Budgies & Their Eggs!!!

[Paulette]

Cupie and Chico....started their second clutch not long after I took Lucky out of their cage.....Cupie had started squabbling with him. She started laying new eggs and so I threw out the old ones that Lucky came from. In the meantime Verde and Amarillo had layed eggs that should have began hatching at the very same time that the lovebirds (Tweety and Violet's) eggs began to hatch. There was a night fright one night and I came in because everybirdie was flapping wildly inside their cages and I could here one budgie chick in Verde's box. But by morning it was dead and at the bottom of the pile of eggs and I had to look for him to find him. Several days later another hatched and also I found it dead. Well, this was frustrating to me....so after a couple more days I took Verde's eggs and gave them to Cupie.....and I took Cupie's brand new eggs and gave them to Verde.....all the while knowing Cupie and Chico would feed the babies as they hatched....and Verde would keep the new eggs warm and incubated....I came in a little bit later to find that Verde had thrown about 3 eggs out of the nest box and broken them....then she quit sitting on them altogether! So I took away her box and gave Cupie back her own eggs. :x :x :x Of course my husband said, quit messing with Mother Nature.....what will be, will be! :x Well, D A R N I T!!!!

[Mummieeva]

Sorry your having a rough go with the Budgie eggs. I am debating on giving mine a nest box or not when they move to new cage. I might give them some paper and see if they shread it or not first.I hope the other eggs hatch and get good babies.


Steph

[Paulette]

Hi Steph!....mosty budgies will reject any nesting material....which I did not know at the beginning of the egg laying dramas. I read it's because the tree cavities they lay in in the wild are so small that there is no room for nesting material....having said that....I will say this....Lucky's mom didn't have nesting material to start out with so she has constantly rejected any items I have put in (aspen shavings, paper towel, leaves, feathers)....but the other pair who had a real nest box and aspen shavings from the start didn't know any different and were on their merry way, I did try to pack the shavings down well and make a bowl shape into the middle with my hand. So if you get a nest box and some aspen shavings and set it up....they will explore it and probably accept it....but whatevery you do don't mess with it once they start laying, they are very tempermental and easy to tick off. Cupie is sitting on her second round and she's made a bare spot in the bottom of the box on one corner and I'm just letting her do what she wants....all day long I can hear her shuffling them eggs around and it's driving me crazy!...but I give up.