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Parakeet Question! My pet bird just laid her first egg! What next?

My bird is a 1.5 year old female parakeet. She lives alone in her cage but has weekly or monthly “play dates” with other parakeets for about an hour at a time. Last week she laid her first egg. Prior to the egg being laid, I noticed a change in her droppings. They were less frequent and very, very large in size. However once the egg was laid, the droppings are much closer to normal sized now. Shortly after (about an hour after) the egg was laid, she “pooped” out some sort of discharge. It was mostly clear, with a little bit of white gel looking stuff in it, and a little tiny bit of blood. This hasn’t happened again since the initial egg. I am mostly wondering will she lay another egg? I am pretty sure that the egg is infertile because she doesn’t spend enough time around male birds, but I could be wrong. Also, I don’t really want her to become a “breeder.” She is very tame, gives me “kisses,” and she knows several tricks. I would really like her to stay this way. I also do not plan on getting another parakeet. Lately she has become more grouchy than usual, and I would like this behavior to go away. She usually doesn’t mind when my hands are in her cage but lately she has been lunging at me if I get too close. For some additional information, I used to keep a cut down cardboard box around her cage to collect the seed shells constantly falling out of her cage. Starting about six months ago she began ripping apart the cardboard box in her free time. (She usually doesn’t do this, but she knows how to open her cage doors and would sometimes escape her cage play in the box while I wasn’t home. However, she hasn’t been escaping her cage in the last few months, she says inside until I let her out, for now anyways.) At first this ripping behavior was cute but then it started to get messy with little shavings everywhere, so I threw this box away, and got a new one. Throwing away the shavings made her temporarily very upset. After a few weeks, she began to rip apart the new box. However, after she laid the egg (inside her cage on the floor, not in the cardboard box) I took this box away too because I didn’t want her hiding another egg in there that I wouldn’t see, and because this box again was getting very messy. I haven’t taken the egg away yet, because I read this may make her want to lay more eggs. I really don’t want her to lay more. She hasn’t really been tending to the egg at all, and spends most of her time sitting on her perches playing with her toys, or grooming, and I haven’t seen her near the egg at all (at least while I am around). When can I take away this egg? I don’t want to make her upset, or make her want to lay more eggs. Also I read online that changing the birds’ cage around will make them not want to lay eggs. However, I re-arrange her cage every few weeks. I am constantly rotating her toys in and out of her cage. So the fact that she would lay an egg in an un-constant environment is very strange to me. Also, about a week before she laid the egg, she spent a week with her cage in a different room of the house. This also doesn’t make sense to me. Also I read online that bringing a dog around the bird will make her too scared to lay eggs. I have two dogs, but they are not allowed in the room where her cage is. She has seen the dogs before, and she hears them barking every day. So I don’t really understand this either. As far as food goes, I feed her a mixture of seed, dried fruits and veggies, and pellets(but I don’t think she eats these). I’ve tried to offer her fresh fruits and veggies but she is insanely afraid of them, she will even fly out of her cage to get away from them. So now I just mix dried ones into her seeds. Since she laid the egg she started to chew on her mineral block, which she completely ignored for the last year. Also I just bought some kind of dried egg/bird protein that I am now mixing with her seeds, because I want her to regain her strength after laying this egg. I basically want to know what I am doing right, or what I am doing wrong. Also will she lay more eggs in the near future? And when can I take away the current egg? After a week, she laid egg number two! I was worried she was egg bound for a while, but I put a heating pad under her cage and I think it helped! She ignored the first egg, but now she has been sitting on both eggs. They are both just laying in the bottom of the cage. Should I move them? My bird is deathly afraid of the nesting box I got her, but she has a little woven nest that she likes, unfortunately it wasn't in her cage when she laid the eggs. Should I move the eggs to the nest thing? Will she be angry if I touch them?

Public Comments

1. OH YUM! BREAKFAST TIME. .... Just kidding. Keep the egg away from vultures and neighborhood raccoons.
2. Eat it
3. Birds lay eggs a per their hormones so she will likely lay a clutch of eggs. If you don't want her to raise young you can remove the eggs as they are laid. That was a good read, that book you just wrote. Ha! Ha!
4. It sounds like you birds' play date got serious. She will lay up to 4-6 eggs. One egg every other day and they will hatch the way they were laid. She may have been grumpy because she has matured now but after the eggs she will be back to normal especially if you can co-parent with her. My Parakeets love to tear up cardboard and I give them egg cartons. They put it in their water dish by the hour. Scramble her an egg or soak some bread in warm milk for her. Gatorade also helps put the electrolytes back. Cuttle bone helps with the minerals and give her some millet. In the wild parakeets eat from the forest floor so most still like to be fed at the bottom of their cage. An excellent book on this is Guide to Owning a Parakeet by John Bales. It will answer all your questions. Maybe the library has it.
5. Wow, this really takes me back to when I raised parakeets. I forgot about the large poops during the egg-laying days. That sounds normal to me. If you want to see if the egg is fertile, hold it up to a light several days after it was laid and you will see red blood vessels. I believe, as another responder commented, that you can remove the eggs immediately, but if I remember correctly, some birds may continue to lay until they have a full clutch of several eggs. As for the possibility of her laying more eggs, you want to be sure the bird is getting extra minerals (calcium maybe? and cod liver oil?) because producing eggs is very taxing on her. Also, you want to be sure she doesn't become egg-bound. I once had a non-mating female who was egg-bound and I vaguely remember rubbing cod-liver oil onto her vent and massaging her belly and applying warm compresses to help her pass the egg. The egg was soft-shelled which means she was not in the right state to be laying eggs in the first place. Anyway, you are wise to pay attention to her diet. I would say that is the most important thing you can do for her right now.