[pigsatlesrues]

We have a pair of these birds who are 'active' in the true sense of the word - they have laid three times now, 2 eggs, 3 eggs and recently 2 again.  They sit for what seems ages - a couple of weeks perhaps, then out they come back to being busy and active.  I peep into the nest box when when the interest seems to have wained to find no eggs.

They are obsessive about building their nest - I put clean newspaper in the bottom of the cage probably three times a week to make sure they are clean, which they start to destroy immediately it is put in, tearing even sized pieces which they put under their wings and then make into dust in the next box which becomes the nest.  They have a beautifully soft well thought out nest, really impressive.

They are fed the appropriate food - I change their drinking and bath water twice a day at the moment - they have millet and cuttle fish, and I also provide a vitimin 'sand' which they love.

They are in the window in a cage at the moment next to another same sex pair and they are very chatty neighbours and all get along.

In the end I am not bothered about having babies here, but there is obviously something wrong with their conditions that this keeps happening.  They are about a year/fourteen months old by the way and there is a bit of inreeding also.  They came from my French neighbour who had one breeding pair; they kept their offspiring and my breding pair are the result of their second pair if you follow.  My same sex pair are the offspring of the original pair. I am told that inbreeding is common in birds so not sure if this is a problem or not.

When we move, I have bought them a free standing very large cage to give them heeps more space.

Not sure if I should leave the same sex birds in the cage they are in which is the bigger of the two they are in at the moment,  and just move the breeding pair - what does anyone think on that.  I have a feeling the second pair could be girls comparing the sizes of their neighbours, but not 100% sure.

Thank you all

Kate 

[rustyme]

Hello Kate ,
               egg eating ? well like with chickens it can be any number of reasons. It could be diet or  calcium deficiency ?  not enough or the right nesting material ? wrong type of nesting box ? to busy an area ? to much disturbance ?( that one being one of the most common!!!) or loads of other reasons. Some , like chickens , just do it !!!! I kept love birds parakeets and budgies with my dad, and most were fine but one or two did eat eggs. We just tended not to use the ones that did it . It can be hard to stop them unless you just take the eggs away and incubate them . As for inbreeding , well yes it is used in birds just as it is in most animals. However it is line breeding not just plain inbreeding . You use the best TYPE to breed with but you normally avoid brother sister crossing as it is detrimental, rather than helpfull, to type. Brother sister crossing would only be used if there were no other choice with very rare birds.  The eggs normally take 23-4 days to hatch (if memory serves me right ) and they are fairly easy to rear by hand , well I reared loads by hand so it can't be that hard. I can't remember much more detailed help as it was 35 years ago I kept them .But hope this helps a bit.
 
cheers

Russ

[Fluffywelshsheep]

I Would say that maybe they are getting disturbed to much. I don't know anything about love birds but i had a couple of hamsters that eat their babies due to be disturbed to much.
Linz

[pigsatlesrues]

I do clean them out regularly - at least twice a week sometimes three times pw, because they do make such a mess, and it means moving the cage each time to the table to do the necessary.

I also have to move the cage across to the table to give them food and millet because of restricted space and the position of the doors and the food pots.

It is ironic that the home they came from provides less room, less cleaning and less food and they seem to do ok. Am I OTT perhaps?  I just have a 'thing' about seeing any animal in its' own mess so I have a compultion to clean them out.

Russ mentioned nesting materials.  I use newpaper as I said - it is convenient and they seem to do well with it.  What should I be using if not this?

The birds are seemingly happy and healthy and I feed them everything that I belieive that they should have as listed on my first posting.

Any suggestions in my weaker areas much appreciated.  Also, what about putting all four birds together into the new cage? Would this be a bad idea? They get on as neighbours - the cages are side by side.

Thanks again

Kate 

[MrRee]

How about swapping over birds for two weeks at a time? Keep one same bird in the cage with the nest building going on and introducing a different bird every two weeks. It might be that the female has paired off with a bird from the cage next door. Putting all four in the same new cage might cause upset if there are 3 males and only one female........Ree