parakeet laying eggs

Question
I have a 5 year old female parakeet. I got her when she was about 4 or 5 weeks
old. About a year later I got another female parakeet. Then I got 2 males a year
after that. Parakeet #2 died almost a year ago(she was 3) and one of the males
died recently(almost 3). I never had any intention of breeding my parakeets, and
I guess they never laid eggs before because there were always other birds. But
my female recently was spending a lot of time under the water dish in the corner
just pecking at it. I discovered this morning that she has laid an egg on the
ground below her water dish. I guess  she was trying to make a nest under there
like they do in the wild in the tree branches. It has a crack in it but she
still tries to sit on it. Should I provide them with a nesting box? If I do,
should I move the egg into the box or just throw it away since it is cracked? I
have read that they do not like nesting material and that it can be harmful to
baby parakeets. I know breeding isn't your specialty, but I cannot ask the other
parakeet expert because she is on vacation for a few more days. Please e-mail me
ASAP. Thank-you.
~Rachel~

PS I threw that egg away because they started ignoring it. I saw another egg in there under the water dish even after I gave them a nesting box. This egg seems to have blood on the outside, but no cracks in it. My bird is not sitting on it, but seemed agitated when I was trying to see it. Should I move this new egg to the nesting box and hope that she will sit on it? If not, what should I do?

Answer
Dear Rachel,
thank you for your question.
Take the nesting box out again, that will only encourage them to lay more eggs. Breeding parakeets is not as easy as it sounds, threre can be a number of problems and you should only try it after being properly prepared for it.
Exchange the egg for a plastic one or boil it (it's only two days or so old, so it would be like boiling a chicken egg, there's no developed embryo inside). If you just take away the egg, the female will keep laying because she thinks that a predator is stealing her eggs and she will keep laying to get a full clutch. Do that with any eggs that follow. If she notices that the eggs don't develope, she wil stop caring for them and hopefully will stop laying.

Offer her additional calcium, she will have lost some by producing the eggs. You can scrape some cuttlebone over their food for example. If you offer very protein-rich food like germinated seeds, stop offering that for the moment since it can encourage laying eggs.Get them some new toys, sometimes they lay eggs because they are bored.

It's also possible to give the bird a hormone injection that will stop egg production. But that's not without risk an may cause liver problems and/or diabetes, I don't know if vets in the US will do it at all. If she doesn't stop laying eggs, that can be an option, but it should be the last one. Here are websites that list avian vets:
www.birdsnways.com/birds/vets.htm
www.parrotparrot.com/avianvets/
http://aav.org/vet-lookup/
http://www.toolady.com/vetrefer/vetrefer.htm

I hope I was of some help to you
Jennifer