leave. While some volume breeders may breed budgies in a large flight with multiple pairs, what they don’t tell you is that nests do get raided, some budgies die, and a lot of inbreeding goes on – this is when related birds breed. Your other hens are very fortunate that the breeding hen hasn’t killed them – yet. You have two options – remove the nests and do not allow breeding, or separate the breeding pair to their own cage. A breeding pair also needs privacy, and many pairs will not breed if they can see other birds. Some pairs won’t breed if they can hear other budgies.
If you decide not to try breeding anymore, and want all of the birds to remain together, you can’t give them anything they might use as a nest. Even a large food dish can be claimed as a nest. Always have multiple small cups for food, no bird huts or tents, no boxes – nothing they can get inside of or sit in. If a hen does choose a spot on the cage floor to try to nest, put something there to prevent this – hang some toys there, or do whatever is necessary to prevent a hen from nesting on the cage floor.
As for the pair, if you decide to try to breed them, separate them to their own cage, not too close to the other birds. Do not give them the nest box yet. It’s not healthy for a female to lay eggs over and over. I don’t know how many clutches this poor hen has laid that were raided by the others, but she needs to rest for at least 6 months to rebuild her reserves. Each egg takes protein and calcium from her system, and then takes a lot of effort from her to move through the reproductive tract before she finally lays the egg. While she may not show signs of it, this is still a form of labor. Except it happens every 48 hours, for each egg. In the wild, they only breed during breeding season, once a year. The rest of the year they do not nest or use nests. You should remove the nest box after each clutch of eggs – whether they hatch or not – and rest the pair for 6 months before returning the box. She may or may not incubate eggs at this point. She is accustomed to having her eggs destroyed, and in a way, this can cause her to have developed the habit to not sit on the eggs. All you can do is separate the pairs and let them try again in 6 months. Meanwhile, they and your other budgies need to be eating a nutritionally balanced diet like pellets or our foraging diets. A seed mix does not provide the nutrition they need. Also offer leafy greens, chopped veggies and some fruit. When you give them the nestbox again, feed the breeding pair an egg food daily. This can be a commercial dry egg food, or you can cook an egg with the shell washed, crushed and cooked with the egg. You feed egg food along with the other foods daily until any chicks have been weaned. Even if the parents have not eaten fresh foods in the past, you will find they eat just about anything while raising chicks. They go through a lot of food, and it needs to be replenished throughout the day once they have chicks to feed. If they don’t feel they have enough food, they will abandon the chicks and let them die. I’ll give you a link with more ideas about what to feed them.
Thank you for asking Lafeber,
Brenda
