Nesting

[Meems83]

Hello everyone!
So my son went off to college and left me with 4 Conures. Over the past month (only through researching) I've noticed them having nesting behavior. They have a nesting box, which for a little over a week, all 4 have spent the majority of their time inside. 2 days ago I found an egg inside that was broke in half.
My son, not knowing a ton about breeding has given me very little info to go off of. I ordered supplements and better food. I have been adding vitamins to the water. The nesting box they have I feel is small for all of them to be in so I ordered a larger one that I'll be getting today. As of now, there are no more eggs so I'm guessing it's ok to move the nest into the new box? Is ok to handle the conures during this time or do they need privacy? Are they all ok sharing a box or will that cause conflict? I'm lost on this.
I have no experience with breeding birds and the info I find online is so contradicting.
I'm also not looking to breed birds. I just want to help get them thru this and learn how to help prevent it in the future.
Any advice with be much appreciated.

 

[LaManuka]

Hello everyone!
So my son went off to college and left me with 4 Conures. Over the past month (only through researching) I've noticed them having nesting behavior. They have a nesting box, which for a little over a week, all 4 have spent the majority of their time inside. 2 days ago I found an egg inside that was broke in half.
My son, not knowing a ton about breeding has given me very little info to go off of. I ordered supplements and better food. I have been adding vitamins to the water. The nesting box they have I feel is small for all of them to be in so I ordered a larger one that I'll be getting today. As of now, there are no more eggs so I'm guessing it's ok to move the nest into the new box? Is ok to handle the conures during this time or do they need privacy? Are they all ok sharing a box or will that cause conflict? I'm lost on this.
I have no experience with breeding birds and the info I find online is so contradicting.
I'm also not looking to breed birds. I just want to help get them thru this and learn how to help prevent it in the future.
Any advice with be much appreciated.

Welcome to the forums, @Meems83, that sounds like quite the handful you've got going on there! If I may ask, why were these birds provided with nesting material to begin with? Was your son looking to breed them? Some folks do think birds need a nesting box as a part of their general housing arrangements but they really don't. Breeding baby birds can be fraught with all sorts of hazards and not something I would do myself. I'm not sure where your birds are at just now in terms of their nesting cycle, but you could try removing the nest box altogether to disrupt them. Some birds will continue to lay even without a nest box, but having one there may well act as encouragement to do so. Perhaps try removing all nesting material in the short term, and get yourself some dummy conure eggs from an outfit like www.dummyeggs.com in case they do start laying again? Dummy eggs are great to have on standby, don't give them to your hens straight away but if they do happen to start up again, you can replace the real eggs with fake ones and your hens can work off their maternal yearnings on them without leaving you with babies that may potentially need you to hand raise them - again something that can be problematic. I've used fake eggs with a chronic egg laying lorikeet and they work really well!

Looking forward to an update on your situation soon and I hope this helps! 🙏

 

[Meems83]

Hi, thanks for responding. I don't think his intentions were to breed. I think he just assumed they needed it. I will look into the dummy eggs. Thank you!