Egg Eating and Egg Breaking Problems in Parrots
By Dale R. Thompson

Question: Is it common for Eclectus Parrots to be egg-eaters compared to other parrot species and is there a solution to this problem?
Answer: I have found that the egg-eating problems in the Eclectus species is much less common than in most other medium to large parrots. Three parrot species where this is more likely to occur is the cockatoo, Amazon and Great-billed species. Common solutions to egg-eating problems is to give a deeper, more narrow chambered nest box to the problem pair. It is the male that is usually the culprit and the narrow nest box allows the female to keep the male away from the eggs. When egg eating becomes a habit, one may have to remove the male soon after the first egg is laid. The female will continue to finish out the clutch (she still has enough semem top keep the rest of the eggs fertile) and she will then incubate and feed her babies without the problem egg-eater. Many a female parrot will incubate and feed her babies unassisted.

Question: When should one remove infertile eggs from a pair of birds.
Answer: Many breeders remove infertile eggs as soon as they are found which can be between 10 and 14 days for a complete clutch. I personally do not recommend this and do not practice it. In all psittacine species it is wise to remove infertile eggs at the normal time period of incubation. Removing infertile eggs early can cause problems. It is a good way to continue the infertility which is what you are trying to avoid. The female may recycle early and the male may recycle later (being on the normal 26 day [average medium parrot incubation term]incubation cycle) and thus the pair has not recycled together. This kind of beginning may cause infertility problems throughout the breeding season. Then other reason not remove infertile eggs early in cockatoos, rosellas, etc. is that the incidence of mate-trauma increases greatly when the hen comes off the nest early. In its native habitat the natural or wild hen will normally go the distance in her incubation duties.

In reverse to this question is not wise to leave infertile eggs too long under a parent bird. Infertile eggs left too long become rotten and may foul the nest if broken. A case in point is an Eclectus hen we have who climbed out of her nest at 30 days with a seeping infertile egg stuck to her chest. This egg on her chest had stuck to her hair-like feathers from the goo that had seeped out of the old, slightly cracked egg. Another incident with another pair of out Eclectus pairs was when they had two eggs of which only one was fertile and hatched. When this baby was around five days of age the infertile egg still left in the nest with it was slightly nicked or cracked and it began to seeped this sticky substance from within. This sticky material then stuck to the hen's chest feathers which correspondedly stuck to the tiny baby and the result was that the baby was crushed under the hen's body. The baby could not get unstuck from beneath her mother's body and thus could not be fed. It eventually was flattened by the mother's chest and died. This is not the norm, but did happen to a pair of Eclectus that had raised over 130 chicks in her captive breeding lifetime. She is pictured to the right and is known as Grandma as she has been reproducing for 28 years now.

It is very common to see this problem occurring in cockatiels. Many times a tiny baby cockatiel is found dead on the floor and the parents are blamed for throwing it out of the nest. They certainly did not throw it out; it just got stuck to one of the parents chest feathers and dropped off after the parent exited the nest box. One also finds cockatiels on the perch with an egg stuck to its chest. This is caused by seepage from the egg.

Question: Can other eggs filled with water or even a thicker substance like mustard be used as foster eggs under a bird?
Answer: I have tried filling eggs with a number of fluids to try to fool a parrot hen and have been mostly unsuccessful. The hen knows the density of the fluid-filled egg and quickly abandons or breaks it. If it has mustard in it, the hen will probably break it and then the nest material would become terribly soiled. The only fake eggs that I have used successfully were plastic eggs manufactured in Europe that were similar in size, shape, color and density of several parrot species. We used these eggs to get individual pairs of parrots to stop breaking their eggs. We would often remove the real egg each morning as it was laid and then replace it with a fake egg. This went on until the complete clutch was laid. When the hen went into her broody stage of incubation, she would always stop the egg destruction and the real eggs could then be placed back under her. The real eggs during the holding period had been held at a 55 degree temperature so there would be no development of the embryo.

Question: Do you think nutrition has a bearing to egg-eating problems?
Answer: It is my humble opinion that the vast majority of egg-eating problems is NOT due to nutritional deficiencies but to behavioral problems. Usually when a bird becomes a habitual eggeater, it is almost always impossible to correct. Besides following the solution stated in the first question, the removal of eggs for fostering or artificial incubation is needed.

Question: Is egg-eating and egg-breaking problems more prevalent in parrots that had been hand fed as babies in comparison to those that are parent reared?
Answer: This question is very difficult to answer in medium to large parrots as there are very few of these types of babies that have been parent reared in American aviculture. A sad commentary. There seems to be more egg problems occurring in hand fed, imprinted cockatiels which is a smaller parrot species. But instead of egg-eating problems in these handfed cockatiel parents, it seems that egg breaking and abandonment of eggs is more common.

I will answer that I personally have had more problems in wild-caught parrots being egg-eaters or egg breakers than I have experienced in hand fed birds that have been set up as breeders. This probably has to do with the stress that is placed on wild-caught parrots in captivity. Two of the worst offenders are Amazons and cockatoos. Many of the wild-caught white cockatoo pairs will jump down on their eggs in an attempt to bide from humans and thus break their eggs. It is not intentionally done. So many breeders are now artificially incubating their cockatoos eggs because of this breakage problem. These problems can be solved a great deal of the time by management changes. Two areas of change are to enlarge the cage or flight where the cockatoo pair is housed and to change the nest box to a longer, more narrow nest box that is much darker inside. Oftentimes a boot box will solve the problem. Obviously minimizing any disturbances in and around the birds is of primary importance.

©1998