Help! She laid an egg….

[kyladoodle]

Hey everybody. Miss Gizmo suprised me a couple of days ago with a small egg at the bottom of her cage. She appears to have a bit of egg butt going on - but still her usual self, being noisy, happy, eating and drinking which is great. I’m a little stressed though as I know female lories are prone to egg binding and peritonitis (i think thats how its spelt) has anyone here experienced this before and know when medical intervention is needed? How long after the first egg would it take for her to lay another? Im also considering dummy eggs for her so she has ‘babies’ to protect but if this will encourage more laying I will not…. Open to any and all advice please!

 

[zERo]

Welcome to the forums!

I don’t own a Lori of lorikeet but the general advice I can give is do not remove the egg if she shows interest in it.
Don’t give her places that feel nest-like either.

@LaManuka has experience with lorikeets and could be of much more help.

 

[LaManuka]

Well it would certainly appear her gender is confirmed!

Is Gizmo showing any interest in incubating that egg at all? When my Lilly the purple crown was laying, she was intensely interested in her egg straight away, and would lay another about every day and a half to two days. I did get her a dummy egg, it was a roughly egg-shaped piece of snowy quartz which was the best approximation in size and weight that I could get for her, since she would not be fooled by a fake budgie's egg. I think it's easier to find dummy eggs in a size to suit a rainbow lorikeet though. Lilly would lay two or three eggs in a clutch, but be perfectly happy to just sit on the one. In Gizmo's case it may be a "one and done", but she may well have another forming. When Lilly started laying infertile eggs I took her to my vet for an exam and advice - I don't know if you have an avian vet that you see already, but the following list may help you find one if you don't ...........

Avian Vet Resources

After a suggestion by a member, @Abu Colo, the Mod Team decided to create a list of veterinarians around the world who see birds. This was something we had discussed a few years ago, but the task seemed so large that we didn't get very far. However, the need is there and we decided that the time...

www.parrotforums.com

You are wise to be concerned, as egg laying can result in some serious health issues. I do not wish to alarm you, but it was a combination of such issues that resulted in me losing my little Lilly, so I would keep a very close eye on your hen and get some professional advice if you possibly can.

I wish you and your girl all the very best of luck. 🙏🙏🙏

 

[DonnaBudgie]

Hey everybody. Miss Gizmo suprised me a couple of days ago with a small egg at the bottom of her cage. She appears to have a bit of egg butt going on - but still her usual self, being noisy, happy, eating and drinking which is great. I’m a little stressed though as I know female lories are prone to egg binding and peritonitis (i think thats how its spelt) has anyone here experienced this before and know when medical intervention is needed? How long after the first egg would it take for her to lay another? Im also considering dummy eggs for her so she has ‘babies’ to protect but if this will encourage more laying I will not…. Open to any and all advice please!

I love pictures of parrots posing with their eggs! So cute, like "look what I did!"

 

[kyladoodle]

Well it would certainly appear her gender is confirmed!

Is Gizmo showing any interest in incubating that egg at all? When my Lilly the purple crown was laying, she was intensely interested in her egg straight away, and would lay another about every day and a half to two days. I did get her a dummy egg, it was a roughly egg-shaped piece of snowy quartz which was the best approximation in size and weight that I could get for her, since she would not be fooled by a fake budgie's egg. I think it's easier to find dummy eggs in a size to suit a rainbow lorikeet though. Lilly would lay two or three eggs in a clutch, but be perfectly happy to just sit on the one. In Gizmo's case it may be a "one and done", but she may well have another forming. When Lilly started laying infertile eggs I took her to my vet for an exam and advice - I don't know if you have an avian vet that you see already, but the following list may help you find one if you don't ...........

Avian Vet Resources

After a suggestion by a member, @Abu Colo, the Mod Team decided to create a list of veterinarians around the world who see birds. This was something we had discussed a few years ago, but the task seemed so large that we didn't get very far. However, the need is there and we decided that the time...

www.parrotforums.com

You are wise to be concerned, as egg laying can result in some serious health issues. I do not wish to alarm you, but it was a combination of such issues that resulted in me losing my little Lilly, so I would keep a very close eye on your hen and get some professional advice if you possibly can.

I wish you and your girl all the very best of luck. 🙏🙏🙏

I actually took the egg out (out of panic, i’ve never had a hen before 😅) I still have it, would it be wise to give it back to her? When Lilly laid, did she go very long between eggs? I’ve been unable to find any information anywhere to give me a rough idea of how long they take to form an egg and lay it. I know breeding hens lay and raise their young in the space of 52/53 days before they can fend for themselves. Ive been watching her like a hawk since it happened 😔 avian vets are difficult to come by where I am (Dunedin, NZ) and we have a shortage of regular vets as well - in my case it will be a matter of calling around to see who is available which is another factor that alarms me here. Crossing my fingers and toes that all will be ok

 

[kyladoodle]

I love pictures of parrots posing with their eggs! So cute, like "look what I did!"

I know it’s just the most precious photo I have of her 🫶🏻

 

[kyladoodle]

I actually took the egg out (out of panic, i’ve never had a hen before 😅) I still have it, would it be wise to give it back to her? When Lilly laid, did she go very long between eggs? I’ve been unable to find any information anywhere to give me a rough idea of how long they take to form an egg and lay it. I know breeding hens lay and raise their young in the space of 52/53 days before they can fend for themselves. Ive been watching her like a hawk since it happened 😔 avian vets are difficult to come by where I am (Dunedin, NZ) and we have a shortage of regular vets as well - in my case it will be a matter of calling around to see who is available which is another factor that alarms me here. Crossing my fingers and toes that all will be ok

She also didn’t show any distress at me taking the egg. If anything she was more pleasant than she had been the several days leading up to laying.

 

[LaManuka]

I actually took the egg out (out of panic, i’ve never had a hen before 😅) I still have it, would it be wise to give it back to her? When Lilly laid, did she go very long between eggs? I’ve been unable to find any information anywhere to give me a rough idea of how long they take to form an egg and lay it. I know breeding hens lay and raise their young in the space of 52/53 days before they can fend for themselves. Ive been watching her like a hawk since it happened 😔 avian vets are difficult to come by where I am (Dunedin, NZ) and we have a shortage of regular vets as well - in my case it will be a matter of calling around to see who is available which is another factor that alarms me here. Crossing my fingers and toes that all will be ok

Lilly's eggs were about a day and a half to two days apart. Her mood was also decidedly better after she laid the egg and sat on it, she had been prone to extreme bouts of viciousness up to that point! If you still have the egg, you could give it a very gentle boil for 5 mins or so, let it cool and give it back to her to see if she's still interested. The boiling just makes the shell that much more resilient if she does decide to try to incubate, and it means you won't have a nasty smelly mess to clean up if she does break it in a few days to a week or so. Many species aren't particularly interested in the first egg or two until they've laid a complete clutch though, so don't discard the egg straight away if she's not interested, and see if you can get your hands on some dummies. Maybe those phone consult vets might have an idea where you can get something suitable in NZ - perhaps fake cockatiel eggs might work?

I actually compiled that list of avian vets in NZ, and frankly I was very surprised and saddened to see how few there are there. There are one or two in Auckland that do telephone/internet consults but really nothing beats a hands-on exam in cases like this, so if you can possibly find one locally that's your best bet, and if you do happen to find one anywhere near Dunedin please let me know and I'll add them to the list!

 

[DonnaBudgie]

Hey everybody. Miss Gizmo suprised me a couple of days ago with a small egg at the bottom of her cage. She appears to have a bit of egg butt going on - but still her usual self, being noisy, happy, eating and drinking which is great. I’m a little stressed though as I know female lories are prone to egg binding and peritonitis (i think thats how its spelt) has anyone here experienced this before and know when medical intervention is needed? How long after the first egg would it take for her to lay another? Im also considering dummy eggs for her so she has ‘babies’ to protect but if this will encourage more laying I will not…. Open to any and all advice plea

I know it’s just the most precious photo I have of her 🫶🏻

Look at the parrot of the month contest entries for May. One of the members entered a photo of her female GCC posing with two eggs she laid recently. She, too, looks quite proud of herself!

 

[DonnaBudgie]

I actually took the egg out (out of panic, i’ve never had a hen before 😅) I still have it, would it be wise to give it back to her? When Lilly laid, did she go very long between eggs? I’ve been unable to find any information anywhere to give me a rough idea of how long they take to form an egg and lay it. I know breeding hens lay and raise their young in the space of 52/53 days before they can fend for themselves. Ive been watching her like a hawk since it happened 😔 avian vets are difficult to come by where I am (Dunedin, NZ) and we have a shortage of regular vets as well - in my case it will be a matter of calling around to see who is available which is another factor that alarms me here. Crossing my fingers and toes that all will beparrot's ok

The details of ovulation, fertilization, egg formation and egg laying in parrots is difficult to find online so I talked to my avian vet about egg formation and laying in budgies when one of my girls was having problems laying. He told that the ovary releases one ovum at a time and if there has been a recent mating there will be sperm up by the ovary waiting to fertilize the ovum. One mating is enough to fertilize a whole clutch because the sperm live for many days. The now-ferilized ovum then travels down the oviduct toward the vent forming yolk, white and finally a shell. When the ovum finishes developing into an egg and enters the cloaca the muscles of the cloaca force the egg out her vent. If no sperm are present to fertilize the ovum the development process continues as though it was fertilized. The entire process from ovulation to laying takes about 48 hours so there are not multiple eggs traveling down the oviduct in varying stages of development- it happens one egg at a time. Laying an egg stimulates the ovary to release another ovum. Obviously an individual parrot's ovary may disagree with this timeline somewhat and there may be as little as 24 hours between eggs but this is GENERALLY how the process works. I hope this information has been helpful.

 

[clark_conure]

I have a thread about when my conure clark RIP laid...basically let it sit a few weeks then remove one at a time. That way the bird has time to get out of it's "cycle" of laying. It came from my CAV and it worked a few hours the last egg was removed as I left the bird downstairs it went back to normal.

 

[mybluebirb]

Hey everybody. Miss Gizmo suprised me a couple of days ago with a small egg at the bottom of her cage. She appears to have a bit of egg butt going on - but still her usual self, being noisy, happy, eating and drinking which is great. I’m a little stressed though as I know female lories are prone to egg binding and peritonitis (i think thats how its spelt) has anyone here experienced this before and know when medical intervention is needed? How long after the first egg would it take for her to lay another? Im also considering dummy eggs for her so she has ‘babies’ to protect but if this will encourage more laying I will not…. Open to any and all advice please!

Hi! how is she now?

my indian ringneck is going through the exact same thing and i’m worried sick! she’s laid two eggs so far, the second being today at like 2am (she’s keeping me on my toes!) I’m not sure if she’ll have another or not, if she does it’ll probably be due tomorrow night (past midnight I mean). Unfortunately both of her eggs cracked as they fell on the floor but I bought fake eggs that I can replace her next (hopefully there is no next) eggs with

Any updates and advice? I’m stressing more than my birdy!

 

[Rosalindagg]

Hi! how is she now?

my indian ringneck is going through the exact same thing and i’m worried sick! she’s laid two eggs so far, the second being today at like 2am (she’s keeping me on my toes!) I’m not sure if she’ll have another or not, if she does it’ll probably be due tomorrow night (past midnight I mean). Unfortunately both of her eggs cracked as they fell on the floor but I bought fake eggs that I can replace her next (hopefully there is no next) eggs with

Any updates and advice? I’m stressing more than my birdy!

Hi, my bird is completely doing fine now! She only laid one and ignored it so I didn’t have to worry about her becoming attached to the eggs. All I did was make sure she drank lots of water, her food and I made her an egg for extra calcium. I gave her extra sleep time and would put her to sleep in her travel cage with a blanket on the bottom. I didn’t put any perches in there and I covered the cage with a thicker blanket to help with heat so she wouldn’t try so hard to supplement heat. In about Two days she was back to her usual self !

 

[mybluebirb]

Hi, my bird is completely doing fine now! She only laid one and ignored it so I didn’t have to worry about her becoming attached to the eggs. All I did was make sure she drank lots of water, her food and I made her an egg for extra calcium. I gave her extra sleep time and would put her to sleep in her travel cage with a blanket on the bottom. I didn’t put any perches in there and I covered the cage with a thicker blanket to help with heat so she wouldn’t try so hard to supplement heat. In about Two days she was back to her usual self !

That’s great news!
Both of my parrot’s eggs cracked so I wasn’t able to see if she was interested in them or not but I picked up the shell and she didn’t seem to care..
I’ve taken those precautions too hopefully it’ll stop my parrot from laying eggs as well but only time will tell! She should be due for another egg tomorrow night, if she doesn’t lay one she might be back to normal, fingers crossed!🤞
Thanks!

 

[Rosalindagg]

That’s great news!
Both of my parrot’s eggs cracked so I wasn’t able to see if she was interested in them or not but I picked up the shell and she didn’t seem to care..
I’ve taken those precautions too hopefully it’ll stop my parrot from laying eggs as well but only time will tell! She should be due for another egg tomorrow night, if she doesn’t lay one she might be back to normal, fingers crossed!🤞
Thanks!

Good luck! I think it’s hard to tell if they’ll lay another one ! I never knew if my bird was gonna lay more I just kinda waited

 

[kyladoodle]

Gizmo is good. Unfortunately a month after this clutch, she has laid two more 😞. She is okay, she opted to try incubating so I didn’t touch her eggs. However she is making a noise very similar to crying 😢 I haven’t heard her do this so I don’t know if its normal? Other than that she has been really pleasant, she loves me putting my hands in to give her scratches, is happy for me to move eggs to give her fresh paper towels etc. shes not the keenest to come out though, which is okay. She does make cleaning a tad difficult though, she doesn’t like me taking her food bowls to refresh food and water either but I just bear with it 🙂

 

[kyladoodle]

Good luck! I think it’s hard to tell if they’ll lay another one ! I never knew if my bird was gonna lay more I just kinda waited

Some birds make this obvious with egg butt… some are good at hiding it too!

 

[LaManuka]

Gizmo is good. Unfortunately a month after this clutch, she has laid two more 😞. She is okay, she opted to try incubating so I didn’t touch her eggs. However she is making a noise very similar to crying 😢 I haven’t heard her do this so I don’t know if its normal? Other than that she has been really pleasant, she loves me putting my hands in to give her scratches, is happy for me to move eggs to give her fresh paper towels etc. shes not the keenest to come out though, which is okay. She does make cleaning a tad difficult though, she doesn’t like me taking her food bowls to refresh food and water either but I just bear with it 🙂

Hens can make a different range of sounds when they're sitting than just as per usual, my Lilly certainly did! Her temperament was totally different too, pre-egg laying she was super aggressive but when sitting she was gentle and quite serene really. I pretty much became her servant while she was sitting too, fetching and carrying everything for her cos of course she made her nest on my couch

 

[Rosalindagg]

That’s great news!
Both of my parrot’s eggs cracked so I wasn’t able to see if she was interested in them or not but I picked up the shell and she didn’t seem to care..
I’ve taken those precautions too hopefully it’ll stop my parrot from laying eggs as well but only time will tell! She should be due for another egg tomorrow night, if she doesn’t lay one she might be back to normal, fingers crossed!🤞
Thanks!

Good luck to you and your parrot! Finger crossed!

 

[Rosalindagg]

Some birds make this obvious with egg butt… some are good at hiding it too!

Totally agree! Sushi hid her first egg and it didn’t become obvious until she was getting ready to lay it!