Budgie layed eggs

brrabus

Right, completely out of my depth here. I am at the moment minding my neighbours boxer which will be for about a month. But along with the boxer comes the other two house hold pets, the cat and the budgie. The cat is easy enough, feed and water her and she is grand. The budgie has always been easy, just make sure there is water and food.

But today after coming back from walking the boxer I noticed that the budgie was again on the ground of the cage, I noticed it yesterday too. She then went to the top so I looked in and was gobsmacked by what I saw. Three little eggs. Is the a such thing as the immaculate conception in budgies as she lives there alone, her last companion died well over a year ago. Can anyone out there advise on whether I should do anything or what to expect as I will be looking after these pets for another 3 weeks and 5 days.

Lemon_Drop

Hi brrabus.

Its quiet common that hen budgies on their own will come into breeding condition even without a cock being with them.
Shes after laying 3 eggs, but she could lay another few.

The eggs will not be fertile, so no young budgies.
The hen will go broody and want to sit on the clutch of eggs, so leave the eggs with her. When they don't hatch she will abandon them after a
week of two.

Just feed her as normal and it would help if she has a bit of cuttlefish bone in the cage also........just to give her a bit of calcium.

brrabus

Lemon_Drop wrote: »

Hi brrabus.

Its quiet common that hen budgies on their own will come into breeding condition even without a cock being with them.
Shes after laying 3 eggs, but she could lay another few.

The eggs will not be fertile, so no young budgies.
The hen will go broody and want to sit on the clutch of eggs, so leave the eggs with her. When they don't hatch she will abandon them after a
week of two.

Just feed her as normal and it would help if she has a bit of cuttlefish bone in the cage also........just to give her a bit of calcium.

Thanks LD for the reply, didn't know that about budgies. Ah poor thing. Was also kinda looking forward to seeing the babies. I will go to the pet shop later to get some cuttlefish bone (whatever that is). I am sure you have guessed that I have never had a bird in my entire life so am completely clueless.

When she abandons them, can I just leave them in their till the owners come back as I would be a bit nervous opening the cage.

fathead82

Just throw the eggs away,no point letting her sit on them for two weeks when they are not going to hatch

Lemon_Drop

The hen is in breeding condition, hence the reason for laying a clutch of eggs.
She will go through the cycle of laying and going broody, its natural.

Throw away the eggs and it will only speed up the process of her laying another round.
Your not going to get chicks anyway without a cock being in with her.

People breeding birds will throw out he eggs knowing they are infertile, in order to speed up the process of getting a fertile clutch of eggs.

If I was in your position, I would leave the eggs with her and let her sit on them.
Its not like your going to look for fertile eggs on the next round as you don't have a cock.

The main point in letting her sit out the eggs is that it will slow her down from laying another infertile clutch alot earlier.

brrabus

Thanks Lemon Drop, I think I will just leave them there. I don't want to stress her too much and I guess she would get stressed if I started messing around with her cage as she really only sees me during the month of August so she is not used to me. I will keep my eye on how she is getting on, typical that this happens when her owners are abroad.

Up until today I knew nowt about birds apart from what food they like in their bird feeders outside. Thanks for educating me on this one as I really had no idea and was a bit taken aback as I am only minding this one for a month. One saving grace is I did not have to learn to speak a certain tongue to look after both the budgie and the cat, for the boxer however I had to learn doggie language in Turkish as that is the only language he understands.

brrabus

Intrigued, I just went in to have a little peek. Still only three eggs but they are now bunched very neatly together, could almost be mistaken for Cadbury Mini Eggs without the colour speckles.