I have a pair of budgies that just won't quit. I bred this pair for the first time this spring. The first clutch of eggs laid were all infertile. The next time around, she laid 6 eggs, all hatched, but only the first two survived (I don't think she fed the rest). The next clutch was 7 eggs, of which 5 hatched and all 5 are beautiful healthy birds. It was my intention to rest this hen following this clutch, but she started laying before all the chicks were out of the nest.

 

I removed the nest and put the hen in a cage by herself for two weeks as soon as all the chicks had left the nest (I left daddy in with the chicks). She continued to lay two or three more eggs after I moved her (on the bottom of the cage since she had no box). The eggs laid before I took her out of the box and the eggs laid in the bottom of the cage have all been fostered and everything is going fine there.

 

After a couple of weeks of "rest" in her solitary cage, Minnie (the continual breeding hen) was getting out of her cage daily and I kept finding her on the side of the aviary. I figured she was lonely and put her back in with her mate, their babies, and the recently independent babies of another pair (the foster parents that are now in a seperate cage attending to Minnies eggs as well as their own).

 

The return to the aviary was 2 weeks ago and she hadn't laid any eggs for about 10 days prior to that. There's no breeding box in the aviary so I figured the couple would be done until next year. Today, I find that Minnie laid an egg on the floor of the avairy. It can only be her since there are only the two sexually mature birds in there right now. She's laid 4 sets of eggs and raised two clutches of babies, so I really don't think I should give her back a breeding box just because she's laying eggs again.

 

WHAT DO I DO?

 

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

 

PS -- the other couple currently has 5 chicks and 8 eggs in nest (theirs and the fostered eggs), so I can't possibly foster any more eggs (I only have the four mature birds and then the ones born this year)

I have a hen like this and i cant seem to stop her.. removing the eggs doesn't help as they will just lay more so what i've done at the moment is actually boil her eggs.. Its stopping her from laying more if i was to remove them and she is quite happy to sit on them for now although i'm not sure what will happen when she realizes that they are infertile.. You could also remove her from the other birds for a while and see if that stops her.

Hopefully someone else will have some good ideas to share

Oh dear, at least I am not the only one but that doesn't make it any better for you and I am not a breeder. All you can do is physically separate them and hope for the best (didn't work for me but hopefully it will for you). My pair bred 2 healthy clutches from the cage floor. (as advised by a budgie breeder to get it out of their system but that didn't work). Both of the birds were rescues and I finally had to put the female back in an avian rescue with the guarantee she be adopted into a single bird home as she would lay eggs almost 365 days a year and Luprin injections didn't last very long. Hopefully if you separate them they can get interested in other budgies and stop this egg thing, you have my empathy. I have another female rescue that loves to lay eggs (and destroy or eat them) and I don't know what to do with her either. Good luck to you, it is a very complicated and strange situation and the presence or lack there of nesting boxes didn't make a difference at all in my case. You could also try fake eggs as suggested by Una, they didn't work for me but I had lovebirds that decided to start laying without a nest box and they were readily fooled.

My hen isn't sitting on the eggs, so I don't see that boiling will help. She's just leaving them on the floor of the aviary, not even together (she laid the 3rd today). Perhaps seperating her again, for longer, is the key. Maybe i'll put several of the young birds in a cage with her and see if that keeps her from playing the great escape routine. She even figured out how to untwist bag ties I put on the cage doors. Thanks for your help.