nestbox

Question
Hello Jennifer,
I just noticed a little egg in my birdies cage this morning....they don't have a nest box. How necessary is it? Will the egg not hatch if they don't have one? She seems to be caring for it because I see that she lies on it to keep it warm. Help!
Thank you so much.
Carmen

Answer
Dear Carmen,
thank you for your question.
This is unusual behaviour, usually budgies don't just lay their eggs somewhere. It's not neccessarily fertile, but if it is and the mother continues to care for it, it will hatch. But if you are unprepared for this, I recommend replacing the egg and any that will follow with plaster or plastic eggs or cooking the eggs as soon as you find them and then putting them back again. Raising budgie chicks can be difficult, for example if the mother is aggressive toward her chicks or if the chicks have any health problems, and you will also have the problem of finding good homes for them - a clutch of eggs can be as big as eight eggs.

If the eggs don't hatch, the mother will abandon them after some time. If you really want to breed, read up on this, maybe find a breeder near you who can advice you and help with any problems and then offer them a nesting box. Here's a active budgie breeder forum:
http://forums.budgiebreeders.asn.au/
and here's a website that lists breeders:
http://www.budgies.org/info/breeders.html
Googling with your city/zipcode and "budgie breeder" will also turn up good results.
I hope I was of some help to you
Jennifer