Cookie laid eggs!!

[mona]

It has been pretty hectic! I've been working from home. Few days back, Cookie started laying eggs on the cage base 🤦‍♀️ Berry kept breaking her eggs.. I had no clue what to do...

Finally I have let her lay and added a nest box for her existing eggs. I hadn't been prepared so I had nothing related to nest boxes or bedding.. If the birdie babies grow up well, I'll give away to my mom. I can't trust anyone else unless very sure about the birdie setup and knowledge they have.

I don't want 2nd clutch at all.. I've some fake eggs coming in, but delivery has been delayed by 2 weeks due to christmas.. I couldn't shake/freeze/boil her current eggs, even though it's not yet living, it felt like killing them...

She has laid 6 eggs. She had mineral block and cuttlefish all the time with her. Maybe I missed some signals from her about egg laying, esp the poop & aggressive shredding.. there was nothing in there to lay eggs.. 🤦‍♀️

When can I separate them again after babies hatch? How much food do I have to reduce apart from cutting off mineral and calcium intake.. Can I put cookie in milli Reva's cage? They are babies yet, so just wondering if I should just separate her in a spare cage instead..

If they lay egg once, will they lay eggs always? I cannot afford to keep many birdies at home, plus egg binding always scares me to death due to non availability of vet..

[blueelephant]

mona this all sounds rather stressful! I wish I had something useful to suggest for you. Is Berry, the bird that is breaking the eggs the likely father? Is cookie sitting on the eggs now she has a nest box?

I hope someone with some more experience of breeding can step in and advise!

[tweetiepiesmom]

Firstly, it good to hear from you mona. Sorry to hear Cookie has decided to lay. From everything I've read they can be determined when they start to lay. I would not remove the mineral block. She needs the minerals to make the eggs and if she doesn't get it from the block, she may become mineral deficient. I don't have any real experience to help you out. My little Buddy was part of a clutch of 9 eggs. Only 4 hatched, two of which only survived for 4 days. Only Buddy and his brother Wiggles survived to grow up. Although you may have many eggs, you may not get many baby birds.

Good luck and hopefully experienced people will give you good advice.

[Hezz]

If Cookie is sitting on the eggs, leave Berry in with her (I assume Berry is male??) until either you have chicks or you know you are not going to get chicks. If the eggs don’t hatch, then you don’t need to worry about extra birds, but if the eggs are fertile and you end up with a clutch, leave both birds in with the chicks, unless Cookie starts to attack her chicks. If that happens take her out and leave Berry to do the chick raising. I certainly wouldn’t put Cookie in with any other birds now, or at all while she is broody.

[mona]

None of the eggs hatched. I had to put a nest box for sometime. When none of eggs hatched, I had to let her sit there for a few more days.. post which I took out nest box and her eggs. I didn't know what to do with the eggs for quite a while.. kept that for a couple of weeks with me and finally threw it away. All were infertile.

Surprisingly she went back to normal and didn't look for her eggs as well. Removed cuttlefish, calcium block and reduced her diet. That all helped.. thank you!