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I found my conures mating! I thought they were both males.

chichi

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I don't know anything about breeding conures. If they do have a baby what am I supposed to do?
 

Mizzely

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They might still be both males :) Have they been DNA tested for gender?

If one is a female, and she lays eggs, you can boil the eggs and put them back so she can sit on them, without the fear of them actually hatching. You do not want to remove them completely until she abandons them, or she may continue to lay eggs at risk to her own health. Birds are programmed to "fill" a clutch and their body stops forming new eggs when it recognizes she has fulfilled that duty.
 

SandraK

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You can also buy fake eggs and replace what she lays with them - if you need any but can't get them in your area, please let me know and I'll send you some no strings attached (I have 10 spare fake eggs).If one of your "boys" is a girl, apart from laying an egg/eggs - you'll notice that they'll start looking for a dark place to nest in - and that could be anything like a bookcase in a small corner any small box you may have on a shelf, paper bag, etc. They can be extremely creative when it comes to a nesting spot. Welcome to bird parronting 101 - if you don't know for sure who is what, always expect the unexpected ... :omg: and then some! :D :confused:
 

chichi

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They haven't been DNA tested but they told me when I got the second one that it was a male because he looked like his father vs the rest of them that looked their mother. If I didn't take the egg away (if they were to have one) and it hatched would they be able to care for their baby without any help from me? What would I have to worry about?
 

Mizzely

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Birds rarely lay ONE egg. If one is fertile, you would have to assume that all of them are. Which means you would be looking at 3-5 babies at once. The birds might abandon them, which means you would be looking at having to learn to handfeed. That involves needing the right temperature formula, avoiding crop burn, slow crop, infections, and suffocating the bird by feeding incorrectly. It involves keeping them at the right temperature in a brooder. The birds might not abandon them; they might instead kill them or bite off toes, beaks, etc. Babies will need a vet on call for any emergencies.

Or they might raise them without issues, and you simply have a larger flock.

It can go either way. I personally would not be able to deal with option 1, and am ill equipped for option 2. I also would not be okay with adding to the pet population, as a simple look at Craigslist shows how many birds need good homes.

It really depends on whether you can be prepared for all scenarios.
 

chichi

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:omg:I could not deal with them killing the babies or biting off things that is horrible and sickening why would they do that?
Birds rarely lay ONE egg. If one is fertile, you would have to assume that all of them are. Which means you would be looking at 3-5 babies at once. The birds might abandon them, which means you would be looking at having to learn to handfeed. That involves needing the right temperature formula, avoiding crop burn, slow crop, infections, and suffocating the bird by feeding incorrectly. It involves keeping them at the right temperature in a brooder. The birds might not abandon them; they might instead kill them or bite off toes, beaks, etc. Babies will need a vet on call for any emergencies.

Or they might raise them without issues, and you simply have a larger flock.

It can go either way. I personally would not be able to deal with option 1, and am ill equipped for option 2. I also would not be okay with adding to the pet population, as a simple look at Craigslist shows how many birds need good homes.

It really depends on whether you can be prepared for all scenarios.
 

GlassOnion

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My cockatiels are a mating pair. They've produced a clutch of fertile eggs, every time an egg was laid I boiled and returned it to their "nest" for them to sit on. Apple and Bmo took turns sitting on the eggs for almost a month and abandoned the whole breeding business after they realized that their eggs were not going to hatch. If your conures do lay eggs, I would let them sit on the eggs (unviable via boiling/replacing with fake ones) until they decide to abandon them.
 

Holiday

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Like Shawna said, you may not have to worry about eggs. I have two DNA male mini-macaws that have a, uh, healthy physical relationship ;)

But, without DNA testing, you won't know. You say you assumed male because of a resemblance to the male parent, but in most species of birds, it's not uncommon for females to look like their fathers, because of certain sex-linked genes (sex-linkage works from parent to opposite sex offspring).
 
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JLcribber

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They haven't been DNA tested but they told me when I got the second one that it was a male because he looked like his father vs the rest of them that looked their mother. If I didn't take the egg away (if they were to have one) and it hatched would they be able to care for their baby without any help from me? What would I have to worry about?
You would have to worry about what you are going to do with all these new birds your going to keep having because if it happens once it's going to keep happening at least once and possibly more every season. Then your going to have to "quickly" become an expert hand feeder (which they will need every 2 or 3 hours for weeks on end) because chances are they aren't going to be very good parents because they were not parent raised and really don't have any idea of how to do it right. Your going to need brooder setups and incubators. Just in case.

Then should you successfully get them to the juvenile stage where they can be placed in a home your going to have to start hunting for those great homes with people who actually have what it takes to properly look after them. Not just any home. Or start building onto your home because your going to need a lot more space with all these new birds your going to be keeping. Siblings have a funny way of not getting along once they are adults so they will all need their own environments or if they do get along there's a chance the siblings will mate and you can't have that because that will introduce genetic problems.

Doesn't practicing a little birdy birth control by replacing any eggs with fakes sound a lot easier??
 
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CheekyBeaks

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I agree with other posts here, if eggs are laid, boil the eggs and let them sit until they give up on them. Breeding birds is a huge responsibility and so many things can go wrong, if you do need to handfeed chicks will that fit in with your lifestyle? And do you have enough experince to handfeed tiny day old chicks if need be? It really isn't as simple as it sounds and a baby bird can die very quickly if fed incorrectly.

I will have to disagree with a couple of commenst here though, handraised birds can make excellent parents, some of my best breeding birds were handraised pets.

I have never met a bird that mates just for fun, my birds (including mated pairs) will only mate during breeding season when lighting, diet and nesting conditions are right. Pet birds will mate because they are in breeding condition, you may want to re-evaluate your birds diet, and cut out and/or reduce certain high energy foods that cause them to be in physical breeding condition (seed, too many nuts, egg, corn, banana,other high protein foods etc...) and make sure you pellets are for maintenence not breeder or high performance. YOu want to keep them on a healthy maintenence diet. Also taking away any hiding places within their environment such as birdie beds, boxes etc... and controlling daylight hours to simulate winter daylight hours can all help with getting them out of breeding condition.
 

karen256

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:omg:I could not deal with them killing the babies or biting off things that is horrible and sickening why would they do that?
That isn't too common when the parent birds are tame but it is not unheard of. Instinct tells them not all their babies will be able to make it, since that's how it is in the wild, and they may injure or throw out a chick that is obviously weaker than its siblings - a chick that would never make it in the wild but that could be perfectly healthy as a pet. Plus, occasionally parents will become obsessed with the leg band and injure a baby's foot trying to remove it.
However, I don't think it is true that they are more likely to be poor parents since they are handfed themselves. This seems to be the case in some larger parrots if they have been handfed from a very young age, but I have heard of many breeders co-parenting with conures very successfully. In cases where the parents were originally handfed babies, they would expect to get a little formula along with their babies. (Coparenting is where the babies are left with their parents until weaned or almost weaned but are handled and offered handfeedings once they are old enough to open their eyes - it only works if the parents are tame birds however).
 

LaSelva

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“I could not deal with them killing the babies or biting off things that is horrible and sickening why would they do that?”

I’ve heard stress given as a reason. Parent birds in the wild (normal circumstances) are not cooped up with their baby’s all day. But it’s noteworthy that parrots aren’t the only animals under human controlled breeding conditions that are known to mutilate their young. Rabbits are prone to this as well. Not saying that it’s the same thing but we cannot rule out the likeliness of husbandry more than anything else.

I think that when we set up a breeding situation for them there probably are many stresses that we are unaware of. For example, as in the cases of mate aggression in male cockatoos. Formerly misunderstood, this is attributed to interruption of the normal “fixed action pattern” that would take place in the wild - on the part of both male and female. A fixed action pattern (part of the lives of all birds) is an act that is set into motion by an environmental stimuli. The female becomes receptive during the time period that she watches the male hollow out the nest hole (the stimuli). Watching is the trigger that causes her glands to release hormones that put her in the mood. Upon completion of his work (also set into motion by an environmental trigger), the male is ready and by that time so is the female. In artificial breeding they are given a completed nest box. So, the male sees this and figures it’s time, while the female is not ready. With an unreceptive female his advances and frustration increase until he becomes more and more aggressive.

In the wild macaw chick mortality is primarily related to unintentional starvation - according to research by the Tambopata Macaw Project. Time parent birds spend defending highly coveted and naturally scarce nesting holes takes away from parents‘ foraging time. In other words, as parents defend the nest, they have less time to forage for all of their chicks. In doing so a chick or two may inadvertently not be fed and starve to death.

An invading pair looking to steal a nesting hole from another may throw out the existing chicks but so far I haven’t come across this:

“Instinct tells them not all their babies will be able to make it, since that's how it is in the wild, and they may injure or throw out a chick that is obviously weaker than its siblings “

Could you post a link to a study or article?
 
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Craig Beck

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They might still be both males :) Have they been DNA tested for gender?

If one is a female, and she lays eggs, you can boil the eggs and put them back so she can sit on them, without the fear of them actually hatching. You do not want to remove them completely until she abandons them, or she may continue to lay eggs at risk to her own health. Birds are programmed to "fill" a clutch and their body stops forming new eggs when it recognizes she has fulfilled that duty.
Yes that both are males well I had them tested but Thay want to mate all the time what should I do
 

Craig Beck

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“I could not deal with them killing the babies or biting off things that is horrible and sickening why would they do that?”

I’ve heard stress given as a reason. Parent birds in the wild (normal circumstances) are not cooped up with their baby’s all day. But it’s noteworthy that parrots aren’t the only animals under human controlled breeding conditions that are known to mutilate their young. Rabbits are prone to this as well. Not saying that it’s the same thing but we cannot rule out the likeliness of husbandry more than anything else.

I think that when we set up a breeding situation for them there probably are many stresses that we are unaware of. For example, as in the cases of mate aggression in male cockatoos. Formerly misunderstood, this is attributed to interruption of the normal “fixed action pattern” that would take place in the wild - on the part of both male and female. A fixed action pattern (part of the lives of all birds) is an act that is set into motion by an environmental stimuli. The female becomes receptive during the time period that she watches the male hollow out the nest hole (the stimuli). Watching is the trigger that causes her glands to release hormones that put her in the mood. Upon completion of his work (also set into motion by an environmental trigger), the male is ready and by that time so is the female. In artificial breeding they are given a completed nest box. So, the male sees this and figures it’s time, while the female is not ready. With an unreceptive female his advances and frustration increase until he becomes more and more aggressive.

In the wild macaw chick mortality is primarily related to unintentional starvation - according to research by the Tambopata Macaw Project. Time parent birds spend defending highly coveted and naturally scarce nesting holes takes away from parents‘ foraging time. In other words, as parents defend the nest, they have less time to forage for all of their chicks. In doing so a chick or two may inadvertently not be fed and starve to death.

An invading pair looking to steal a nesting hole from another may throw out the existing chicks but so far I haven’t come across this:

“Instinct tells them not all their babies will be able to make it, since that's how it is in the wild, and they may injure or throw out a chick that is obviously weaker than its siblings “

Could you post a link to a study or article?
 

Craig Beck

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I have the tested papers Thay are both male green cheeck but will Thay mate and lay eggs cause that's all that want to do
 
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