My 15 year old Sun Conure is laying eggs!!!

[Nikongrl]

Hi, I am new to your forum but not a new bird owner.

Last spring my Sun Conure laid an egg, so I looked online and sites I visited said they generally lay one every 24 hours or so and that a clutch could be anywhere from 2 - 5 eggs. So I waited for 2 1/2 days and decided it was time to remove the egg. She seemed okay with that and went back to her normal self... a few days later she layed another egg. At this point, I reached out to a trusted store that specializes in everything avian. They were extremely helpful, they suggested changing up her environment, removing the sleeping hut, making sure that she was getting enough sleep and darkness and even changing her diet to a new formulation. They were correct, she stopped laying eggs, however within a week she proceeded to pluck every chest feather from her neck down to her feet, sparing only her wing feathers and the head feathers that she could not reach. I was mortified... to say the very least!

I decided that making so many changes probably was the cause of the plucking, so I moved her cage back to it's old spot and rearranged it back to more or less it's old way. I did though ensure there was nothing in the bottom of the cage that she could shred to make a nest.

At her next moult, she allowed the feathers to return and has not plucked since. Moving along to this past Wednesday, I arrived home from work to find her sitting on egg in the bottom of her cage <<< this is the point where I started to pull my hair out!!>>>

I left the egg alone and she has since laid a second. Not 24 hours apart, more like 48 hours apart.

So back to the internet for more investigation and reading that Sun Conures usually reach sexual maturity at 2 years and egg laying happens up to around 7 years... why on earth is this bird only now at 15 years of age starting to do this?

Hoping someone here can help me understand what I should do next.

Thanks in advance.
:17::06:

 

[fiddlejen]

I can only help a little in this regard. My own budgies, of the correct age, are, with my permission, working on their own clutch. However I have read that my Lady Calliope may possibly want to begin laying again as soon as these hatch, and additionally I would prefer that this clutch be the Only. So, I have ordered "Dummy Eggs," which are scheduled to arrive soon.

Assuming your Conure does not have access to a Male of compatible species, these should be in-fertile. I recommend ordering yourself some dummy eggs, at which point you can remove the current ones and replace with the dummies. The idea is, they should stop her from continuing to lay. Leave the current ones in there until the replacements come, otherwise the removal can trigger her to lay more.

Then beyond that, I would suggest returning to the anti-hormonal measures you had first implemented -- but, maybe change Much more slowly, only One Very Slow Change at a time.

 

[fiddlejen]

Oh, something else to try as well. When reading up on budgie reproduction... and granted this may not apply, as budgies are super-skittish little birds... I read that if you want to Encourage egg laying, among other things you should keep their enviroment free from changes.

Now, your conure was clearly highly stressed out by changes all-at-once to her environment. But you might try - starting slowly & gently! - try to habituate her to enviroment changes. Maybe move a toy here or there; move a perch (SLIGHTLY to start with! just move it over a few rungs, etc); start swapping out her toys and cage decor a little more frequently than previously. With the idea to Not stress her to the point of plucking, but rather to accustom her to the idea of things maybe changing a Little - which Might still help her body to back-off on egg-production.

 

[BirdAddictK]

Hi, I am new to your forum but not a new bird owner.

Last spring my Sun Conure laid an egg, so I looked online and sites I visited said they generally lay one every 24 hours or so and that a clutch could be anywhere from 2 - 5 eggs. So I waited for 2 1/2 days and decided it was time to remove the egg. She seemed okay with that and went back to her normal self... a few days later she layed another egg. At this point, I reached out to a trusted store that specializes in everything avian. They were extremely helpful, they suggested changing up her environment, removing the sleeping hut, making sure that she was getting enough sleep and darkness and even changing her diet to a new formulation. They were correct, she stopped laying eggs, however within a week she proceeded to pluck every chest feather from her neck down to her feet, sparing only her wing feathers and the head feathers that she could not reach. I was mortified... to say the very least!

I decided that making so many changes probably was the cause of the plucking, so I moved her cage back to it's old spot and rearranged it back to more or less it's old way. I did though ensure there was nothing in the bottom of the cage that she could shred to make a nest.

At her next moult, she allowed the feathers to return and has not plucked since. Moving along to this past Wednesday, I arrived home from work to find her sitting on egg in the bottom of her cage <<< this is the point where I started to pull my hair out!!>>>

I left the egg alone and she has since laid a second. Not 24 hours apart, more like 48 hours apart.

So back to the internet for more investigation and reading that Sun Conures usually reach sexual maturity at 2 years and egg laying happens up to around 7 years... why on earth is this bird only now at 15 years of age starting to do this?

Hoping someone here can help me understand what I should do next.

Thanks in advance.
:17::06:

Well, I know very little about the remedy, but I definitely know the cause: the sleeping hut. The sleeping hut aka snuggle hut or happy hut is very dangerous for birds bc birds may ingest the fuzzy material or get caught in it and then the last thing which happened with your bird: birds get hormonal with the huts bc they view the huts as nests and these hormones can make females lay eggs which is what is happening with your birds. So next time, if you ever get another bird, NEVER USE THE SLEEPING HUT!