Ask Lafeber

Parakeets birds

I have 3 an the female has layed 9 eggs so i took out the males now she wont lay on them. Should i put 1 back or both

Hi Joann,

You have a couple of problems here. It’s not a good idea to have an odd number of birds in the same cage. Even if they were all the same sex, two will tend to bond and one bird gets left out. As for breeding, you can only have one pair of birds in the cage for breeding. And the male must remain with the female because he helps with the eggs & chicks or helps to feed her. If you don’t know which male is her mate, it isn’t a good idea to randomly put one male back, and you definitely can’t put both back. Now that she has eggs, she will be very territorial. She is likely to attack and kill whichever male isn’t her mate. She might do it to either male since you removed both. If you are sure which bird she mated with and is bonded to, put him back and observe them closely. Remove him if she shows any signs of aggression. It is possible the two males are bonded and neither is her mate. Most likely these eggs won’t be good anyway unless she has been sitting on them day and night. If she doesn’t seem to care for either male, I would take the nestbox and eggs away. Do not put the three birds back together. Either get a 4^th bird, or have two together and one by itself. If you get a 4^th bird and have all four together, do not ever give them a nestbox or nest because you can’t let them breed that way. They will end up fighting and could even end up killing each other. Parakeets can live peacefully in a non-breeding group but if nests are introduced, they will get territorial and start fighting.

Thank you for asking Lafeber,

Brenda