help!! my bird keeps on attacking her eggs...?

Question

ok so we have two canary birds and they keep on mating. and so far they have had six eggs and keep on cracking them with their beaks or pushing them to the ground to break. can some one please tell me why this is happening?
We saved one egg and now we have no idea what to do. we kept the egg wrapped up in cotton and tissue in a bowl, under a warm light. is this what we are supposed to do?? how warm should the light be and how long will it take to hatch?? will it survive?

thnks for answering!!

note:they are the same type and one is female whilst the other male....

Answer 1

When breeding budgies, I sometimes ended up with a few egg eaters (in community type breeding, they would not only just eat their own eggs, but would sneak into nests of other birds and eat the other birds' eggs too). A trick I found really helpful -- after the first egg was layed, I removed the egg (put it into another nest the be incubated and reared by its new foster parents), and gave fake eggs (white marbles of the right size can work too). After two days of thrashing the fake eggs around, they would give up and incubate them instead. As their own eggs were layed, the eggs would get mixed into the fake ones... three weeks later, I had a successful clutch of chicks and the parent birds were excellent at raising the chicks.

Answer 2

This may be the male bird if it is both doing this your female may not be old enough to be mating yet,and is trying to hint this.If it is just the male bird doing this you may need to separate the mother and baby until the egg has hatched.Also try going to local pet store if the mother is refusing to be with the baby and find a older mother and put in separate cage and see if she will nurse the bird until it hatches.As last resort if none of this work keep doing what you are doing the nest should be clean and warm,as long as you touch the egg and it is between 99 and 101 degrees you should do fine.Usually you can tell this just from the touch it should not feel cool at all.It should be warm almost hot all over the egg.It will usually take about two till three weeks to hatch.If you have any doubts about the nest go to your local farm and tractor supply and buy a incubator,and a book on hatching eggs,it will tell you everything you need to know about hatching and raising them.It will come with its own thermometer and tell you exact information on the product.I believe this is just a case of the mother needs to be in separate cage with baby.The baby should survive just fine however if the baby does not start eating you will also have to go to the store again and get baby bird food and a dropper to feed it with.

Answer 3

Firstly, are you certain that you want the egg to hatch? If you hatch it, you would normally have two options: your birds would raise the chick, or YOU would. If the birds won't accept the egg, then they probably won't accept the chick either, so it will be up to you to raise it, and this entails carrying it around with you 24/7, because they don't eat several meals, they need to be fed CONSTANTLY. You will have to take the chick to work, or take several weeks off, and get up at all hours of the night to feed it with an eyedropper. (It's even worse than having a human baby)

(If the birds DID end up accepting the chick, and raised it themselves, it would be less likely to grow up freindly towards YOU.)

Then, once the chick grows up, you will be faced with the possibility that your existing birds will not want a new roommate.

Because of these issues, when my birds lay an egg, I take it from them and throw it away. (once it's gone, smalI birds don't remember that they had an egg in the first place) I suggest that you do the same, unless you are willing to accept both the responsibility of raising the chick and housing it separately.

Answer 4

All eggs are not fertilized. You must also have a "nest" for them in the cage or they will not try to hatch them. You need a small box(prefer wood or they will chew cardboard apart) with some straw in it. They will not just ry to hatch the eggs if they dont have a private place to do it. Once the eggs are hatched and the baby is visible in the cage at times, you can remove the "love nest" for future use. When a female is "nursing " they need extrta vitamins just like humans too. Try adding some to their food(available any pet store) and extra egg shell supplement(also at pet store)

Answer 5

Do they have a nest? If not, then the birds are being rather smart. They know there's no place for them to properly raise the chicks (it's sortof like an abortion..) If so, keep it in there. Hatching an egg (and caring for the subsequent chich) isn't really worth the trouble. It may just be that your birds are messing around, much like stupid teenagers. You might also want to keep your birds in separate cages...

Answer 6

Well they could be egg eaters. If so take out the eggs and put in a substitute so the canary's don't get sad. Buy/ make a incubator(Internet can help make a incubator). Buy a book on canary's. Call local canary breeder. about the that one egg its dead you need to flip it every couple hours.

Answer 7

It seems to me that your birds are not ready to be breeding yet. You should cease all mating activity and have them checked out by a vet.

Your vet can teach you proper canary care and breeding technique for when the day comes.

If you don't have a vet, you can find one at http://aav.org/vet-lookup

Answer 8

Birds do that sometimes, if they are just on the bottom of the cage try getting some nesting fluff or something similar.

Or if you have a pet store nearby with knoweldgeble staff give them a call.

Answer 9

Put the eggs in a incubator in a different cage

Answer 10

you may have two female birds,and a batch of infertile eggs as this is what my cockateil and budgie do