Pineapple Conure babies help

I have a breeding pair of Pineapple Conures from a bird rescue. Had them for about 2 years, and now they are breeding.

She laid some eggs, then ate them, so now I have vitamins in their water and Kaytee Exact Parrot and Conure food, mixed with some cockatiel seed, as they don't seem to eat the good food.

The last 4 eggs she laid, 2 hatched, but the babies died within 2 days. Now there are 4 more eggs, and I don't want the babies to die.

The most I have done is hatch chicken eggs in an incubator, as a kid.

Any advice would be great.

My advise is to take out the nestbox you may have in there and discourage them from breeding. Most bird rescues don't allow breeding of their bids, as they could have diseases or be related. Do you know for sure they are not related? Have they seen an avian vet?

Breeding can be a heartbreaking process, as you have already discovered. The birds may not be incubating the babies properly, not feeding them, plucking them, or simply aren't wired to be good parents. In that case, breeders will either pull eggs to incubate until hatching (which means handfeeding every 2 hours for a week, I hope you don't have work) or find a new mate for these birds. And then at that point of hatching they need a brooder -- a temperature and humidity controlled environment if they are to live under your care. On top of that, hand feeding formula must be the exact perfect temperature, too hot could burn the babies, too cold could also kill them, wrong consistency could very easily, too.

There is just so much that can go wrong when breeding, and usually unless you have all the proper equipment and some experience, it is not recommended. Especially since they are from a bird rescue you probably should not let them have babies anyway.

like said above don't let them breed. You can get yourself easily into a long and expensive legal venture. I don't know of any rescue which allows people to breed their birds, remember when adopting they are not legally speaking your pets, they are in your care in your home on behalf of the rescue.

Outside of that yes it is a dangerous and expensive venture, most breeders struggle greatly to not make a loss when they breed birds

they were sold to me as a breeding pair and have bred prior to being in my care.

How do I keep them from breeding? I don't have a box or anything in the cage, she is just laying the eggs on the floor of the cage.

Yeah, you don't want them to breed if the babies are dying within the first few days, this most likely means that mom and dad are not feeding them appropriately, or at all, or they are harming them or killing them. The fact that she ate her first entire clutch since you got them is a bad sign too. You have no experience in hand-raising/feeding baby birds, let alone from 1 day old, which is extremely difficult and not for anyone who hasn't been trained by a mentor and who doesn't have any experience. It's hard enough from 2 or 3 weeks old, the time that most breeders pull the babies from the nest boxes. But if you have to remove day-old babies and hand-raise/feed them without any experience, they are most likely going to die anyway, one way or another. It's extremely easy to aspirate the hand-feeding formula into the lungs of a day or so old baby, and when this happens they die instantly, literally instantly. You also have to feed the babies once every 2 hours for the first two weeks, AND THIS INCLUDES EVERY 2 HOURS THROUGHOUT EVERY NIGHT, OR THEY'LL DIE. Then at 2 weeks it's once every 3-4 hours including throughout the night. ONLY AT 4 WEEKS CAN YOU GO TO FEEDING THEM ONCE EVERY 4-5 HOURS, AND CAN THEY GO FOR 6 HOURS OVERNIGHT. It's exhausting and difficult, and heartbreaking.

Usually when a successful breeding pair starts eating their eggs and having newly hatched babies die quickly, it's a sign that they don't want to breed anymore, or something is wrong and they shouldn't be breeding anymore. or MORE THAN LIKELY THE BREEDING PAIR IS TOO OLD TO BREED, OR HAS HAD A PAST HISTORY JUST LIKE THIS AND THEY WERE NEVER A GOOD, RELIABLE BREEDING PAIR, AND YOU WERE LIED TO, THAT'S PRETTY COMMON TOO.

And if you're not using a nest box and don't know the basics, then you shouldn't be breeding birds at all, period.

Have you seen them mating recently? Have you been candling the eggs to see if they are fertile? First of all, you can replace the eggs she lays with plastic eggs immediately, and put the newly laid eggs in the freezer overnight to ensure they are dead, then pitch them. Keeping plastic eggs where she laid the real ones should stop her from laying anymore. You need to shorten their days and lengthen their nights by adjusting their light, and this will help to stop them from mating and stop her from laying more eggs. So putting them in a room that you can control the sunlight/light in is very important.

A lot of breeders will sell "breeding pairs" when in fact it's two males, two females, or two birds who may breed but can't raise offspring or perhaps have no interest in each other.

Even if they were sold or adopted out as a breeding pair, most rescues do not want their birds they've adopted out to breed as that could end up putting more birds into their care that they then need to find homes for. Not to say that they'd go from you to the rescue, but someone could end up with one of the chicks, then abandons or neglect the chick, and the chick makes it's way to the rescue.


The best way to prevent breeding is to figure out what the triggers are to them breeding and remove them. What is she using as a nest? Nesting material? What is her cage? Diet? How many hours of light does the pair get? What is the quality of light?

These are some things to take into consideration.