My female parakeet lost her mate a little over a year ago. In the last couple of months she's been laying eggs which she'd never done before. The eggs are just empty shells. What could cause this behavior?
I had the same problem with my cockatiel a year or so ago. I had to be gone a lot for a few days and according to something we found on the internet, she was mourning the loss of her mate (who she considered to be me) thus she was laying eggs. Don't know if that's true or not but sounds about the same. There is a website forum dedicated to birds called skarlettsweb.com and there are a lot of helpful things on there. A lot of people on there have multiple birds and I keep that site in my favorites just to reference whenever I have a problem with Nicky. They have a different area for each type of bird, which is even better.
One suggestion they had was to boil some of the eggs, for a short amount of time, and then put them back in the cage when she starts producing eggs. It will keep her from trying to replace the ones missing. Any that you boil though, make sure to put a small mark on the end so you can tell the difference between old and new.
When my female started laying, one of the suggestions we used was to cover her cage a bit longer. The long days of summer make it seem like a good time to lay eggs and covering her cage a bit earlier seemed to make the difference. Leaving the eggs is also a good idea. If you don't want the eggs in her cage try switching them with a small pebble or marble so she doesn't keep laying to replace the missing eggs. Be sure to spend plenty of time fussing over her to make up for her missing mate. You can check out the forums at ThePerch.net for more helpful advice. Good Luck!
Instinct! I wouldn't worry unless she lays eggs constantly! I would allow her to sit on her eggs until she tires of them then remove when she ignores them. If she is laying a lot of eggs, she is depleting her calcium. You can take clean egg shells, dry them out and crush them very fine. Put them into a treat dish.
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