eggz

Question
Hello!,  this morning I woke up to find that one of my parakeets laid an egg.
I'm still a bit confussed about the sex of my birds.  However, one hase a pink
beak, the other has a white/grey color beak.  Anyhow, let's assume that I have a
male and a female.  What do I do now???  I have had the male for about 5 years
and the female for about 4 years now.  And now there is an egg.  I want to make
sure I do the right thing but no one I know has a clue what to do.  There is no
nesting material in the cage so they laid the egg in one of the feeding trays.
Please help


Answer
Hi, Megan-Mae.  Thanks for posting!

Let's sex your birds first.  You sex a keet by the color of the bird's cere, not its beak.  The cere is the colored area above the beak where the nostrils are located.  A male will have a deep blue cere; a female will have a white/brown/tan/beige cere.  Obviously, one is female.  However, female birds can lay infertile eggs without a male being present.  Therefore, what color is the other bird's cere?  You could have 2 females.  

Assuming you have a male and a female, do you want these birds to mate and have babies?  Think about this carefully because if you want the babies to be tame and handleable, you will need to pull any babies that hatch from their parents completely when they are about 7-10 days old and handfeed them in order for them to be tame (you'd have to keep them in a brooder, handfeed feed 4 times per day, etc.).  If the babies aren't tame, you may not be able to sell or give them away.  Most keets lay an average of 6 eggs per clutch...would you be prepared to keep all these babies if they aren't tame and you can't give them new homes?  Are you knowledgeable enough about birds and handfeeding, etc., that you can handle this situation?  I think you have a whole lot to learn before you get involved in this.

With that being said, you have some options.  You can just let this pair leave their egg and any subsequent eggs laid right where she lays them and see what happens (the eggs may/may not hatch) OR you can put up a nesting box and see if the pair will take to it quickly and start laying their eggs in the nesting box.  Even if you put up a nesting box, they may not lay their eggs in it because they need time to adjust to it being up first of all, then they have to make it the way they want it before they will lay their eggs in it, etc., etc.  They do not need nesting material...keets don't make nests.  They lay their eggs right on the bottom of the cage, in a cup (neither the best situation) or in a nesting box if one has been provided (nothing needed as nesting material).  Problem with laying in a cup, tray, cage bottom is that the eggs/babies aren't protected, can't be kept the proper temperature, probably not enough room for the eggs and mom to incubate properly, etc.  Also, if/when they hatch in a cup or cage bottom, the babies can fall out/fall through...creates all sorts of problems.

If you decide you don't want any babies, you still have to deal with any eggs that are laid in order to prevent your female from continuously laying and laying, which can affect her health.  Therefore, make your decision and let me know.  I'll fill you in and what you should do if you do not want any eggs to hatch.

Now that your bird is laying, make sure she has plenty of cuttlebone available to replace any lost calcium.

Chrys