Help with Indian Ring neck babies

Hi guys
So I have two Indian Ring necks whom we've had for years. Each year they lay eggs in a wooden box we provided in their cage, some batches have been successful while others have died or not hatched. I saw that this year our female was guarding 5 eggs and today I could hear the cries from the babies. I am by no means wanting to breed them purposefully nor do I plan on making a profit, I would just like to help my birds raise their young. Any advice? We keep them with a constant supply of their food, clean water and apples. Anything else I can do to help?

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Hi

Well, ideally you would not have given them the box at all, but here we are.

What is your ideal outcome? Do you want the babies to be tame, or are you ok with them being wild? Can you reach the box easily to check it? Will the parents let you check it?


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Yeah, I'm not sure what to say here, because you apparently keep allowing them to breed over and over again, and haven't taken any steps to stop them from breeding and/or to make the eggs infertile as soon as they're laid, so it's hard to give advice when we don't know what your intentions are...

The best advice any of us can give you is to remove the nest-box the minute this clutch has left it, get your adult pair on a Natural-Light-Schedule, and the next time you find an egg has been laid in the bottom of the cage or in a food dish, etc., you need to remove it immediately and either boil it for 20 minutes and put it back, or replace it immediately with a fake egg and destroy the real one, and do the exact same thing with each subsequent egg that is laid, and simply put each egg that is laid back on the floor of the cage/grate on the bottom of the cage, do not ever put a nest-box back in with them, nor any type of bedding or "nesting material" for the eggs, just allow them to lay on the floor, making sure that you render each one infertile as soon as it's laid,
and then put it back in. Then just allow the female to sit on the infertile eggs on the bottom of the cage grate for as long as she wants to, until she realizes they aren't going to hatch and loses interest in them. Once she stops laying on them, then dispose of them immediately. Hopefully this will knock her out of breeding-season and get her off the continuous egg-laying cycle, because not only do you not need to have any more unwanted chicks hatch, but this is extremely bad for the health of your female.

Also, make sure that there is both a Cuttlebone and a Mineral Block in the cage for your female at all times, even after she's done raising this clutch, because she's no doubt Calcium deficient, and this is the #1 cause of Egg-Binding, which is fatal. Also, buying a bag of Egg-Food at the pet shop and providing her a bowl of it at all times while she's laying the eggs and feeding the chicks is a really good idea, it will keep the weight on your female, as they tend to lose weight during this process, it will keep her nourished while feeding the chicks, and it will keep her Calcium from being leeched from her bones...You can buy a bag of Qwiko Egg-Food at any Petco for $10...