Last few nights we all had heard someone or something on our back verandah near where my breeding birds were, yesterday i checked my pairs and one pair who had 5 eggs now had three. i double checked my breeding records and i definitely said this pair had 5 eggs but that's not how many eggs i saw, i saw 3. i spent over an hour looking for discarded eggs or shell or traces of egg on their faces or inside the box but, nothing so the eggs mysteriously had disappeared. it seemed quite odd to me and i didn't want to think that someone had been into my breeding cages but this morning the same thing happened. i went to check the eggs and no longer 3 but 0 eggs in the box. something else alarming had happened for a while before the mysterious egg disappearing happened was the water levels on my breeding cages went empty in a day completely dry. this was happening for a week before the eggs. coincidence, health issues or some one tampering with my birds? to be honest I'm quite concerned.

You have predators..............you need to find out what in a big hurry before you lose birds as well.

Snakes ? Mice ? Rats ? How do your nestboxes open ?

hey kaz, the nest boxes are slide up doors quite heavy to lift.* well no heavy for humans but heavy for an animal

hey kaz, the nest boxes are slide up doors quite heavy to lift.

Drill a hole into the door that a nail or screw can sit in to lock down the door from sliding open. Once you know the entry isnt from the sliding doors, then it narrows it down to access through the cages.

Lock down all doors....again once you know access isnt from those two ways it will narrow down what can or cant be getting at the eggs.

You may have to lay traps, or watch, or put something down to see what footrints or slither marks are going near the cages at night.

 

Werent you going to be putting your breeding cages in your aviary ? The verandah is pretty vulnerable.

Edited May 8, 201015 yr by KAZ

i will be putting breeding cages in the aviary now! my aviary has a lock. i tried putting my breeding cages in the aviary once before but they had fights and many are now missing toes because the other birds would land on top of the cage and peck at the breeding birds, and so the breeding birds in the cage would bite off their toes.

well you can solve that issue with wood over the top of the cage or something else so the birds don't attack each other.

wish you luck in finding out what is going on

Hi l.b.b.,any signs of mouse or rat droppings etc around?

If you heard something was it just birds in a panic? Try sprinkling say flour or talc around cage area to see if you can spot any tracks. If you have solid dry floor that is. Good luck with it, have you got any eggs left?

i will be putting breeding cages in the aviary now! my aviary has a lock. i tried putting my breeding cages in the aviary once before but they had fights and many are now missing toes because the other birds would land on top of the cage and peck at the breeding birds, and so the breeding birds in the cage would bite off their toes.

I dont mean for you to put them in amongst other flying birds...that wont work.

Wouldn't predators leave traces of egg shells, blood ect? We have an automatic light that turns on when it detects movement, would that work?

Snakes eat eggs whole. But they also go for birds.

Snakes could easily access cages. Small snakes may not go for the birds. There are snakes that are just egg eaters. Bigger snakes would eat the birds.

Rats eat eggs and birds. Rats show they have been by leaving bloodied carcasses of the birds.

I am not sure about mice and eggs.

What other wildlife is around that could be doing this ?

I meant for if somebody is actually tampering with the birds. LILBABYBUDGIES, are your breeding cages off the ground? Wouldn't the little snakes attack the birds if they were sitting on the eggs? I doubt one little snake could do that. The take days, weeks to digest one meal. They don't hunt in pairs either. All snakes in Vic are deadly and hunt using their poison, appart from the rare Murray- Darling carpet python ( I think its called that ). I don't think there is a snake problem.

Edited May 8, 201015 yr by Ratzy

were these the eggs that were over due

cause if so

if the eggs were not firtile mum and dad could of eatten them all

what soft food do you give them any veg list all mabe they needed the protin are you feeding boiled eggs hun

 

other wize mice

cant be anything else

but i had a hen eat her chick not traces of it well it was not her chick was foster but due same day as her infitle egg

she eat it

no sighn of it been eatten but i dont have mice as first thing i thought was mice

so sett traps everywhere clean paper ectra to see poo

nothing for two weeks

so

they may of eatten eggs

Probably too cold this time of year in Vic to be a snake. Could be wrong. Hope you find out what happened to your eggs.

Probably too cold this time of year in Vic to be a snake. Could be wrong. Hope you find out what happened to your eggs.

 

 

dont know about for snakes but to bloo ooooody cold for me

Probably too cold this time of year in Vic to be a snake. Could be wrong. Hope you find out what happened to your eggs.

 

 

dont know about for snakes but to bloo ooooody cold for me

Me too! And its not even winter yet

Probably too cold this time of year in Vic to be a snake. Could be wrong. Hope you find out what happened to your eggs.

 

 

dont know about for snakes but to bloo ooooody cold for me

Me too! And its not even winter yet

 

 

lol yeah you got beach wind brrrrrrrrrrrrrr

Hi L.B.B.,

Have you had any more "visitors" to your nests? I hope not but then you'll never know what it was for future ref. Damned if you do, damned if you don't, sort of thing.