Ask Lafeber

My budgie laid 1 egg and didnt lay anymore and i dont know which budgie laid an egg i have 8 budgies but dont know which one.

my budgie laid 1 egg but i dont know which one. How am i supposed to know which one laid it. i have 8 budgies and 4 of them are girls so i dont know which one laid it. and if i provide a cardboard nesting box for that budgie will they go inside? The first egg they laid was broken on the cage floor because i think she just dropped it and i didnt know a budgie was going to lay an egg. so please help me thank you

Hi,

When you have a cage with more than one pair in it, you can’t let them breed. You are going to find an egg from time to time. For breeding, you can only have one pair per cage. Breeding budgies will get very territorial. If you added a nest box, you would soon have a bloodbath with budgies fighting each other and trying to claim the nest as theirs.

No, you cannot give them a cardboard box for a nest. They will tear it apart, while they tear each other apart. Budgies use a wooden nest box and it has to be fairly large. It needs to attach to the outside of the cage, as high as possible. But again, you can’t breed them with 8 birds in a cage, so it doesn’t matter which hen laid the egg unless you are planning to get another cage and move her and her mate into it. However, with 8 birds in one cage, they may not have any real bonds. She may not have even mated with any of the males – she does not need to have a male to lay eggs, but of course the eggs wouldn’t be fertile if she hasn’t mated. It is also possible that she has laid more eggs and they ate the eggs. This is something else that happens when you have more than 2 birds in a cage and eggs are laid. Budgies will raid each other’s nests, eat or destroy the eggs or even kill any chicks that might have hatched. So again, you have to separate them into 4 cages if you want to breed them.

There are a few things to be aware of. Do not put anything in the cage that they can sit in or they will try to nest. No bird huts or tents, no boxes, no baskets – nothing they can lay eggs in. If more eggs are laid, throw the eggs away. If they start laying eggs in a food bowl, take the bowl out and replace it with smaller cups. A cage of budgies is very entertaining and much more fun than breeding. When you breed birds, they need privacy so you can’t be in the same room with them except for feeding and cleaning. Have fun with your birds and don’t try to breed them. Make sure they have fun toys and swings and they will provide endless entertainment.

Thank you for asking Lafeber,

Brenda