Gouldian Eggs

[Dbearden]

Started out with 4 eggs.....two hatched and now don't see the other eggs? What happened to them?

[paul-inAZ]

Most often one or another parent will eat the egg -shell and all. My guess is that this may reflect some calcium deficiency in the hen.
Each egg shell has the calcium said to be equivalent to 10% of the hen's total body calcium. So she uses a lot of her calcium to make the egg shells.

When breeding, make sure she has access to abundant calcium. Chicks also need calcium to grow good bones. I use a mix of crushed chicken eggshells and oyster shell pulverized to something close to a coarse powder in an old coffee bean mill.

[Dbearden]

Yes, I do provide crushed egg shell and the oyster shell, which is why I was surprised to see them gone........may need to put in various places instead of in one area if the aviary.

[Rob]

Dbearden

I was given a tip of shaving the cuttlebone over their food. I found a half eaten egg in my societies nest, and started adding more cuttlebone/eggshells. The other two infertile eggs I found at the bottom of the cage, uneaten.

[paul-inAZ]

Remnant bits of cuttle bone are also useful to pulverize along with the shells. Or it can simply be scraped into edible bits with a kitchen grater.

I put a half teaspoon or more of the shell/oyster grounds right on top of each pair's normal seed in the feed bowl each day. This way they don't have to look for it.