Hen left her nest

[StephOnIt]

Hello everyone! It's been a while since I've posted as the holidays keep me soo busy but I've been around reading and keeping up to date with all of you.

SO since I last spoke to you all, my birdies did build their little nest, and started laying. I've tracked everything on the database and the first egg was on the 21, second on 22, third on 24. I left the 24th to spend Christmas Eve with family, and when I came home I saw that there was no fourth egg. However, they got pretty spooked when I moved around some stuff in the cage that was messed up and they flew out (they had not had free flight in over 24 hours).

They returned and have been eating and hanging out but have not returned to the nest. Its been about 3 hours since she was last in there I think, this is in stark contrast to how they've been behaving which was that they were really fastidious about one of them being in there even before she was done laying.

So I guess this is a long winded way of asking how long can the eggs sit there without the cock/hen sitting on them? Thanks for any help!

PS She's back to sitting in there.



Merry Christmas everyone!

[Sally]

There are many variables that can affect how long the eggs will stay viable--temp in the room, whether or not the parents had actually started incubating (they can be in the nest and not sitting tight). I don't ever give up on the eggs until the parents have definitely abandoned. You may be surprised after all.

[debbie276]

Absolutely agree with Sally.
best of luck

[MariusStegmann]

I have had Gouldians that left their eggs more than than 4 hours after I put Carbodust in the nest. I noticed that they had abandoned the eggs. Took the eggs out of the nest, removed the carbodust, replaced the eggs and the pair started sitting on the nest again. All 6 eggs hatched. I also had another pair of Gouldians that abandoned their eggs after sitting tight on it for a couple of days. They stopped sitting on the eggs, and when I checked that evening, the eggs were cold. The next day I checked again and the eggs were still cold. I put the eggs under societies, and expected nothing. 4 out of the 5 eggs hatched. Like Sally said, there is no telling with eggs, they are a lot of variables, like at what time during the development, the eggs were abandoned.

[StephOnIt]

Ok thanks everyone! I will keep my fingers crossed and just wait it out. They're back in there again tonight/this morning so I hope there wasn't too much damage done.

[StephOnIt]

Hmm, I just don't know what has happened with them. Where as before they would alternate to eat or drink water and never leave the nest unattended, now they're both spending time outside together. They go back to it occasionally.

I do feel like they were sitting tight because I would watch her go in there and "wiggle" down on top of the eggs. But what do I know about birdie antics.