Amercan Singer abandoning nest

[paul-inAZ]

A follow up to my previous post.
The American Singer hen that laid an egg in the seed dish was given a nest. She proceeded to lay 6 eggs and faithfully sit tight right from the first egg. Then, for a day she started to spend long stretches of time off the nest and yesterday abandoned the nest altogether, not returning for the night. All this within a day or two of the expected first hatch.
Nothing has changed in the environment, diet or activity of the pair except that the male now seems to be nervously flitting back and forth.

I guess that if the eggs were fertile it is game over. I will leave things as they are for several more days but with no optimism. I won't open the eggs to check fertility until I remove them. Candling them won't change anything so I won't do that.

Being new to canaries I wonder if this sort of thing is common. Are they finicky breeders?
Could she have sensed that the eggs are not fertile and just given up?
When I remove the eggs should I leave the nest in or take it out?

[jonvill]

So sorry you lost your nest.
It's really too early for canaries to breed.
Usually the canary breeding season starts in March-April but I'm sure in AZ you can start as early as mid February. Are your canaries on a natural light cycle or are they getting more than 11 hours of light? Are you feeding egg-food right now?

[paul-inAZ]

I was quite surprised at the season but an egg in the food dish said otherwise.
They have a daylight balanced fluorescent in the afternoons -> early evening above the cage so between that and the natural morning light they get ~13 or so hours of light.
They've been getting the usual seed, lots of green veg and commercial egg food.

[jonvill]

When canaries get more than 11 hours of light, they start to go into breeding mode. It's best not to let them get too much light or you might have a few off-season nests. This is the middle of winter and they should be resting up for the upcoming breeding season. I would try to cut back on the lights if you can and cut back on the eggfood for now.

[jonvill]

I would also separate the pairs and remove the nest.

[paul-inAZ]

I removed the nest and opened the eggs. None were fertile.
She must have sensed no fetal activity and that further sitting was futile.
These eggshells are extremely fragile.
Oh well.

[lovezebs]

paul-inAZ

That's too bad.
However there will be other clutches. It's possible that they were simply invtoo much of a rush to start a family, and too inexperienced to do it right.

Make sure your girl has enough calcium available to her (cuttle bone, crushed egg shells, oyster shell, etc.) I also offer loads of hardboiled eggs, along with good quality Canary seed mix, and lot's if greens and fruit.

Good luck with the next clutch.