New to Parrot Forum

[roxanne]

Hello. My name is Roxanne and I am an avid lover of Birds in general. I am lucky enough to live on the James River across from a Refuge, so I have lots of birds making their homes nearby. I am also the owner of a predictably unpredictrable Yellow Naped Amazon, TJ, who is now 14 years old. HE- was purchased at 6 months from a reliable breeder in Florida, who was certain he was a male, otherwise she would not sale "him". She told me she had all her babies sexed before selling them. And, I could care less, male or female.

Well, for the last 4 years HE gets in the bottom of HIS cage and does some pretty bizarre things. Having chickens, I asked HIM if he was trying to lay an egg. Fearing this was so and HE could be egg bound, I even palpated the appropriate area, to which HE responds "What in the World?". WE KNOW WHERE THIS IS GOING, RIGHT?

Yep. HE laid his first egg last weekend, I now have 3-in the fridge.

First off, I'm not interested in getting a full time male companion. "Dottie" is friendly to me and we are BFF's, so I don't want to ruin that. Do Parrot people "stud" out their males for these type of things? I have obviously never even thought this out and am not interested in doing it at this time as "we" are traumatized enough by just finding out "our" gender and having to lay eggs. (and she loves them!)(so gentle and caring but is okay with me taking them away from her) I've promised they won't be scrambled)

Secondly, I used to raise cockatiels for a local pet store, so I'm accustomed to hand raising little guys. Not afraid of that.

Thirdly, Am I doing right by adding additional sources of calcium to her diet. I give my chickens laying mash, high in calcium, not only for their eggs, but also to keep their calcium levels high for good bone strength and I do not want "Dottie" to decalcify before my very eyes. We have this thing going on, see.

Well, thanks for letting me get this out and I look forward to any and all advice. Must go now as she is claiming she is going back to "Florida". Bathtime.

 

[Spiritbird]

One of your questions I will answer. I do not know of any stud birds. Parrots are a matched pair before they will mate. If you put a strange female bird in with a strange male bird you might have a dead female bird. Not a good idea.

 

[rlchic93]

To answer another of your questions, yes you are doing exactly the right thing by upping her calcium. We had to do that at one point and we were even told to give them things like there own eggshells back and make them scrambled eggs with eggshells anything we could do to get calcium into her was a good thing

 

[MikeyTN]

Both post are right!!! Since you used to raise Cockatiels, did you not provide mineral blocks, oyster shells, cuttle bones, etc.? Those are the sources she needs. I would highly suggest you to discourage her from laying eggs. My Cockatoo is in the mating mood and we discourage her whenever she does her mating thing, basically ignore her and don't even show interest. When she starts it, I put her back in her house. We do not touch her at all. Sometimes it's hard cause they will lay no matter what you do. We almost lost a female Cockatiel a few months back because she wouldn't stop, she almost died. She kept laying and laying. We try to ignore her, but that didn't help. The very last egg she laid almost killed her. She was egg binding, but she eventually pushed it out, it was late at night when it happened and that's when I realize something wasn't right when I saw the egg she passed out was in bad shape plus there's blood everywhere. Part of her insides fell out and dried up before I realize what was going on. I cleaned it off by putting her under warm water to get all the gunk off, she bit me real good, she's NEVER done that before. I knew she didn't feel good. I pushed her insides back in and baby her for weeks, she's one healthy bird now. But it's something I don't want to go through again. That's the main reason why I don't usually get female birds. It's sad to watch it happen. Good Luck with her!!!

 

[rlchic93]

Another thing we were told yo do is if you worry about her not eating the cuttle bone scrape it over her food so she has no choice but to eat it.