i am house sitting and the house has these parakeets. in one of the cages there were four eggs in a shell that was shelter for the little birds. i just went to change the seed and i found the eggs hatched at the bottom of the cage and one slightly cracked egg in the water bowl!!!


what do i do!!!!!?????

Do they have a cat ?

bluesbaby said:

yeah but they stay outside

Sounds like a job for...



Ace Ventura...Pet Detective!

i don't know nothin' about birthin' no birdies!!!

MILTY! Have you found them?? Did you take the one out of the water bowl?

bluesbaby said:

Ahhh you know he ran like a pussy....

2the9s said:

How can he leave us wondering like this?????

Maybe the parents ate the babes

As for the one in the water bowl, SOL maybe??

irresistibleb1tch said:

That's possible. You should be able to tell from the shells quite easily whether they look broken into or broken out of...

Also luv4u might be right. Horrible as it sounds, male parakeets often eat the chicks, or toss them out of the nest, it's a territorial thing, so check the floor as well. Also, the chicks may have been born dead in which case mammy parakeet will have tried to bury/hide them so you'll need to investigate the cage and surrounding area quite closely.

Sad to say but the fact that one of the shells is in the water bowl (I'm assuning it was with the other eggs before) indicates that they were attacked, probably as they were hatching, so I'd say one of the adult parakeets (most likely a male) has eaten them.

AsylumUtopia said:

Jees, you a parakeet expert? I have never understood why animal eat their young. Is this a result of captivity or do they do it the wild also?

Milty? Now was the tiny omelette really worth it?

PREDOMINANT said:[quote]

AsylumUtopia said:

Anxiety said:

I think Brian Fellows should be contacted to deal with this.

irresistibleb1tch said:

I was thinking that too.

PREDOMINANT said:

They do it in the wild as well.

If the male did eat them would there be remains left? He couldn't swallow them whole, could he?
[Edited 2/2/05 6:32am]

applekisses said:

COULD he?


Maybe he will barf up the tiny bones in a day or two (like owl pellets! )

PREDOMINANT said:

Poor babies!

Owl pellets are cool! I love owls.

PREDOMINANT said:

Yes, I have a PhD in Advanced Parakeetology.

Well, actually, I saw the thread and emailed a friend who keeps an aviary and knows lots about birds, so the info is from him. Prior to today, my knowledge of parakeets was limited to the fact that they're birds.

Hidious as it may sound for animals to eat their young, it's nothing compared to the endlessly creative ways humans have invented to kill eachother.
[Edited 2/2/05 11:39am]

aww man...this worse than i thought

What happened?

The dingo ate the babies.

sweetserene said:

nope can't find them anywhere. i looked everywhere.....no babies.

Milty said:

You are in sooooo much trouble now!!!!!

althom said:

i know..the guy is a bit of a worry wart as well.....

Did you thoroughly look around the house? They've probably starved to death by now but maybe you should scatter some food around anyway. Have you looked online for information about newborn parakeets? Maybe they tend to wander off...?

i have a little experience with breeding birds. birds can be good parents or really bad parents. not long ago i had to remove my baby cockatiel chick from the tender mercies of his dad, who viewed him as a rival for his mate's attention and determined to pull out the chick's feathers as fast as they grew in. to this day i have to keep them separated.

anyway, about the parakeets here's my 2c for what it's worth. when birds have a nest box properly set up (and a cage which isolates the parents from the rest of the flock in safe privacy) the chances of them nurturing their offspring succesfully increases. a nest box should be off the ground, as in high or midway up the cage. the nestbox is a square wooden/cardboard container with a small round opening and nesting material inside. without a proper setting (darkness and security) to trigger their hormones the birds can become confused about their role as pertains to the eggs.

once, one of my female parakeets laid two eggs in the bottom of the cage. i hadn't set up a nest box and the female didn't seem to be seriously incubating the eggs but i was hoping for the best anyway, since she seemed to be spending at least a little time on them and it was a warm summer.

not long after that, though, i came back to find the eggs cracked open and the contents suspiciously missing. i believe one or all of the birds might have eaten the egg's contents.

AsylumUtopia said:

YUCK YUCK... 'running to bathroom'

i had both parakeets and cockatiels that used to do the funky chicken to the best of their abilities but never produced offspring. the females would lay eggs but they were never fertilized. i don't know why not...but we never had any babies. the eggs would never hatch...after about a week the females would crack open the shells...strange behavior but normal to them i guess. many different theories could be right, the Dad ate them or that they weren't fertilized. hard to say for sure...

there