FINCHforum

So, yesterday my grey singer laid an egg in her grit dish. I do not have any nesting materials in the cage since I am not breeding and when I had a nest in the cage my cutthroat took over it as his vacation home and the singer never went near it.
When do I take the egg out of the cage? She keeps going to it an laying on top of it. It doesn't look very comfortable. I've read different approaches, i.e. if I take the egg now it will stress her out and perhaps simulate more egg laying, if I move it into a nest then I think the cutthroat will just take over everything.
I'm a novice at this! As of yesterday I thought I had all males.
Thanks for your help.

frenchstyle712 -- Generally, I've found that if you remove the egg and don't provide a nest, then they generally don't keep laying.

Whereas if you leave the egg(s) in place, they typically continue laying until the clutch is finished.

I've never noticed any noticeable upset when taking a single egg, especially when it's in a food dish (vs. a nest.)
But if you allow her to lay an entire clutch of eggs, I'd say it's pretty certain she'll be upset if you remove them as she'll be in full out nesting mode by that point.
So better to remove the egg now.

If she appears to be a chronic egg layer, the alternative is to replace the eggs with duds (infertile eggs or fakes) and allow her to sit on them until she loses interest. That buys you around 3 weeks; some will resume laying, others will not.

Remember that it takes 24 hours for a hen to form an egg. So if you're seeing more than one egg per 24 hour timeframe, you have more than one female.

Just be sure you're providing lots of calcium and D3 (required to absorb calcium. Cuttle bone and eggs are great sources of these nutrients.

Thank you! I will pull the egg. She looks really uncomfortable in the dish. I think I'm the one who feels the most stressed out by this, not my lady grey!