Episode 6: Managing Egg Laying in Pet Birds

In this episode, Dr. Burghardt chats with his associate veterinarian at Companion Pet Care, Dr. Aleks Conseco the reasons behind egg laying in pet birds. Dr. Aleks Conseco is an exotic and small animal veterinarian. She has extensive experience in treating a large variety of animal species; including, but not limited to, dogs, cats, birds, reptiles, rabbits, rodents, ferrets, hedgehogs, pot belly pigs and small ruminants.

This topic came up with Dr. Burghardt's family bird, Flutters started laying eggs!

The conversation explores various factors influencing egg laying, including sexual maturity, environmental conditions, and human interaction. Dr. Conseco emphasizes the importance of understanding these factors to manage and support the health of pet birds effectively.

Key Takeaways

• Cockatiels can start laying eggs as they reach sexual maturity.
• Human interaction can influence a bird's reproductive behavior.
• Environmental factors like light exposure can stimulate egg laying.
• Providing a stable environment is crucial for pet birds.
• Diet plays a significant role in a bird's reproductive health.
• Excessive egg laying can lead to health complications.
• Foraging opportunities can help distract birds from laying eggs.
• Proper sleep conditions are important for pet birds.
• Blood testing is a safer method for determining a bird's sex.
• Managing nesting materials can help control egg laying.

To learn more about Dr. Conseco, you can visit her website:

https://www.dralekscanseco.com/

Instagram: Dr. Aleks Conseco

Transcript

Hi, this is Dr. Ted Burghardt, veterinarian and hosting Ted the Vet podcast. I'm here today with Dr. Aleks Conseco, who is our associate veterinarian and also does a lot of exotics medicine. And the thing we want to talk about today is my own cockatiel, our family's cockatiel named Flutters, who recently started laying eggs. She's about two years old.

And last year we just found out that she's a female by doing a blood test that Dr. Kinseko helped us with. So I wanted to know what are some common reasons why pet birds would all of a sudden start laying eggs? Yeah, so actually there are multiple reasons. But as they reach sexual maturity, as she has, anywhere between like six months to four years of age, depending on the...species of bird, they will reach sexual maturity. And if they have all the right kind of components to stimulate reproductive activity, that will cause them to lay eggs. But those eggs will typically be infertile eggs, unless you've got, you know, a male partner. It's interesting because you thought she was a male for the longest time. We did. She's a cockatiel.

And typically cockatiels with really bright kind of orange red cheek cheeks are typically male. And a lot of some birds species are sexually dimorphic and much easier to like determine the gender based on just like external characteristics and coloring. Like a collect as parrots, for example, the females are red and blue and the males are green, you know, so that's like really easy to tell.

But with cockatiels, especially ones with dilute color morph like she is, it can be a little trickier. And so we use blood testing. In the old days, we used to use endoscopic sex determination where you go in with a little camera to look for the actual sex organs to determine that. But now we have blood testing, it's a lot safer and what have you. But...


Yeah, so she started laying eggs when you were boarding her here at the clinic when you went away. We were on vacation and she was getting a lot of attention at the clinic from staff and... And there you go, there's your clue, right? Like that extra attention I think was part of the issue, not necessarily the only problem. But birds in captivity, especially when they don't have

flock of birds with them will form relationships with humans. and sometimes they can get the wrong idea from us, you know, they can, kind of form partnerships with their human counterparts. and if we give them the right signals, like petting in certain areas, anywhere really below the head is, discouraged if you don't want to.

stimulate reproductive activity. Yeah. So top of the head is okay, but also kind of prolonged petting, especially under the wings, over the back, you know, when cockatiels or when birds mate, they're kind of, you know, on top of each other. you know, the tail is not okay. The feet are okay, but anywhere else below the head is not okay. Head and feet are okay. Okay. But I don't think many birds like having their feet petted necessarily. So.

and then other factors, feeding them from your hands or feeding them from your mouth in particular. So birds that are, appear, they will regurgitate and feed each other. And that's all part of the courtship behaviors and everything. other things that they might do is, this is kind of embarrassing, but they might like, masturbate on things, you know, and they might masturbate on their owner's hand.

Which is really disgusting. Or it might be on a favorite perch or they might start regurgitating into, let's say their mirror. Like they might form bonds actually not just with a human counterpart, but some sort of toy or accessory in their environment as well. So it's possible for them to form bonds with those sorts of things as well. And you mentioned mirrors. Yeah, mirrors too.

Yeah, because they see a reflection. don't necessarily know that it's just them. They're like, Hey, you, know, Hey, look pretty cute, you know? And then they form these weird connections. Sure. And, yeah, so sometimes taking those things out of the enclosure, changing things up a little bit as well. if they have a really stable environment, so they need certain things to, to reproduce, they need a set of criteria.

and essentially where they feel safe, they feel like, you know, they've got a partner, there's plenty of food available. Also like rain can stimulate or water, like, cause it usually kind of goes hand in hand with that, with spring increased rainfall, abundance of food. so, and also to we're feeding them, you know, literally out of silver platters, right? Like they're usually offered food.

in abundance, like they don't have to go foraging for their food in captivity. And so they have all these, all these factors provided for them. So it's just a perfect, literally breeding ground for breeding, right? so that's all part of it. I think when she was here and you were boarding her, was getting all the extra attention and all the extra love from everyone here and maybe some inappropriate petting, sitting on the shoulder, you know, all these kinds of,

factors that she had offered to her while she was here and I think that contributed to the to the reproductive activity that she had. the other question I had is when she was here she was staying next to a window at home she's not not directly next to a window and I wonder if she was getting more light than usual.

Yeah, and that's another factor. So increased photo period. typically birds will reproduce during times of year when there's more light, natural light. But once again, that goes hand in hand with like availability of food and everything and resources. So it's recommended, like in a norm, like most parrot species come from parts of the world close to the equator. So you've pretty much got like


12 hour day cycle, 12 hour night cycle sort of thing. Obviously in our home environments, we've got artificial lighting and sometimes that stays on for extended periods of time. Ideally we want to their light to 10 to 12 hours max. If we want to try and curb back that reproductive activity. Actually in like commercial chicken farms, they turn lights on at night to stimulate chickens to lay more eggs.

So you can see how that kind of works. Manipulate those. The other really important thing is I think people, some people don't think about is making sure they also have undisturbed sleep. So yes, it's one thing to turn a light off, but is it fully dark? Right. Do we have any like spillover of light, like, like pollution into their environment? Because that's not, that's not what we're talking about. We need that their environment to be completely dark and quiet.

So there's no disturbance and sometimes that means moving the bird into like some other totally different part of the house for sleeping in a room that's undisturbed and dark or covering and covering of course too if you can't get complete light blockage. I think that's really important as well. And in terms of food, trying to provide foraging opportunities. So usually in the wild they spend a great majority of their day, even up to 80 % of the day foraging for food. Wow. And so

If the food is just offered there, they're in good body condition. That's perfect. Once again, breeding ground for reproductive activity. doing all those sorts of things as well can be really helpful and just kind of changing up. Like if you're noticing that they're getting a little bit broody, maybe they're starting to rip up the paper at the bottom of their cage, for example, in, you know, trying to build a nest, maybe get rid of that paper, put it at the bottom, you know, underneath the metal grate or what have you, or just like get rid of it.

altogether for now so they can't get to it or anything else that they can make a nest out of. and that'll help to kind of stop things from progressing, but also like rearranging cage furniture because you're kind of destabilizing that environment very subtly. So they're like, suddenly things aren't as stable and comfy as it was. I'm not saying to stress them out, but like that can just kind of be that little trigger to switch that off a little bit, you know?

And also those, speaking of nesting, those little like fluffy, and I know she had one of those too, cause you mentioned it. She did. One of those little fluffy, like, what do you call them? I don't even know what you're called, hammock thing. enclosure. Yeah. So those are typically used as nesting sites as well. She never went in there until she started laying eggs. She spent all her time in there. She laid four eggs in this nest and I was leaving the eggs there to try and- Good.

Discourage her from making more. Yeah, and then eventually I just took the whole nest out Okay, she laid one more after that and since then she's been good and I would say over a two plus week period She laid about five eggs and now she's she stopped. Yeah, I think we got under control now Yeah, good. Good. The good thing is that you did leave the eggs in there I think it can be helpful to leave the eggs in there until they kind of stop sitting on them. Honestly, okay, it's usually

no more than like three to four weeks typically. You can replace those eggs with fake eggs, you know, if they get broken. The thing is if you take, if they lay an egg and you take it away, that's going to stimulate them to produce more eggs. And if you keep doing that, then we can get into trouble because then they're starting to lay more eggs than they were intending to lay. And then we can start getting a depletion in calcium stores. And then we can get into problems with egg binding where they're having trouble.

Expelling eggs and that's a whole different situation like it's normal for female birds to lay eggs We want to discourage it in captivity obviously for various reasons But yeah, we can get into trouble sometimes I was so glad that her eggs looked really normal and healthy and they and she didn't have any issue laying them Okay, because sometimes they can get really big or they can have problems

you know, laying the egg. Yeah. And then they get egg bound. Yeah. And then becomes almost a surgical procedure at that. Absolutely. Absolutely. and so if, if a bird is actively laying eggs, obviously we can't stop that midway. We be like, stop. It's going to keep, it's going to happen. We need to let that happen. We need to let them sit on those eggs if it's already happened, but providing, you know, sufficient calcium support is important. for,


Usually excessive egg laying in captivity happens in our smaller bird species, so like the cockatiels, budgies and lovebirds. And a good source of calcium for them is, let's say one of those cuddle bones, but also providing a good base diet for them as well. So like a formulated diet, so at least 50%, if not more of their diet should be, you know, a good quality pelleted food.

not seeds. And the problem with seeds is that, and then of course, for veggies and everything like that too. But, actually the really tiny birds, like the budgies, some seed is good. too much of the pellets can, actually provide excess protein that can have, they can have trouble with their kidneys with that. Sprouting seeds is a really good way to get rid of the like excess fat in the seed and provide, additional nutrients. There's the sprouting process.

provides additional nutrients, but that has to be done a certain way. Otherwise you can get mold growing on it. It's a whole different topic, but anyway. Basically they do need a good diet. The pellets typically have all the vitamins and minerals that they need. The problem with seeds not only is that high in fat, but it usually the seed diets come with a variety of different seeds and the birds will pick out the ones they like best. it's usually the...

the ones that are higher fat. It ends up being, yeah, it's kind of like McDonald's for birds, you know, if you want to make an analogy like that. and once again, you know, when they're very well conditioned, that's another stimulating factor for, reproductive activity. So we want to try and make sure they're in a good body condition. And so foraging toys, so hiding food around the cage instead of just providing it in the one bowl. Cause in, as I mentioned earlier, most of the

time in the wild, they're spending foraging, but in captivity, they're just have that offered to them on a silver platter. I don't even have to think about it. But also it kind of takes their mind off of reproduction when they have to spend more time foraging. And it also kind of shows them that, Hey, maybe I don't have a hundred percent like food security. have to be like searching and looking. So maybe I shouldn't be laying eggs just yet. I don't think they know that and perceive that.

in quite that way, but maybe it's more instinctual and Got it, Monal, yeah. Fantastic. Well thank you so much for. Yeah, no worries. And talking about egg laying. Of course. And Flutters is very happy and appreciates all the care that you give her. Yeah, no worries, my pleasure. Thanks for having me on. Thank you.