Egg laying Keets

I'm in need of some help with my two female parakeets. They've laid numerous clutches of eggs now which are not fertilized but they continue to sit on them most of the day, only getting off of them to eat occasionally. We have tried removing the eggs but they only lay again. We supplement their food with calcium and also keep a supply of cuddle bone in the cage which they eat.

I'm concerned about their health as they have been sitting on 14 eggs between them for 2 weeks now. Is there any tried and true methods of stopping them from laying eggs. I've heard that replacing the eggs with marbles or the like will stop them from laying eggs but in my opinion they will still sit on the marbles and not move for most of the day. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks a lot for any help.

Irishrigl

I know there are a few things you can do to discourage the behavior naturally.

Put them to bed early. Have more sleep hours then awake because that mimics natures winter months and should signal them to stop. I used this to calm my male down from wanting to breed. I put the tiels to bed at 7 or so and don't "wake them up" until 9 am

Re-arrange the cage.....totally move everything around and if there is a toy that gets alot of affection...remove it

separate the birds.....even with same sex birds the bonding between them can stimulate their egg laying. Put them in separate cages but where they can see each other if it upsets them too much to not see each other

cut down on soft foods if you feed them....by all means don't starve them or leave their nutritional needs unmet but an abundance of soft foods can also trigger egg laying as its natures way of saying its time just like alot of light and noise

leave the eggs for 21 days or until she looses interest. you can actually buy fake eggs that will mimic real ones in size shape and weight if needed.

don't pet them on their backs

Hope this helps it must be very scary for you to see them doing this but obviously something is signaling them to lay as they are both doing it.

Where are they laying the eggs? Can you get us a picture?

In addition to what Erinsmom said, you may want to lower the temperature of the house some to try and "stimulate" winter, thus making it less ideal to be raising chicks.

Thanks for the info. We have been shortening up their daylight hours for a while now with no favorable results. We usually cover them at about 7PM and uncover at about 8AM but I Think we will lengthen that out till about 9AM now to see if it helps any.
Would you suggest removing the eggs a few at a time or entirely or not removing them at all so they don't get the signal to lay more. We had a sun conure that would lay 17 eggs and then sit on them till she almost couldn't move. That passes after time and she only layed a few years and then not any more after that.
We have 2 males also next to the females cage but we try to keep them separated as not to have any fertile eggs.
We will try to re arrange the cage also in an attempt to slow things down.
We also tried separating them for a while and they didn't seem to do well while separated wanting to be with each other so we put them back together again. We have about 1 more week to go to make it 3 weeks that they have been sitting on the eggs and we'll try removing them at that time.

As far as where they lay the eggs, one would go to the bottom of the cage and the other would go to the highest perch and lay the egg and watch it as It broke on the floor of the cage. It seems as if the one hen would teach the other one what she had to do and actually cover her with a wing when she was getting ready to drop the egg. Now they both sit on the eggs when before only one would do the sitting.

Any more suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks

Erinsmom said:

I know there are a few things you can do to discourage the behavior naturally.

Put them to bed early. Have more sleep hours then awake because that mimics natures winter months and should signal them to stop. I used this to calm my male down from wanting to breed. I put the tiels to bed at 7 or so and don't "wake them up" until 9 am

Re-arrange the cage.....totally move everything around and if there is a toy that gets alot of affection...remove it

separate the birds.....even with same sex birds the bonding between them can stimulate their egg laying. Put them in separate cages but where they can see each other if it upsets them too much to not see each other

cut down on soft foods if you feed them....by all means don't starve them or leave their nutritional needs unmet but an abundance of soft foods can also trigger egg laying as its natures way of saying its time just like alot of light and noise

leave the eggs for 21 days or until she looses interest. you can actually buy fake eggs that will mimic real ones in size shape and weight if needed.

don't pet them on their backs

Hope this helps it must be very scary for you to see them doing this but obviously something is signaling them to lay as they are both doing it.

Click to expand...

MonicaMc said:

Where are they laying the eggs? Can you get us a picture?

In addition to what Erinsmom said, you may want to lower the temperature of the house some to try and "stimulate" winter, thus making it less ideal to be raising chicks.

Click to expand...

I forgot to ask what the cage substrate is.

I would recommend placing them in a new cage with a cage grate, nothing on top of it. Try the cage in a different location, with a different arrangement. You can even try having them sleep for up to 14 hours, however, sometimes increasing the amount of sleep may have the opposite effect you want. You would have to try it out to see if it helps.


You can always buy fake eggs as well for them to sit on.


When you go to change things around, I would recommend removing the eggs, but keeping them in, say, the fridge, in case they start laying again. If they do, you can replace the eggs and stop them from laying more.

OH MY you poor thing. I am of course no way an expert but it seems to me if they are BOTH doing it something has to be triggering them. Especially if you have had another bird do the same type of behavior with such large amounts of eggs. Heck my female has a mate and a nest box and she only laid 3.

I would be afraid to remove them at all until a minimum of 3 weeks or see if they loose interest i would be so afraid they would lay more to make up for the missing eggs.

Will it upset them to separate them but keep them within eyesight of each other? maybe move the males out of sight?

Best of luck please keep us updated on what you try and its effectiveness.

Thanks again for the input.

The cage has a grating on the bottom like most cages of this type so they are sitting on that while they tend to the eggs.
Most of the things mentioned we have tried with the exception of moving the male birds which I never thought of. If all else fails that will be next but they were laying when the males were across the room too. When we separated the girls, they didn't do well and would spend their time hanging on the inside corner of the cage looking at the other one. As far as I know, these two females were raised all their life together.

I'll certainly keep you informed if we find something that works.

Thanks all

We're on about the third week now and the girls are starting to break eggs now. There are some that they roll away and do not sit on. We may be on the final lap of the egg laying for this round. They are spending less time on the eggs and more time eating now also.

I'll keep you posted of any changes.

Update:

Today being about at the three week mark, the girls decided yesterday that they were tired of "egg sitting" and decided to break through all of the 14 eggs they had in the cage.
It seems like they are back to normal for now and eating normal again, also moving around and flying free again in the house with their friends.

Let's hope that they have gotten over the egg laying for the season and possibly longer as my other birds have.

Thanks for the tips.