Pictures Interesting nest situation

[Atomiklan]

So I went ahead and let Charlie & Emma nest. I am not going to re-explain or justify my reasons. You can read about them in my last post here: Charlie & Emma | Avian Avenue Parrot Forum Things have developed into a rather strange situation and I'm curious if anyone has experienced this before or if anyone has some advice. Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde are back!!! Reference: Divorce! Well... separation... | Avian Avenue Parrot Forum Emma managed to lay her first egg a day or so ago. Whenever she is fully in the nest sitting on the egg, Charlie is fine. Charlie will even come join her and they will sit together. If Emma leaves the nest, Charlie will then go into defense mode and usually not let Emma back in the nest unless late at night. If they are both out of the nest, Charlie will start "barking" if Emma gets too close to the nest and he will chase her off if she tries to enter it. It got to the point where it seems Emma had to lay egg 2 today from a perch or from the floor as I found the egg on the bottom of the cage. The egg is also quite undersized vs the first egg. I placed the egg from the floor back in the nest and removed Charlie from the cage. He is in time out for right now in my office while I type this up. He's sitting quietly on the tree stand and thinking about how mean he has been to Emma these last few days. Any thoughts, questions, concerns, recommendations on the situation?

Egg two on right. Much smaller.


He looks very guilty in the picture...

 

[iamwhoiam]

Don't know about finches so @finchly Maybe she will have some suggestions.
Charlie looks angry as well as guilty.

 

[Atomiklan]

Yeah I meant to tag her. Thanks!

 

[Atomiklan]

I separated them temporarily tonight after a cage cleaning with their cage divider. I kept Emma with the nest for now. I know @finchly is going to recommend against this generally, but since she is still in an egg laying cycle, I want her to be with the nest. Plus I feel giving the nest to Charlie right now will just reinforce this defensive behavior. I'm going to probably let her lay one more egg to see if the last one was just a fluke (size). She is on egg food, greens, pellets, fresh crushed egg shell, mineral blocks, cuttle bone, etc. Will probably swap out for faux eggs afterwards to shutdown her cycle. Could probably do it now though, since it always takes an extra egg or two to stop anyways.

 

[finchly]

She can take care of it all without Charlie. He is definitely misbehaving, and needs to be separate while she's on the eggs. It would be a slightly better situation if he were tending the eggs himself, but he's not.

It looks like she's not *quite* in perfect laying condition - hence, the smaller egg. The first thing I always increase is calcium, also where is she getting her phosphorus? The ratio of those 2 needs to be 2:1, and then D3 is required to process the calcium. So all 3.... you can buy bird-specific supplements online, which will contain D3 already, or you can get calcium gluconate + a syringe at the farm supply store and put that into their water. (The syringe and needle are required to get the calcium out of the bottle, squirt into their water.) Keep that one in the fridge.

To shut down her cycle, lower their daylight hours by an hour or 2.

Also why dont you candle the eggs after 5 days of tight sitting? It'd be nice to know if they are fertile. Good luck!

 

[Atomiklan]

Yeah I am keeping them separate for now. Seems to be doing the trick.

As for egg size. She has never had this issue before. She's laid several other clutches over the last couple of years and usually they are all fine. This was the first undersized. This was also the first egg forcefully laid outside the nest. Could stress/situation have caused it? Still waiting on egg three. Guessing tomorrow morning.

I don't currently use any additives in their water. Their egg food and mineral bars when I initially looked at them, contained everything they needed. I think you even initially helped me confirm the contents. I will look into some additives though.

Sure I candle them this round. Usually they are fertile. Charlie is usually pretty successful. Due to all the stress, attitude, fighting, etc. though, it will be interesting this time around to see if they were successful.

 

[Zara]

I had a small egg like this with my lovebird. I destroyed it and she hasn´t laid another like that since. How did your situation turn out?

 

[Atomiklan]

She stopped her egg cycle much earlier than normal and then I let her sit on the eggs (fake) for a little bit while keeping Charlie separate. She is now done sitting, the nest has been removed and they are done for now with nesting. They are also back together, but I fear this will be a permanent behavior (Charlie). We'll see how he behaves during the next cycle.