No more eggs please!

[Biggles]

Not sure if this should go in the breeding or health topic!

I have a pair who have raised one set of 3 chicks last year and then a further chick this year.

If I separate them Mum pines, refuses to eat and is generally very miserable. 

If they're in together, then she starts laying eggs. I've tried all the suggestions on here, about stressing her out. There's nowhere to lay them so she lays on the floor of the cage. She hadn't laid for a bit, so I hoped she was over it but today I found two eggs! One first thing this morning, and other this evening. I don't think it's any of the others laying.

Any suggestions? 

[Hezz]

Do you have more than just the one pair? If so, then putting everyone in together may be the stimulation needed to break the cycle, or if that isn’t an option, perhaps swapping her in with someone else, not her current mate. Moving her out of her “laying cage”, her familiar place, should work and changing cage layout if this is a cage that she knows of old - run perches the opposite way, move where food and water pots are, toys she’s never seen before.

How long have you left her apart from her mate? You may need to harden up and let her stress for a bit longer. Also move the cages around in the house, don’t keep them in the same room, really mix up everything you can possibly think of, and do so every day so that she can’t be sure what the day will bring. If you follow all that and still she lays, you may have to resort to getting her a hormone injection. That is an absolute last resort and should really only be done once.