Hi everyone,

We recently gave a home to an aviary and associated beautiful budgies following the sad death of the elderly gentleman who owned them. To our great surprise we now have 3 budgies sitting on eggs and find ourselves with so many questions about what to do and no decent book at the local library with sufficient information to help us, so to begin with. One hen hatched 2 eggs a week ago and there are 4 unhatched eggs still in the nest. Should we remove them or are they still likely to hatch? Also another hen has been sitting on 5 eggs for over 3 weeks . How long should we let he sit on them before we can assume that they will not hatch?

Looking forward to hearing your answers

That is very nice that you fostered the mans aviary and birds.

A hen will incubate an egg for 18 days but that is normally starting after she lays the second egg but some sit straight away.

The eggs that are fertile turn a pearly white colour and when the eggs are infertile they stay a pinky clear colour

That is very nice that you fostered the mans aviary and birds.

A hen will incubate an egg for 18 days but that is normally starting after she lays the second egg but some sit straight away.

The eggs that are fertile turn a pearly white colour and when the eggs are infertile they stay a pinky clear colour

 

Thank you for replying so promptly. SO do you think I should remove the unhatched eggs from the nest or could the bird have laid a second clutch after the first 2 eggs and they may hatch still?

From here I can't really say if your eggs are fertile or not, but usually chicks will hatch every other day. So for the hen with two chicks and four remaining eggs, figure that it would take 8 days for those four to hatch. You said it's been one week, so in theory, you still have one more day for the last one. Plus you could add on a few days to wait, just in case, since they don't always develop exactly on schedule. But a gap of a week sounds like at least three of those chicks didn't make it, if they were even fertile to begin with. And if three didn't make it, I wouldn't hold out much hope for the fourth.

 

You asked if those four could have been the hen starting a second round, so they might be "younger" eggs. You don't mention if the chicks that hatched are still living. If they are alive, and she is feeding them, then I think it's very unlikely that she would have started a second round this soon. But if the two chicks died, then yeah, maybe she decided to start over.

 

For your other hen, how much longer than three weeks has it been? Because normal incubation is 18 to 21 days, from the time the hen starts sitting, which like Splat said, isn't always from the first egg. A lot of times it's from the second or third egg. So three weeks would be just about right for them to start hatching, and again, two days between hatches, so it could take ten more days for the last egg.

 

Do you have a small torch you could reach back behind the eggs and shine it through them, towards you? If the eggs look completely dark and solid, then you know that a chick is in there, although you don't know whether it is still alive or not. If you just see a clear yellow glow, it is an infertile egg, or one that has not been incubated long enough yet for blood vessels to appear. Once the blood vessels appear, you can sometimes see them, and also the glow of the egg will take on a pink/orange hue, until the chick grows so big that it makes the egg just look solid.

 

If your library doesn't have any good information on breeding budgies, then you have come to the right place! Look through our Budgied FAQs section, especially the articles on breeding. Also, search the forum for "colony breeding" and you will come up with a lot of threads where people have found out the hard way about the pitfalls that come with it. (Cabinet breeding is safer for your birds.)

 

Oh, and by the way, Welcome to the Forum!

From here I can't really say if your eggs are fertile or not, but usually chicks will hatch every other day. So for the hen with two chicks and four remaining eggs, figure that it would take 8 days for those four to hatch. You said it's been one week, so in theory, you still have one more day for the last one. Plus you could add on a few days to wait, just in case, since they don't always develop exactly on schedule. But a gap of a week sounds like at least three of those chicks didn't make it, if they were even fertile to begin with. And if three didn't make it, I wouldn't hold out much hope for the fourth.

 

You asked if those four could have been the hen starting a second round, so they might be "younger" eggs. You don't mention if the chicks that hatched are still living. If they are alive, and she is feeding them, then I think it's very unlikely that she would have started a second round this soon. But if the two chicks died, then yeah, maybe she decided to start over.

 

For your other hen, how much longer than three weeks has it been? Because normal incubation is 18 to 21 days, from the time the hen starts sitting, which like Splat said, isn't always from the first egg. A lot of times it's from the second or third egg. So three weeks would be just about right for them to start hatching, and again, two days between hatches, so it could take ten more days for the last egg.

 

Do you have a small torch you could reach back behind the eggs and shine it through them, towards you? If the eggs look completely dark and solid, then you know that a chick is in there, although you don't know whether it is still alive or not. If you just see a clear yellow glow, it is an infertile egg, or one that has not been incubated long enough yet for blood vessels to appear. Once the blood vessels appear, you can sometimes see them, and also the glow of the egg will take on a pink/orange hue, until the chick grows so big that it makes the egg just look solid.

 

If your library doesn't have any good information on breeding budgies, then you have come to the right place! Look through our Budgied FAQs section, especially the articles on breeding. Also, search the forum for "colony breeding" and you will come up with a lot of threads where people have found out the hard way about the pitfalls that come with it. (Cabinet breeding is safer for your birds.)

 

Oh, and by the way, Welcome to the Forum!

 

Thank you for your help. THe first two babies seem to be thriving still no more hatched eggs this morning. It was too cold to inspect boxes tonight but will inspect with torches once the weather warms up again.....And.... will study the FAQ section.