Macaw questions

[Alanita]

Hey there everyone this is the first time my wife and i have used this forum but we are in a bit of a situation... we have a breeding pair of blue and gold macaws and they are 4 years old (still young) but they had thier first clutch of eggs last month and we were very excited but unfortunately we found 1 of the eggs on the ground with a baby chick inside but it was a bit before they were expected to hatch so we left the other egg thinkin we were checking on them to much then today we checked again because the hen was spending a lot of time outside the box and when we checked... no egg... just some egg shell... what happend? where did we go wrong?... plz help us!

 

[Flboy]

Welcome to you! Bumping you back up.

 

[SilverSage]

It sounds like you could be experiencing several problems, starting with breeding too young of a pair. Just like a pair of young teens may not make good parents, young birds often do not.


Also, try using a T box or an L box in the future; for some reason that seems to help with egg breaking.


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[LordTriggs]

same as above, 4 years old is incredibly young for a macaw to breed. I wasn't even aware they could breed that young you'll need to let them mature a bit before letting them try again

 

[itzjbean]

As mentioned above there could be several issues, but it's probably a mix of inexperience (being so young and presumably their first time), nest box size difficulties, etc.

They do sound young to be breeding, you'll find that macaws don't fully mature for another few years, 6-10 . Perhaps removing the nest box and letting them mature would be a good option. They may do better with rearing in a few years.

Breeding birds, especially larger species like macaws can be very difficult. Some pairs will always crush the eggs, or not incubate them properly. Or they end up killing the babies once they've hatched, not feeding them, injuring them, feeding one but ignoring another, etc. So many problems can arise. A lot of macaw breeders will pull the eggs to incubate to save from fatalities. But if you're not experienced with hand feeding / keeping a brooder / 24 hour feeding schedule I wouldn't recommend it.

 

[Kentuckienne]

Sounds like everyone has good advice. I know I'd like to keep them young and sweet for as long as I could before they become hormonal and want to breed. Hate to miss out on the mush-mac stage. That said, from reading posts on this forum it seems that breeding is terribly fraught with dangers. Parents might not incubate, might hatch but then neglect, so that you have to pull the babies, put them in an incubator, and feed them around the clock with special formula, at the right temperature so they don't get holes burned right through the delicate crop or impacted crops from being too cold... it's easy to accidentally get formula in the air sacs instead of the crop, causing fatal infections ... or the parents could mutilate the babies, biting off their feet, eating them, all sorts of awful outcomes.

Have you the time to enjoy the macaws for a year or so, getting to know them, socializing them, getting that good macaw love, while reading up on breeding? Talk to some experienced breeders? That would give you time to assemble the needed emergency equipment and resources and maybe even help out another breeder for the experience. For example, you need an incubator on hand because if something goes wrong, you must pull the babies right that second and they must have a clean, prepped incubator to go in. You have to have formula on hand. The horror stories from people who have had to cope with emergencies, not being prepared for that event, are heartbreaking.