help

Question
my female parakeet died this morning she laid an egg a few days ago, the male is there in the cage with the egg is it ok for me to get another female right away.

Answer
Hi, Empress,

I'm sorry about your loss.  You can get another female if you want, but don't expect a new female to care for the egg of another female.  In fact, there are no guarantees your male will get along with a new female.  Birds have to be pair-bonded before they will even think about offspring.  This process takes time.  You can't just put a new female in the cage and expect things to be the same as when the other female was alive.  It just doesn't work this way with aves.  In addition, whatever this bird died from may be contagious to other birds and can also possibly affect an egg.  I'd be concerned about the health of the male if you don't know why the female died.  The female could have been eggbound if she was in the process of laying eggs.  This means her diet was lacking in sufficient calcium.  Eggboundness occurs when a female tries to lay a soft-shelled egg.  Soft-shelled eggs can't be pushed out completely by the female.

A male typically will not incubate eggs and/or care for offspring either.  Therefore, I doubt you will have any luck hatching this egg, but this also depends on the male bird.  Each bird is different.

You will most likely have to give up this egg (again, depending on what the male is doing), and start all over again with a new female if/when they pair-bond sometime in the future.  If you have other pairs of breeding keets, you can try to slip this egg under another female who also has eggs that are about the same age.

Chrys