Extremely prolific layer!

[Biggles]

We have a hen who lays eggs all the time and has done for a few months.

So far I have tried:
Moving things around in the cage daily
Changing her between cages every couple of days
Putting her on her own
Putting her with lots of budgies but not her partner
Replacing with plastic eggs
Removing the eggs and not replacing them.
Only plain seed for food (plus cuttlefish etc obviously)
Giving her fresh food (she's not very keen on it!)
Having her out of the cage most of the time 
Having her in the cage most of the time.
Having the cage in a darker corner and keeping a cover on 12-16 hours a day.

She still lays. She lays about 9-12 eggs at a go. If there's no nesting box she will lay them in the corner of the cage and defend it vigorously.
If I let her sit, then she sits on them until about day 16-17 (from the first) when she becomes bored, leaves them and within a day starts laying again.

She is still lively (doesn't fly much but never has-she's missing some flight feathers) and cheerful as long as you don't touch the eggs. She's literally laying eggs every couple of days with hardly a break (no pun intended). She even laid two on one day at one point!

Any more suggestions?

[Hezz]

Does she have a mate?
How long have you tried each of the above changes for? Have you implemented all the changes at once and for a sustained period of time?

It seems that you have one of two choices. Either let her raise a clutch which may just get that need to breed out of her system, or take her to the vet for a hormone injection. I’m not keen on the second option and most vets will use it only as a last resort, but this is all going to take its toll on her health, probably sooner rather than later. Unfortunately a few months is long enough for this to become a chronic habit and breaking her out of it is going to be difficult.

[Biggles]

I've tried various combinations of the above strategies and for over a week in each time. She just continues to lay, with possibly a break of 3-4 days at best.

She has a mate, and they do adore each other, but separating them makes no difference to her laying.

She's not sitting on the eggs long enough for hatching them, so I can't let her raise a clutch as she gives up on them just before they would start to hatch and starts laying again.

I'll ask the vet about the hormone injection, but I suspect they won't be keen. I didn't know about that as an option.

Thanks.

[Hezz]

It is very possible that she isn’t giving the eggs her full attention as you have been removing them, plus not having a proper nest to lay them in. I really think you have to go one route or the other - give her the chance to raise a clutch, lots of calcium beforehand of course, or put all changes in place and leave them in place for at least a month. You can change her cage and furniture around as often as you like but separate her, different room, completely on her own, covered up at five o’clock, no favourite treats or toys, no birdy visitors etc, limit her seed feeding, you may have to get some maintenance pellets to act as a filler, plus all the greens that she doesn’t like with the exception of a small amount that she does. You don’t want her to starve but you do need her to realise that the time of plenty has passed and she needs to concentrate on survival not procreation.

If you are able to get her the hormone injection you will only get one chance to get it right, most vets will not do it twice for budgies. So you will need to go through all the habit-breakers in full when(if) she does get the injection, to make sure you give her the est chance possible.

[Biggles]

Two of the current clutch (of 12 eggs!!!) have hatched and she's a very proud Mum. I've removed 2 more eggs as they had cracks in the shell and weren't developing at all, and moved them into a breeding cage. The other eggs I'm not sure which ones are old enough to be certain they're not developing, so I've left them for now. One of the others definitely looks like there's a live chick in there too.
She's happily feeding them, so we'll see if raising a brood helps. I'll move her away from all males as soon as she can be moved away from the chicks and hope that settles her.

[Hezz]

Very good; fingers crossed that having her own little family to dote on is what she has been missing.

[Biggles]

She's had three babies, and has been very busy, but today started nesting again, so I've moved her into another cage with the old men. She's not too impressed and is shouting for her mate. The old men are not too impressed by her either! They've put their heads under their wings and fluffed up in protest.
I think it's the best place for her though.

However we have 3 very cute babies:

This is the oldest and a real cuddly one. It wants to be held as much as possible, and makes a beeline for any hand. It loves going round places and looking at things.




This is the middle one. The picture shows it much darker than it is. The dark patches are light enough to be beige. It's a bit nervous of people, but the best flier.



The third one looks like the first but smaller, and doesn't really like coming out of the cage so I haven't got a good picture yet.

[tweetiepiesmom]

Fingers crossed that mum settles down from the egg laying. The babies are very cute!

[Hezz]

You certainly got some beauties there. No wonder mum wanted to have some babies … she knew how beautiful they were going to be.

[Biggles]

Update:
We got no more eggs last year but unfortunately she's started laying again.


So she's in a cage with one other budgie who is at least 14yo (his friend-they were both male, died last year) and shows no interest at all in her. She's tried but he literally turns his back on her and walks away if she even tries to groom him.

Anyway yesterday I noticed she was sitting on the floor in the corner of the cage yesterday. I picked her up to check and I couldn't find anything wrong, but thought she seemed very quiet, and when I put her back thought she might have hurt her foot because she was holding it up a little oddly.
Anyway today she looked fine... until I came back this evening and found her again in the corner of the cage, and when I went to pick her up she's laid yet another egg.

There is nothing in her cage she can use as a nest (hence being on the floor). They only have normal seed (the older one won't touch anything else) plus cuttlebone/iodine block, the room is only light in day hours and when the curtains are open (so about 9am-4pm currently). The
I can't imagine the egg is fertilised, but I think I'm going to have to try and find a vet who will give her an injection, poor thing.

[Hezz]

She definitely is persistent. I do hope you are able to find a way to stop her without the injection but I’m afraid you have all the ideas that I’ve come across. Good luck either way.

[Biggles]

Managed to (probably temporarily) halt her after 4 eggs, by putting a supply of coriander (which she loves) the other side of the cage and moving it about regularly. She gave up on the eggs quite quickly. I suspect finding that she wasn't being fed by the other one helped.
I am changing everything round in the cage daily, which is a bit unfair on the other one, who thinks after 14 years he deserves peace and quiet and no changes (he regards anything new with suspicion for a very long time) but so far is working.

[Nonna's Zoo]

Feb 15, 2023 18:14:07 GMT Biggles said:

Managed to (probably temporarily) halt her after 4 eggs, by putting a supply of coriander (which she loves) the other side of the cage and moving it about regularly. She gave up on the eggs quite quickly. I suspect finding that she wasn't being fed by the other one helped.
I am changing everything round in the cage daily, which is a bit unfair on the other one, who thinks after 14 years he deserves peace and quiet and no changes (he regards anything new with suspicion for a very long time) but so far is working.

I'm new at this, can you explain what it is about the coriander that you think has helped? My Budgie laid 9 eggs in December. 3 hatched and they are 6 weeks old now. She has laid 7 eggs in the last 2 weeks. I've removed the nest, so she sits on her perch and they drop to the bottom of the cage and break. They have 14 hours of dark. I am putting food in the cage twice a day and removing it (trying to make food seem scarce) but it's not working. I don't know if separating her from her mate is possible. My other cage has the 3 chicks in it (they are fully weaned). I don't feel comfortable putting her or her mate in with the chicks.

[Hezz]

Probably not so much the coriander itself but more the moving of it from its usual hanging place. It is something you can try with your hen - rearrange the whole of the cage furniture: perches, run them in a different direction, new ones if need be; if she has a favourite toy, remove it; consider different food dishes and water containers. Do all this on a regular basis, every few days. No fruit or anything sweet, not even corn, no millet or treats. Change the room around as well if possible, get another cage to put her into for odd times during the day. Don’t leave anything in the usual place and don’t leave them there long enough for her to become used to the new position. You may have to move her from her partner, put her in a different room even. If she continues to lay you may want to consider a hormone implant, but that is a last resort. Talk to your vet as progress may have been made since I had to go this route with one of mine. At the time I was told that budgies should only go through this once, twice as a very last resort.