Laying Eggs, not a breeder

[majones1716]

I rescues two Love birds, Romeo and Juliet. I have no idea how old they are. They have laid two clutches of 5 eggs ea, each clutch only produced 1 baby which they killed. I do not want my birds to continue to lay eggs. Not good for the female and I'm not a breeder. I have rearranged their nest. Give no nesting material. Juliet laid another egg in her food dish. I took it out and replaced it with 6 dummy eggs. She continues to lay eggs every two days. I remove them. What else can I do to stop her from laying eggs?????

[linda040899]

Hi and welcome to Lovebirds Plus Community! Sorry to hear that you lost the two babies that hatched. :( It would be my guess, if the remains showed no visible injuries, the babies died because they were not fed. This is not uncommon, especially with parents that were hand fed by whoever raised them. A lot of learning takes place in the nest and babies learn what to do with their own babies from their parents.

As long as you've given momma fake eggs, remove the ones she lays and discard them. Let her incubate her clutch and you can remove everything 24 days after the last egg is laid. It takes about 23 days from the day that each egg is laid and some hens will wait that long (some longer) before they abandon their eggs.

To keep them from laying again, I would give them a completely different cage in a different location. Do not give them anything that the hen could view as nesting material. In the wild, lovebirds only reproduce once/yr, when food is plentiful during the rainy season. Parrots spend most of their time searching for food so letting them begin to forage for their food will otherwise occupy idle time as when food is readily available 24/7. Start slowly at first and you will see they get the idea. Hopefully, this will slow them down.