canary won't stop laying eggs

[zebsoc]

Female yellow canary
Don't know her age bought from pet store

She has been laying eggs since spring off and on pretty regular.
She stopped in September
But then started again in a major way in October. Still going this month.
It's fall here and from what I read online it should be April-August for laying eggs.
And she did stop in September which made sense.

She also eats her eggs.
In summer she was laying in seed cup and sitting on them. I tried giving her seed cup but she's not interest just laying them on bottom of cage.
and just flys and chirps and is very agitated and restless, sometimes just constantly going back and forth on same perch.
She gets very cranky with the 3 society finches at times. Very hormonal.
She is in large double flight cage with 3 society finches.

I must keep apartment warm day and night due to health. Usually 70-77

I had a 27watt full spectrum bulb plus a 10 watt daylight bulb.
I cut back to just the 10 watt daylight bulb yesterday.

She has energy but how to stop her egg laying so she can rest?

[zebsoc]

Pictures below.
Does she look health in general?

[Icearstorm]

zebsoc
If you need to take out the eggs, give her realistic fake ones as replacements. I have 3 society finches that I didn't want to breed, so I gave them about ten fake eggs over the course of a week and both the hens stopped laying before finishing a full clutch. They didn't lay eggs for a month afterward.

[lovezebs]

zebsoc

Your girl is very pretty and looks healthy.

It's a hard one when they get into this endless cycle. You could try the fake eggs (sometimes works, sometimes doesn't) and hope for the best.

Make sure she has enough cuttle bone, oyster shell, and crushed egg shells. This is very important for her Calcium levels. Without enough Calcium, she may become egg bound and die.

Also, if she's eating her own eggs, she's probably lacking in protein, so I would offer her small amounts of hard boiled eggs once or twice a week.

You could try changing the flight around a bit, adding some fake plants, a swing or two, etc. Just to get her interested in something else other than laying and break this cycle. Offer daily baths, and a variety of greens, along with hanging spray millet from the top of the flight, so that she has to fly to get to it.

Good luck.

[paul-inAZ]

I have no answers but have had something similar happen.

I have a canary pair. The hen dropped an egg on the floor last spring so I gave them a nest. She sat faithfully for a long time on 4 more eggs before I removed the nest. Eggs were infertile.
She repeated this two more times over a space of 3 or so months. Egg on floor; put in a nest; sat tight on several eggs; all infertile.
She never acted edgy but seemed blissfully calm and happy.

She has not done this again since early summer.

Canaries are strange. She also sings remarkably well. Hens aren't supposed to be very good at that if they sing at all. The male has been in a molt for months and has stopped singing.

[zebsoc]

Icearstorm, lovezebs, paul - thank you for your responses, suggestions and experiences.

I'm glad she looks healthy.

I had given her food with eggs in it but I read that egg food could stimulate breeding/egg laying? And after a couple days she lost interest in eating it.
The societies really enjoyed it.

I have 2 types of calcium available for her in cage.

I haven't had any egg laying by the societies 1 male 2 female.
I don't want to get them started too, esp with a male present.
That is why I avoided any nests.

If I place a nest with eggs already in it, will she stop laying or only if I Replace the eggs as she lays?

She has been laying them mainly in 1 corner of the cage, can I put the fake ones there? She never tries sitting on them tho.
The finches sleep in that corner at night. Sometimes she won't let them sleep there, sometimes she lets them.

I will try to divert her attention as suggested.
I am finding that finches are difficult in that they are hard to keep interested in anything that doesn't involve nesting activity.

I do have some items hung around the cage that she nibbles on sort of like a pacifer. They have been in cage for a while. The ribbon is her favorite she can spend hrs just nibbling on it.
I'll need to do some rearranging and add a bit as suggested.

I found these eggs on Amazon not easy to find fake eggs. See picture below.

I had given her some crinkly paper which she really liked but seemed to only get hr more agitated esp towards the society finches. I would be nice to just let her build a nest but I don't want to set off the society finches as well.

As she flies back and forth she chirps loudly. No singing tho.

[Lucille]

Egg laying can be triggered by day length. Maybe try covering the cage with a dark cloth every day around 6PM, to make sure that her body recognizes short days and that she is not so sensitive to indoor lighting that the days aren't shortened.

[Icearstorm]

zebsoc
It seems more likely for the dummy eggs to work if you replace them as she lays. If you add two dummy eggs for each real one taken out, she might only lay a few before stopping. I have heard that adding a nest with a few eggs and adding one or two per day can get groups of male finches to start incubating, but this may not work on a female, as she will probably remember where she laid (or didn't lay) her eggs. As for a nest with eggs inducing breeding behavior in the society finches, this may be the case, though my society finches did not want to breed in their nest of fake eggs after finally giving up on them hatching.

[zebsoc]

Lucille - that makes a lot of sense esp since she's in the livingroom. Thank you

Icearstorm - thank you for the helpful info on using fake eggs

[Dave]

Lucille has a good answer to this, I think. Make sure the cage is covered (or the room is dark) so your canary is getting only 10.5 or 11 hours of light per day. So, 13 or 13.5 hours of dark.

Canaries should have their day length increase in the spring and decrease in the fall. If they don't get this regular, seasonal change in the length of their day, the hormonal confusion can eventually shorten their life considerably.

Their night needs to be dark enough that you can't read a newspaper.

[zebsoc]

Dave -- thank you, very helpful info

[Sheather]

The bigger health issue from an ongoing egg-laying cycle, long term, is that the bird never molts and dies from exhaustion. If she continues laying as the days get shorter, pulling her tail feathers is a drastic but extremely effective way to end the breeding cycle and kick start a molt, which she should have finished by now.

My hen went broody from March to September, getting rattier and rattier in feather with bald patches and damaged flights until I wondered if she'd make it past the summer - she looked that worn out. I was advised by a few internet sources to pull her tail feathers and it worked. She stopped laying immediately and started her molt. She is now in perfect feather and no longer broody.