Eggs MUST be duds? And ... complications

[Sojourner]

So some time ago I gave up on stopping Pyewacket laying eggs and put a nest in the cage with the intention of replacing the eggs with fakes.

But I was in one of my "drifty" periods and didn't get the fakes and by now I have no idea how long they've been in there. It is part of my disability - I have no sense of passing time. This is at times much worse than others, and its been pretty bad of late.

However it occurred to me to go back and check my old posts until I found the first one where I talked about having done this, and lo and behold, as of Feb 20 (nearly a month ago) I ALREADY thought they were about to hatch any day.

By now those 5 eggs have GOT to be duds, right? I was thinking to try the "bobbing" test where you put the egg in room temp water and watch to see if it bobs around. If it does, then its a "good" egg. If it doesn't, then its a "dead" egg.

Is there really any point in bohering with that at this point? It's been 23 days since Feb 20, and at that time they must already have been in the nest for a couple of weeks, or at least ONE week. They MUST be duds - mustn't they?

Regardless there is now a further complication. I checked a few days ago (which by now could be anything from a few days to a couple of weeks) and there was a SIXTH egg in the nest, very pinkish compared to the blue-grey color of the most-likely dead eggs. I don't know if she's laid any more, but that one egg has been in there long enough that if it is viable at all, there must be a developing chick in it.

Given I have to disturb the nest to get rid of the bad eggs anyway (or test them for bobbing if there's any point to that by now) - should I candle the new egg? Or eggs in case she has laid any more.

Isn't it weird that she would have laid more egg(s) while still sitting the existing first batch, even if they're dead?

[MisterGribs]

I completely feel your pain! I am having terrible luck with my hen as well and have, for the time being, given up on them.

I'm disabled as well and although finches are wonderful to keep you going, the sad times can be really hard to deal with.

As for the older eggs, they are probably duds or quitters. My last zebra egg didn't pip until two or more days after it was due. I'd candle them if I were you, because what if they aren't the original eggs, but part of a new clutch?? It's worth candling them all if you've got a chance on that sixth one.

[MisterGribs]

Sojourner I forgot to mention- as for the weirdness of her laying another egg, I had a similar issue.

My zebra hen laid an egg every day for 4 days, and then stopped laying. TEN DAYS LATER she added one final egg on top of a dud I had left in there, and sat tight. Had I not incubated them, the others would certainly have been dead by the time she'd laid the fifth one.

[wildbill]

i'd toss the lot and start from scratch

[MisterGribs]

If you have nothing to risk, there's no harm in trying!

[Sojourner]

wildbill

Oh I might toss them - but as for starting from scratch - NO WAY!

I really DO NOT want babies. The plan was to fake her out with fake eggs.

However if the "new" egg or eggs is (are) already viable, I don't want to toss it. Them, maybe. But I'm pretty sure by now that the 5 original eggs HAVE to be duds.

No wonder they seem so tired - they've been trying to hatch that first clutch for about twice as long as it ought to have taken by now, I'm guessing.

MisterGribs

We just have similarly weird birds, I guess, LOL! I had never heard of something like this happening before (laying new eggs when there is already an existing clutch), and it makes me think that maybe not even fakes will stop the Pyewacket-egg-train, LOL!

I haven't disturbed them yet because I am way way squeamish about killing developing embryos, but I guess I'll toss the five originals tomorrow - I probably WILL try the float test first - and candle anything that's left. I'll have to add "tiny flashlight" to my shopping list. Thursday is my runnin'-around day, when I (try to) get all my errands taken care of.

At least I found my box of surgical gloves yesterday when I was hunting a pair of pliers to fix the dishwasher, LOL!

[MisterGribs]

Sojourner I don't trust the float test anymore! One mid-term quail dank, so I cracked it open, and it was alive and fine! Maybe I'm doingitwrong.

Was it you who had suggested the surgical gloves? I did go out and buy a box for my egg handling. They're pretty handy.

[wildbill]

the best way to check eggs for fertility is with an egg candling torch. at 7 days pull the eggs out or place the torch next to the egg in question - if you see through it toss it and if they have life form which is very easy to see -all good

[Sojourner]

wildbill

Yeah but these eggs are way way past 7 days. I thought candling was pretty useless once they get past that because the whole egg becomes opaque - is that wrong?

If the bobbing test isn't any good I guess I won't do that either.

[MisterGribs]

Sojourner I think the older the eggs are, the more reliable the bobbing is since the chicks move more.

@lovezebs you have so much experience and great advice, what do you think is the best course of action?

[Sojourner]

MisterGribs

I don't know why but you have to put all the "@"s in the first line or the program doesn't translate them to the CC code that notifies the person you are talking to. And there has to be a space between them. Although oddly enough when I put the "@" sign in this paragraph the first time and didn't use quotes it translated that to the code to notify someone named "s" - but usually it doesn't properly translate that code when the "@" phrase is in the body instead of at the top.

So what I do is put them on the first line and then go into preview mode, copy/paste the translated code to where I want it in the body of the text. The translated code starts with a square bracket and url= and ends with a /url in square brackets. I hope that makes sense.

So then your question (on my behalf) to lovezebs would look like this:

lovezebs you have so much experience and great advice, what do you think is the best course of action?

[haroun]

This is MHO don't want to breed so i toss the eggs, no fakes, no incubation, why push the bird to seat on fake eggs to stop layin it can work but in other hand bird tired. It can also not working ad's some cases are related new eggs uppon the fakes
Simply toss the eggs each time till she will naturly stop laying when the ovarian grap is consumed.
Toss eggs
Remove nest
Even remove the cok
Roost diet

[MisterGribs]

Sojourner code is confusing! XnX

Haroun has some good advice, if you especially pay attention to the diet. Hens that go crazy for laying need tons of calcium right in their food.

I guess there are a lot of options you can choose to tackle this problem and, in my opinion, none of them are incorrect. Just try different methods, and see which one will work for you and your birds, and in the mean time, others will comment with new suggestions.

It will be ok! Your hen will be fine.

[lovezebs]

MisterGribs

Sorry, what was the question?

[Sojourner]

I'm sorry but I am NOT breaking up a bonded pair. There is no reason to make TWO birds lonely and unhappy. I just got tired of tossing eggs and went the let-them-sit route because I was, well, TIRED.

I am not a breeder and I don't want to be a breeder. I want to have happy cheerful birds to watch. They cheer me up when things are worse than usual around here, LOL! So I can't be so hard-hearted as to make them live alone. I will just have to manage better in the future to keep ahead of any egg-laying.

From now on will do my best to keep ahead of Pyewacket the egg machine. I'm pretty sure once we're past this bout - and it should be about over by now - I won't have to worry about it again until next year.

Thank you for the advice, but its inappropriate in this case. Had I a choice to begin with I'd have bought all males, but you can't usually tell with societies who's male and who's female until its too late. Bambi, btw, was sold to me as a female to pair up with the surviving female I already had (since her female companion had died) and turned out to be male.

So its not like I didn't try to make sure there wouldn't be any fertile eggs in my house, LOL!

Up to now I'd been doing a pretty good job of keeping these guys from ending up in a nesting situation and I'd had success stopping the egg-laying train - until I bolluxed it up by not getting the fake eggs when I needed them. I won't make this mistake again. Undoubtedly I'll make some OTHER totally stupid mistake instead.

lovezebs

Mr. Gribs was asking on my behalf, what to do about checking to make sure the probably-dead eggs are really dead. They are 24 days old plus one or two weeks. I don't see how they could not be dead, but I'm super squeamish about throwing away a live egg. Plus, Pye laid at least one if not more new eggs on top of the probably dead ones somewhere between a few days and 2 weeks ago (no sense of time here which is how this has gone on for so long).

So my thought was to do the bobbing test on the old probably dead eggs and then I'm not sure what to do with the newer maybe viable eggs as I'm pretty sure they're probably more than 6 days old and I read you can't really candle them after day 6 because the whole thing just turns into an opaque mass.

Mr. Gribs and I have both had the experience of a hen laying a new egg (possibly more in my case as I've not checked the nest again since) when she isn't done with the first clutch. Bambi and Pye both are still sitting the nest with 5 almost certainly dead eggs and at least one, maybe more, new and perhaps viable eggs. It just seems weird to me that she would have done that.