okay, she laid her first egg on the first of February and we still have no action egg wise! but now she is spending very little almost none at all, time on or with her eggs, she comes out of the nest box and sits with the male budgie and still asks him to feed her, however we do have a heat lamp shining on the nestbox to help keep them warm whilst shes not on them.

another thing is, about a week ago, if we went near the cage when she wasn't in the nestbox she would fly straight back over and get in the box but now we can go up to the box and even look in it and shes not bothered at all by us being there, but our main concern is the eggs themselves, when we looked in, they all looked like they were holo and empty,also, shes pooed on them and there very dirty, were concerned that the eggs may not have birds in them in which case what do we do,

We need help!

Thanks,

Sue and Nicola

Well it is not unusual for the mother to stop covering the eggs for longer periods nearer the time they might hatch. She comes out and has a bit more of a stretch. But even if the box is warm - only for a few minutes.

 

Is she still rolling and re-ordering the eggs in the nest - if not then maybe she has decided they are duds.

 

Have you tried "candeling" the eggs to see if they are - in fact - developing. Hold an egg up to a light and see if veins or other mass is discernable to show the eggs are developing? Despite legend - this will not put the hen off sitting - in fact if she gets noisy and defensive about your actions this is a sign she might want to protect them still.

 

Are you sure it is poop all over the eggs - maybe she is a messy housekeeper but most hens come out for one or two giant daily poops while the **** feeds them. Perhaps the eggs have started to blacken from the inside? A sign of rotting eggs and this might account for her behaviour.

 

I guess you will know in the next few days - she can't have laid them all on the first so hang on in there AT LEAST another week. I've seen eggs hatch as late as 24 days after they appeared to get laid.

 

Hang on in there.

i have found this out with my birds.misty? or the others destroyed her first clutch of eggs.i was upset but then this happened to daisys eggs aswell,so it could be normal behaviour as graeme said.let us know how things are progressing .mistymoo

Yes wanna hear something sad my bird had to lay 15 eggs until 1 finally came out she had 3 clutched she ate the first 2 and the last one 1 bird came out. Maybe you male just doesn't know how to shoot the "little swimmers" you know what Im talkig about and thats why they are infertile just like mine...

Still no results with the eggs but she has been in the nest box and turned them so maybe theres still hope thanks for all the info and help we will let you know what happens

Sue & Nicola :bluebudgie:

Yes there is maybe a 35 percent chance but I have doubts that they are all infertile don't worrya clutch will come where they are fertile!

35% what do you base this on ?

hehe ou know what maybe i should stop basing everythig on percent hehe sry hath ya...ill be quiet...

Hi Imotive,

PLEASE be careful with your shortcuts.

Julie :bluebudgie:

Again i forgot its just that sorry for me is the most used shortcut its a bad habit...

We removed the nestbox from the cage to candle the eggs, she made no fuss about it, however he did! We have candled all the egss and found that 2 are empty, well they are almmost see thrpugh and you can see the yolk moving if you turn the egg around so we have taken these out of the box, the other two are more tricky, one you cant see through at all so we have assumed that this has a chick in it and so left it in the box, the other is half see through and half not, does this mean the chick is still developing or is the darkness of it a rotten egg so only being half full? none the less we have put this one back in the box too.

We have reattatched the nestbox and she has quite happily gone back and sat on the two remaining eggs, just now the problem is we dont have a due date for the 2 eggs!!!

Sue and Nicola

Well itsnow the 25th and still none of the eggs have hatched yet she is still sitting on thm what do you suggest we do?from our calculations, the last of the four eggs she laid should have hatched last Thursday so maybe even though the eggs dont look empty (you cant see through them) maybe there just not fertile?

Sue and Nicola

Well if it is the first time for the parents then they are usually infertile becasue the male doesn't know how to spray his half of the dna code...don't be discouraged!

thye could be dead in shell if you are sure they have gone to long i always break my eggs to see how far tha chick developed

U do that once my hand accidently crushed a 37 day old egg....that was rotten OMG it smells ahhh!

Any news Sue?

Imotive, again with the shortcuts, naught naughty

You make me feel so bad weep weep sorry about it though seriously!

I have heard if you remove some feathers on the back of the female it can make things easier for the male.

I use a torch to look thru the eggs to see if they are fertile.

One method is to mark each egg with a none toxic marker numbered one to what ever.

When you notice the first eggs keep a record of the date.

Most eggs take 21 days to hatch and most chicks are 2 days apart but sometimes you can get up to a week in between eggs.

Don?t be discouraged by the failed nest of the birds just try again and if it fails just get a new male.

So let Mother Nature take its corse as there is not much else you can do.

I have the same problem with one of my hens this i think is the second time she's done it she's never sucessfully bred before she was in the box for a long time and lately she's been coming out alot more often and still gets fed by the male but the eggs were layed about 4 weeks ago but sometimes she will still be in the same breeding box and one of the eggs have turned grey.

Edited March 16, 200520 yr by Ben H

 

I think the bird will come out and abandon the nest her self birds seam to know when all is lost

Like I said its best to mark down when the first egg was laid and so on.

It takes a lot of the guess work out of it

But don?t be disheartened just keep on trying.