New owner/parents

[joan gault]

:rolleyes: Hi Everyone
I am a fairly new lovebird owner who purchased my first peached face female in the fall/04 and then added a male red-faced lovebird about 3 mths. later. We now have 5 eggs and 1 baby 7 days old. None of the other eggs have hatched but I am hoping maybe 1 more. My female(Kiwi) and my male (Mango) get along great and it is entertaining and enjoyable watching them parent together.
Joan

[mangotiki]

Welcome to the board.

Isnt it exciting? the eggs should hatch about every other day if they were laid like that. you can always candle them so you know if any are still good, there is a link in the breeding section that shows you what the eggs should look like. I use a small flashlight and then put my hand around it to make the light smaller. I go in the bathroom and turn off the light. If you have any questions, post them and you will get great advice.
Good luck, I hope you get some more babies. Let us know how it goes.

Traci

[Mummieeva]

Welcome to the board. I am owned by a 1yr old white faced violet female named Baggy and her 2wk old baby Whisper. I only had one out of 4 eggs hatch myself. I would candle the remaing eggs if mom and dad will let you. I look forward to hearing more. Any ideas for naming new baby yet?


Steph
P.S. hint hint we have a good photo section..lol

[joan gault]

Hi All
Thanks for all the advice I'm hoping to get(I need it). I would like to try and candle the eggs but am a little nervous about breaking one or making my female even more aggressive to me than she already is. I was planning on letting the eggs sit until 26 days at least from the last 1 laid and then gradually removing them or will the mom do anything with them if they don't hatch?
Joan

[mangotiki]

wait until she is out of the nest box, then block off the hole with a piece of plastic or cardboard or something. gently put the eggs one by one in a bowl with a face cloth or something laid in it, then go candle them. unblock the box when you return the eggs. she will be concerned, but when she gets back in the box everything will be just like it was ....
then you can let us know how many babies you are expecting...
If you dont candle them, I would wait at least 26 days from the date the last egg was laid just to be sure.
I will refer to someone more knowledgeable about when to take the dead eggs out, as they give the baby something to lean on.
Traci

[shylevon]

Hi Joan

Welcome aboard. Good luck with the clutch.

Oftentimes a birds first clutch will not hatch out too many. You may be in for a bit of trouble if another one hatches at this stage, as the older one will be so much bigger than the following baby. The size difference causes quite a compitition for food, and the little one sometimes goes without. If this should happen, the older one would need to be taken from the nest and handfed. A lot of work to say the least.

Prepare yourself by reading through some of the handfeeding tips in the useful links forum, just in case.

As for the unhatched eggies, leave at least two in there. This gives baby something to lean against, and takes a lot of the weight of the parents off baby.

[kiwilovies]

Hi and WELCOME from New Zealand! :D
How wonderful... Babies!
We all love babies, and photo's too please :D

[joan gault]

Hi All:
Just a little update and question about the 4 eggs that did not hatch from my first clutch. I candled them today and found nothing in the eggs but they were nice and warm and heavy(?) The baby seems to be doing good and getting bigger each day-its now 9 days old. In three more days it will be 26 days since the last egg was laid. Do I leave the eggs(how many) or I can get rid of 1 every second day or will Mom Lovie freak out? I really do not want to boil them and put them back????
Joan

[mangotiki]

Were the eggs basically white inside with a bit of yellow? if so, then they were not even fertilized. You can go ahead and take all out but two as Shy suggested. I wont advise you on the eggs if they were dark inside as I dont know enough to describe the difference between a DIS and an egg that is about to hatch. Once the baby is a little bigger you can take the rest out. You will be amazed at how fast he will grow!!!!
Dont worry about mom, she will just busy herself with the baby. Just make sure you block her out of the box!!!
Traci

[Princess]

Hi our lovebirds just layed 4 more eggs as of june and this will be their 4th clutch of eggs. Thurston and Lovie are quite the lovebirds to say the least. I just leave the eggs alone as I really dont know to much about candling them and just take them away after the jestation period is over. They dont seem to mind and pretty much busy themselves with other things. We still have their babies from the second clutch and they seem to be getting busy so to speak and now we were thinking they might be a boy and girl lovebird also. Is this wrong?

[Mummieeva]

Joan I left my eggs in until baby was 2wks old. Others here may know better though(plus my other 3 infertile eggs were getting peeled)It does sound like you will only have one baby this time. At this point in time you would defenitly see something in there if was more babies. Also there is a great recipe for birdie bread which alot of lovies like. it is a good food as mom and dad are eating for more now.


Steph

[mangotiki]

Hi our lovebirds just layed 4 more eggs as of june and this will be their 4th clutch of eggs. Thurston and Lovie are quite the lovebirds to say the least. I just leave the eggs alone as I really dont know to much about candling them and just take them away after the jestation period is over. They dont seem to mind and pretty much busy themselves with other things. We still have their babies from the second clutch and they seem to be getting busy so to speak and now we were thinking they might be a boy and girl lovebird also. Is this wrong?


according to this board, if the parents are not related then the siblings may be bred together, but then that is it...no more inbreeding!!!

traci

[mjm8321]

Yep, after one generation, no more related breeding.

[joan gault]

thanks for the advice Traci I think I will wait for the 26+ gestation period and then remove the eggs. When I do I will look inside 2 see what colour the fulid is-probably they were never fertilized.
Joan

[Princess]

according to this board, if the parents are not related then the siblings may be bred together, but then that is it...no more inbreeding!!!

traciHelp the parents were from the same grouping of eggs so wouldnt they be brother and sister?
The babies are also from a grouping of 2 eggs so they would be brother and sister too Right?

[mangotiki]

Help the parents were from the same grouping of eggs so wouldnt they be brother and sister?
The babies are also from a grouping of 2 eggs so they would be brother and sister too Right?

yep, parents are siblings, and the two babies are also siblings. dont breed the babies. no nest box, no shredding materials, and if they lay, then let them sit but addle/boil the eggs. or separate the siblings and find them some new unrelated mates.
traci

[Princess]

I dont know what to do now the babies get along fine with each other and I dont want them to mate as I dont know what to do with the eggs. We couldnt find homes for them thats why we kept them.
The parents keep mating however and I feel like I would be murdering there babies and I cant bring myself to hard boil them.What will happen to them if they keep laying eggs? So far the babies appear to be ok and we were able to give them away. Except for the two we kept.I would really feel bad if I was causing any harm to these birds.

[Mummieeva]

Take nest box and anything they can shread from mom and dad. Rearange the cage and it may stop them from laying eggs. Even if they are getting busy does not always mean eggs. As for the 2 babies I am not sure other than same thing as the parents and no nest box or shreadables.


Steph

[mjm8321]

The parents keep mating however and I feel like I would be murdering there babies and I cant bring myself to hard boil them.What will happen to them if they keep laying eggs?

If you immediately take the eggs after hatching and boil or addle them, you are not murdering anything but an egg white and yolk. Chronic laying of eggs, clutch after clutch, can lead to health issues for the hen especially. It's best to let them have at least a six month rest from laying per year.

[LauraO]

MJ is right about boiling the eggs as not doing any damage. I just wanted to add that I have a chronic layer and both she and the father were starting to lose feathers and have nutritional problems because they were always raising babies. My vet told me not to let them hatch out anymore eggs because it could cause serious damage to them. Plus, it is hard to find quality homes for our birds and I would rather not let the birds hatch out than condemn them to an unhappy life.

Good Luck

[Princess]

I guess I will just see what hatches out of the 4 eggs she layed as its alittle too late to take them away from her and replace them with some eggs that didnt hatch from the other clutches. For some reason I saved the eggs and they dont smell or anything or should I just hard boil those too?

[mjm8321]

The eggs that you saved; do you mean from a previous clutch? If so, you'll just want to dispose of them. You can't really hard boil them and save them for future use, though that would be awfully convenient. ;)

[Princess]

Yes they are from a previous clutch. Since they dont smell or anything is there anything wrong with putting them back in the nest??

[mjm8321]

Even though they don't smell, you'll want to dispose of them as just like an egg you'd have in your fridge, they go bad after a while.