by Pajarita » Sun Mar 04, 2018 3:52 pm
No, conures do not eat their babies. Babies of small birds are so tiny that, if they die right after birth, their little corpses dry up and become so tiny that, sometimes, you can't find them in the nesting material... And there is nothing you can do now to ensure success because the window of opportunity to do everything that needed to be done has closed by now.
And, my dear, you should really not be breeding your pet birds... I don't mean to be rude but you obviously don't have the knowledge for it. People think that putting a male and female together and giving them a nest is enough but it's not. These are not wild birds, there is no natural selection so the birds we get as pets are really very copies of a good wild specimen and it takes A LOT of knowledge to breed them successfully and without depleting the parents. This knowledge cannot be acquired by reading something on the internet or asking questions on a forum, it needs to be hands-on experience of a couple of breeding seasons [which means a couple of years] observing and learning under somebody who has been doing it for many years and is good at it - and this means somebody who does not breed his/her birds more than once a year, somebody who gets his/her hens to produce all fertile eggs, no DIS -Dead In Shell-. and less than 5 percent infant mortality. I realize that this might sound almost impossible to you after your experience but it's not. You had a real bad experience because you simply did not know enough. You need to start off with birds that are completely developed and, for a GCC, that means birds that are, at least, three to four years old but it's even better if you can get a proven older bird to bond with a young inexperience one [this is what we do with canaries]. Then you need to observe the birds for a year or so to make sure they are in perfect healthy [this requires experience and knowledge]. After that comes the conditioning which takes a couple of months before they nest [and this requires knowledge of their physiological functions as well as a keen eye for symptoms and dietary needs - they require a special diet before, during and after and these three diets are not the same and all of them are different from the 'regular' diet]. I kept canaries and learned from old breeders for years and years before I attempted to breed them myself. I am very successful at it [all fertile eggs, no DIS and zero infant mortality] and, as a matter of fact, I will be breeding a pair this year [these days I only breed to keep my bloodlines healthy] and do not foresee any problems even though I will be breeding birds that have never bred before. But I take the time to make sure there are no loose ends... I've been treating the chosen birds with supplements like ACV, aloe vera juice and liver cleansers for a month now and even put them on a week of antibiotics before that to make sure that they are in tip top condition. I am now going to be moving them to a room where there is no human traffic [actually, my dressing room] and giving them probiotics and conditioning food which I am going to be preparing myself this year as well as the hatchling food. A whole lot of a lengthy preparation for just one clutch...
Breeding birds successfully is really not something that can be learned as you go... sometimes inexperienced people luck out but this luck doesn't really last.