Parakeet destroyed eggs.....

Question
Well I'm not quite sure it was the female, though the male seldom went in the nesting box, and when he did he came usually right back out. I don't really think it was him. Maybe the eggs could have gotten stepped on by accident, and that is why she threw one out of the cage. But I had been looking in the box quite often, atleast twice a day at the eggs, and nothing seemed to be wrong with them before this incident. I assumed the eggs were fertile because there was a yolk and everything inside. I'm not sure if she had been incubating them or not, because she wasn't in the cage very much after they were laid. When she was, I'm not sure if she was actually incubating them or what. I didn't want to bother her when she was in the cage. When she laid the eggs, I had been in a different house that was lots more quiet, because they had been upstairs in my room. 2 days before the eggs were destroyed I went to my dad's house, and they are right near the family room so it isn't very quiet, and I have a dog and a cat, though they usually don't mind them. Could it have been the noise? They aren't less than a year, I don't know how old they were when I got them but I got them around 3 years ago. Though after I had taken the eggs out of the nesting box, she seemed a bit upset because she was taking the tissue out of her box..... I hope she isn't just a bad parent. Do you have any other ideas? Thanks.

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Followup To

Question -
My parakeet laid 2 eggs, one on June 1st and one on June 3rd. After that, she didn't lay anymore. When I went in there to check (on the 6th) I could only find one egg in the nesting box. I looked around and the other was on the bottom of the cage! She must have taken it out. Do you know of any reason why she would do this? It was obviously all cracked, and I opened it up and it wasn't fertile. I looked at her other one still in the nesting box and it was cracked as well. It wasn't fertile either. (She is in the cage with a male- i don't know if they mated before these eggs, and these are the first eggs she has ever laid) Do you think she knew that they were fertile and that is why she destroyed them? Thanks again, I highly appreciate your responses, they help me a lot.

Answer -
Hi, Kelly.

I don't know for sure why she would do this...there could be many reasons.  They could have been cracked so they threw them out of the nestbox...lots of reasons for this behavior.  How do you know it was the female and not the male who destroyed the eggs?  Are there other keets in the same cage or around them?  On day 5 and day 7 after laying, I question whether fertility of these eggs could have been determined when you opened them...had she been incubating them at all up to the point the eggs were destroyed?  Likely, the keets probably would not have known either at this early date.  It's possible she could have laid infertile eggs, but highly unlikely since she's with a mate, however, I've seen it happen.  Keets are usually good parents, so I don't think she destroyed them purposely, unless something is going on around them that they perceive to be a threat to their pending brood.  Are these young keets (less than a year old)?

Chrys

Answer
Hi, Kelly.

It's definitely possible the parents cracked the eggs going in/out of the nestbox too quickly, so they destroyed the egg(s) themselves because they knew they wouldn't hatch being damaged.  Eggs can also become cracked if they bump against each other for whatever reason (they are very fragile).  I think you might be upsetting them by looking in the nesting box too much.  You do have to check the eggs occasionally, but it's best to check them when the parents are already out of the nesting box or every other day when you expect there could be another egg present after the first egg is laid.  Even then, you don't need to check just to see how many eggs are in the box.  With keets, you can expect about 6 eggs total (some pairs less, sometimes 1 or 2 more).  As long as you know when the first egg is laid, you can calculate approximately when the rest were laid so you know approximately when to expect babies to start hatching.    

Regarding fertility or not - all eggs contain a yolk with a white disc attached (visit this website for picture):  http://www.ext.vt.edu/resources/4h/virtualfarm/poultry/poultry_eggparts.html.  If you crack open a chicken egg from your refrigerator, you'll see this white disc attached to the yolk.  When an egg is fertile, this means the male sperm penetrated the white disc and an embryo will start to develop.  The white disc is attached to the yolk because the yolk is what nourishes the developing embryo (this will be the baby keet's belly button so to speak, similar to a human umbilical cord).  Just before a hatchling hatches out of the egg, their body absorbs what's left of the yolk through their umbilicus.  When your keet lays eggs, if fertile, you won't be able to start seeing any veins or anything inside the egg (when you candle them...if you don't know what this is, I can explain) until 7-10 days after she starts incubating them.  In other words, for an egg laid say on 1 Jun, second egg laid 3 Jun, the female normally would start incubating the eggs on 3 Jun.  Therefore, it would take until about 10-12 Jun before you might be able to start seeing any veins or the presence of a developing embryo.  This is why I stated you most likely would not have been able to see anything inside the eggs yet on 6 Jun even if they were fertile.  So, it may be the eggs got cracked somehow.

You mention being in a different house that was quieter...did you/your keets move from one location to another during the breeding and/or egg laying process?  If so, this could be the whole problem!  If you recently moved your older keets from a quiet home to a new home with much more noise, the move itself could have the keets upset.  The cat and dog are definitely a problem!  Cats/dogs are natural enemies for your keets...don't let them near each other.  I have dogs and cats, and all were raised with each other from youngsters, but I still don't allow them access to each other for this reason.  Parrots would consider them a threat to their offspring, not to mention the cats/dogs don't like those beaks that hurt!  

Since your keets are older, they prefer routine, and I'm sure they would be good parents.  Any interruption in this routine, such as a move, change in noise level, etc., could stress them out to the point that their behavior changed.  If these change(s) are recent, they need time to adjust before even thinking about breeding.

You mentioned the female taking tissue out of her nesting box.  It isn't necessary to put anything in the nesting box.  They really don't like substrate in the bottom of their nesting box.  Just leave it bare so the warmth of the hen's body can completely cover the eggs as she incubates them.  Once babies arrive, you can put some type of substrate in the nesting box bottom to help keep the babies clean of their own feces.  Even then, you don't want substrate to be too deep or the hatchling could get "lost" in it and the female might not feed it or the hatchling could ingest small pieces and choke...I've also seen some types of substrate get attached to nostrils and suffocate hatchlings.    

As I stated previously, there could be many reasons for your keets' recent behavior problems (which may not actually be problems, but instinct), and this doesn't necessarily make them bad parents!  There are most likely very valid reasons, from a parrot's perspective, why they removed their eggs from the nestbox.

Chrys