Budgie laying eggs

[born2fly]

My parents have a 2 year old budgie that started laying eggs They are not sure how to handle it. She lays the eggs (some cracked) and leaves it so when my parents throw them out she keeps on laying. When they leave it in she lays 4 and that's it she does not try to sit on them just ignores it. This has been going on for about 2 months now.

Anyone has ideas on how to handle it

[entrancedbymyGCC]

Try to figure out what triggered the behavior and change that... I'm not expert and I have no experience with egg laying, but I gather you'd rather not have a female laying and laying like that...hopefully someone with female birds will pipe up soon!

[born2fly]

...hopefully someone with female birds will pipe up soon!

Yeah it would be nice, as I have absolutely no clue when it comes to that.

I am going to see my parent today so I'll try to find out if anything happened.

[Kim S]

Birds start their reproductive cycle when they get 'hints' from the environment that tells them springtime is coming. In nature this would be warming temperatures, lengthening days, more rain and more fresh vegetables/fruits. In the livigroom we sometimes create the same signs. If winter is coming you turn on the heat. During wintertime you will have the lights on in your livingroom more often, and maybe even longer than during summertime. If you decide to go on a healthy diet, chances are you will feed the birds a lot more vegetables and fruits as well.

What is the situation? Is she alone? Does she have bird-friends? What sexe and breed are her friends? How old are they?

Just to state the obvious. Dont give her anything to lay eggs in. No nestbox, no hiding hut, no dark places to crawl into. Budgies will look at anything they can squeeze into as a nestingopportunity.
Dont take away the eggs. This will only stimulate her to lay more.

You can also try to put the cage into a room that has a lower temperature for a while.
You can try cutting down her light-hours she gets per day. Put a towel over her cage when you put the lights on.
Dont give her too many fresh food like fruits and vegetables or wet food like eggfood and sprouted seeds for a litle while, if any.

To help her get through this, give her lots of calciumrich food or suplements. She needs calcium if she lays eggs. If she doesnt get it from her food, she will deplete her own bonestructure.

Heres another topic dealing with a similar problem: viewtopic.php?f=18&t=2073&p=10030&hilit=+not+breed#p10030

[born2fly]

Kim thank you for all the pointers. I think it might be a combination of all of them, also I found out yesterday that recently my parents put in a bigger mirror in the cage. She was very protective when I tried to take it away. I told them to change back to the small one and eventually take it away completely. Don't want her to think she lost a mate, is my thinking right?

[Kim S]

I'm sorry I was a bit preoccupied.
Yes, you are right. A mirror is a very bad thing to have in a cage. The bird can form an unhealthy attachement to it and can result in the egglaying.

I hope you can work things out.