Egg Eaters

Nagdabit · Post by **Nagdabit** » Tue Mar 31, 2009 4:22 pm

We have a cage set up with 5 zebras, two couples and recent widower. No one in the cage has produced any clutches in quite some time. It seems like as soon as some one lays an egg, the girls fight over who gets to eat it.

The hen that passed was the only female that had ever reared a clutch. Her mate had raised several clutches with other hens in the past. One of the other females used to sit on the eggs until they hatched and then would give up after a couple of days and start dropping babies out of the nest. Now she won't even sit on them.

They get a daily supply of egg food, and we started giving them crushed egg shell as well, hoping that if it was always available they'd leave the eggs alone, but thus far to no avail.

We do have a female for the lone male, but she's not out of quarantine yet. And we plan on mixing the remaining couples up a bit. The thing that concerns us however is that a female that was in that cage has carried the same bad habit over to her new cage. We took her out about 3 to 4 months ago and I just noticed last week she was raiding another females nest.

We'd appreciate any suggestions anyone on how break this habit

Thanks
Rory and Sherry

dfcauley · Post by **dfcauley** » Tue Mar 31, 2009 6:09 pm

I have had eggs to vanish before and I would suspect tha it had been eaten. But it has never been a chronic problem like you are having.

I would just keep the crushed egg shell available and hopefully they will stop doing that soon.

ac12 · Post by **ac12** » Tue Mar 31, 2009 6:22 pm

I read that you have to remove the offender ASAP and isolate her.
Don't want her to wipe out all the other nests and worse to teach the others that bad habit.

All that I did read was to do just what you did, egg shell and egg, on the premis that she is eating the eggs because of a diet deficiency.

Although I did also read that a bird could develop a taste for egg. Now THAT would be a problem to break, or she could never raise a clutch.

For now maybe remove the nests, so no nest no eggs, and let them rest.

You could then try breeding them with just the one pair in a breeder cage. That way there would be no commotion and distraction from the other females on the mother. IOW maybe all the mother needs is a little peace and quiet.

Or maybe the one not sitting is like a teenager. Don't want to do homework (sit on the eggs/chicks), rather go out an play with her friends.

My male did something that I thought was odd, at the time. When all 5 eggs were laid, he sat on the eggs for a couple days and did not let mom into the nest, unless he was out to eat. Boy did she create a commotion wanting to get in. I wondered why is dad sitting on the eggs and not letting mom in? I think what he was doing is teaching her how to sit. Prior to that she would pop in and out of the nest, not sitting for very long, and coming off for seemingly any reason. After this "exercise" she would SIT on the eggs. 4 of the 5 eggs hatched, and all 4 survived into molting juveniles (3 months old).

gud luk

akidsgal · Post by **akidsgal** » Tue Mar 31, 2009 6:24 pm

That was a fear of mine as well in the beginning. However now every time I cook eggs the finches thank my husband for the shells. He laughs when I microwave and break them up, but it really has done the job. I think ( and I do mean think)

that once their calcium is up to par they will stop eating the shells.

ac12 · Post by **ac12** » Tue Mar 31, 2009 6:30 pm

Carol
That is an interesting comment, cuz whenever I put egg shells in with any kind of food (egg or lettuce) they GO AFTER the egg shells first and with a vengance. And in my case, it is always the juveniles that are in the front of the pileup. I guess that must mean they are deficient in calcium. Got to get egg shells from the neighbors.

Rory,
If that is the case, liquid Calcium Plus should also help get their calcium level up.

Post by **Sally** » Tue Mar 31, 2009 8:26 pm

This place sells eggshells in bulk for a reasonable price. www.audubonworkshop.com/. I order from them so I don't have to worry about running out, as that is the first thing the birds clean up in their mineral cup. The eggshells they sell are crushed finer that what I do with the shells from my kitchen, and someone on another forum once complained that there was a little too much membrane in the mix for their liking, but I've never had a problem with this.

Nagdabit · Post by **Nagdabit** » Tue Mar 31, 2009 10:45 pm

Thanks for all the suggestions. They do get plenty of egg shells, we've been doing that on a regular basis for about two weeks now. The egg food has been a staple since the very beginning, over 4 years ago. We used to do the liquid calcium thing, but then 2 of our girls developed some type of internal calcified growths. Our vet thought initially the one was egg bound but after doing a dental x-ray he spotted the growths. The calcium probably didn't have anything to do with the growths, but we stopped just to be on the safe side. All cages do have a cuttle bone which the girls use frequently.

We're hoping that if we switch everyone up, that'll help. Probably gonna have to wait until our girls get out of quarantine though.

I'm afraid our one female (Dolce) has developed a taste for them. She's the one that doesn't even sit on her eggs anymore. Miss Dolce is definitely the queen of the cage, and she lets all the other birds know it. Unfortunately she's over two years old now, and her bad habits are getting more pronounced the older she gets.

We'd love to be able to put them into individual breeding cages, but we just don't have the space. We have 8 cages with over thirty birds scattered through out the house as it is. If all else fails we can try to put Dolce and her mate in a cage by themselves and she what happens. Again we greatly appreciate everyone's helpful advice

Thanks
Rory and Sherry

ac12 · Post by **ac12** » Wed Apr 01, 2009 1:48 am

The problem as I see it, is you can't leave her in the cage with the others.
She is the "bad egg" in the bunch, and will make it worse for everyone.

My mother zebra is the BOSS bird in the cage. And at one point I was ready to send her off to the pet shop. She has calmed down a bit, now that she is more used to sharing her cage with her kids. She will still chase them, but a lot less than when they were just weaned. Soon as I get another cage, I'm redistributing the birds, with the females in one cage and the males in another.

L in Ontario · Post by **L in Ontario** » Wed Apr 01, 2009 8:15 am

I agree with the others here - try pairing the Zebs to breed separately from others. Good luck.

nixity · Post by **nixity** » Wed Apr 01, 2009 10:51 pm

I heard an interesting suggestion at a club meeting once.
If you have any other finches that are separate and lay eggs, or if you have fake eggs - this will supposedly work.

Keep in mind I am not "endorsing" this - just posing a suggestion that was presented.
If you have other finches (e.g., societies) what they suggested was to take a couple of society eggs, pop them in the fridge for a day, then let them sit at room temp for about a week.
Add the eggs to the cage, and apparently the taste of the slightly foul eggs is enough to almost always completely eradicate this behavior in all but the most persistent birds.

I have NO idea if this poses any health risks - but if these people are suggesting it, and they've done it with no bad side effects (kind of like birds eating poisonous caterpillars and lady bugs, it just puts a bad taste in their mouth), then I imagine they feel its an acceptable thing to try as a last resort.

Otherwise, I've heard adding fake eggs (which are impossible for them to eat) 1 a day to a nest until a "full clutch" is formed, is sometimes enough, too.

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