Short answer: yes. A female parrot can lay eggs completely on her own – no male required, no fertility needed. It doesn’t mean anything is wrong with her, and most of the time it isn’t an emergency. There’s one situation that IS, though: if she’s straining and nothing’s coming, that’s egg binding, and it needs a vet, not a wait-and-see (jump to that section below). Otherwise, here’s everything I’ve learned raising parrots through egg season – when to relax, when to help, and how eggs and breeding actually work.

Is It Parrot-Egg Time?

Is your bird acting funny? Mine is. This is Lorenza, a Yellow-naped Amazon. She walks around the house and finds empty nesting boxes lately- sometimes she bites the wood, other times she tries to go in, even if they are too small. In Lorenza’s case, I don’t want her to lay eggs! She has no male Amazon to fertilize them and Amazons are aggressive breeders. Not sure I want that for her. So, she has no bed or box in her cage, where she sleeps at night (she’s out most of the day).

If you have outdoor birds, spring may bring a change in your bird, making him or her unrecognizable! Males get super defensive, females too, and the hens start to hide out in their nesting box or cozy. Both are busy and no longer have time for you, because they are playing house 🏠!

Is A Male Parrot Required?

Female parrots do not need a male to lay eggs, but they generally do require a good diet and a space to nest. Some birds will use their food bowl if they have nothing else. Generally speaking, if you don’t want them to lay eggs, because it taxes their body, (since it takes energy and a lot of vitamins and minerals from them) and stresses them out, there are a couple things to do.

🚨 When It’s An Emergency: Egg Binding

Most of the time, egg-laying is just egg-laying – she squats, strains a little, an egg shows up, done. Egg binding is different: that’s when a hen can’t pass the egg and gets stuck – straining or contracting with nothing coming, going on for more than a few hours. Signs to watch for: sitting fluffed up and lethargic, tail bobbing with her breathing, straining without producing an egg, or a visibly swollen vent.

If you see this, don’t wait it out – egg binding can be fatal within a day or two if it isn’t treated. Get her to an avian vet immediately. While you’re getting her there, keep her warm (a heating pad on low under half the cage, so she can move off it if she gets too warm) and don’t try to help the egg out yourself – that can tear something and make it worse.

Calcium deficiency is the most common cause, which is also why it tends to show up first as soft-shelled or broken eggs (more on that further down) before it ever gets to a full binding. Keep a cuttlebone or mineral block in the cage year-round, not just during breeding season.

No Expectations: 🥚 How To Avoid Eggs

You can remove eggs as they are laid, which is a little sad. They look surprised, frantic when the eggs disappear (if you do this, I recommend making sure they don’t see you doing so). People sometimes replace the eggs with plastic or wood eggs, so that they don’t hatch. This way the hen gets to sit on her clutch of eggs, and eventually she’ll give up because they didn’t hatch.

You can also provide no nesting box, though our budgie simply flew to another parrot’s cage and claimed the cozy (a fabric ‘tent’ for them to sleep in) and cage for herself; when I gave her the cage, because she kept insisting, she laid her eggs. So, some birds just want to be parents.

Seeing the eggs and then seeing tiny, naked dinosaurs is amazing! Parrots are born naked (people keep offering to knit sweaters for the babies – LOL!) It provides a unique perspective on the miracle of life, except there’s no expensive human-hospital bill, no crying in the middle of the night and no diapers to change! The mom-parrot handles it all, generally with the support of her mate.

🐣 Do I Recommend Breeding?

If you are comfortable and you find that you are living the Parrot Life, then you may love breeding parrots. There are certain animals that are more than a pet, they are a lifestyle, and having parrots means you take on a Parrot Life. Farm animals, like horses, and parrots, take a lot of time and dedication to care for physically (food, cleaning) and emotionally (bonding, mentally stimulating/training and engaging them).

To give you a good idea of what it’s like:

Breeding birds means you have to understand the additional dietary needs for breeding; you also have to be ready to help a parrot hen who is egg-bound (means that she can’t get the egg out of her vent, it’s stuck). You also want to learn about the babies so that you recognize signs of abandonment by the parents, which means you may need to take over and offer heat and round-the ⏰ clock feedings!

Breeding parrots can be a spectator sport or a rather involved chore. So, if you enjoy your Parrot Life and want more of it, try breeding. If not, I’d avoid it. Keep your males and females separate.

Opinion Note: Budgies are awesome. I think they are under-valued. They are a lot smarter than people recognize, a lot easier to take care of (compared to most parrots) and they are some of the best talkers. However, they are too inexpensive in a pet store. I do not recommend breeding them, there is not enough demand for these. People can make an inexpensive purchase ($20 to $100) and then don’t always take care of a budgie the way they would if the had paid $3,000 or more for a Golden Conure or an African Grey. Even a Green-cheek counure at $200 to $500 means people are more invested financially and personally.

If you are going to breed parrots, breed parrots that will help you pay for all the bird toys, cage and food you are spending money on; a bird that is exotic, not just by definition, buy also by price tag. Unfortunately, price tag produces a perceived value and greater caring for a parrot. Our budgie is determined, but we are limiting her.

How Many Eggs In A Parrot’s Nest?

Eggs can have different shapes – they can be more oval or tear-drop shaped. Depending on the kind of parrot you have, 3 to 6 eggs is a ‘normal’ clutch size. A rule of thumb is that the smaller the bird, the more often they breed and the more they tend to have larger clutches. Larger birds tend to lay less often and lay less eggs. For example, finches (which are not hook bills) tend to lay eggs one clutch right after another with 4 to 6 or more eggs. If you let them, they will produce several clutches per year – easily over 20 babies. Palm cockatoos, as a sharp contrast, only produce a clutch every couple of years – usually with only one egg.

Again, these are the ‘extremes’ just to give you an idea of how many eggs and how often a parrot produces. Most parrots produce twice a year only, since they are not as small as finches.

How Long & How Do I Know?

Most parrots eggs incubate for 22 to 28 days, once the hen has begun incubating her eggs. A hen will often wait until she has 2 eggs to start to sit on them, incubating them.

At 7 days of incubation (we always give it a couple more days) you can start to “candle the eggs” to see if your hen’s eggs are fertile.

Take her eggs out (we like to do it when she’s out of her nest eating) and, using your flashlight on your phone, gently hold the egg up to the light.

The photo shows a ‘clear’ egg, which means that even though she has incubated the egg (it’s warm to the touch because she’s been sitting on it) for over 7 days, it is infertile. If her egg were fertile it would not have a light yellow color. Instead veins start to form, literally lines on the walls. The yellow also gets darker as the days go by. Around 3/4 of the way through incubation, you can start to see a little birdie-body!

Egg Problems

Sometimes you’ll find a broken egg, or part of one, in the nest or in your parrot’s cage. If an egg is too soft, she may lack the minerals and calcium (especially) she needs to make a strong-enough egg. It can also be that the parrot-parents are breaking the eggs, which they do when they do not feel it is safe to have babies. In this case, they are too stressed, you can try moving their cage to a quieter, ‘safer’ space.

Touch the broken egg shell. If it is soft, make sure to provide a mineral block and calcium. This can be as easy as baking your breakfast egg shells. Rinse them and then bake them in an oven until they are dry, then grind them up and add them to your parrot’s veggies (which they tend to eat more of when they are breeding) or in a separate dish by themselves.

You may also notice that part of the shell is gone. This is because hens can eat the shell, re-absorbing the calcium which they will need for themselves or for their next egg.

A Parrot Life

Yes, breeding is a blast! But, it has stress built in. Some babies hatch and then die- this can be due to a lack of food or a problem that you have not caused. Parrots that are breeding and feeding eat triple (or more) and smaller birds need more seeds than they needed in the off season. The same is true for the larger parrots too, but I find that the smaller ones need more all around due to their faster metabolisms. That’s how they out-fly the larger birds, they burn more calories and need more too.

Parrots are amazing animals, some of the most intelligent. Their natural habitats are disappearing; whether it is right or wrong, the fact that people are providing them homes as pets offers a new chance at life. Some are greatly opposed to breeding, others find that it helps the family psittacines keep from going extinct. Some parrots that we think are common, like Amazons, Sun Conures and African Greys, are endangered. When parrots are well-taken care of, they are given the opportunity to live longer than they would in nature, since they have food and a lack of predators; they can keep healthier, because they can be fed a parrot-balanced diet, and can keep more beautiful plumage.

If you found this helpful, let me know! Post pictures of your parrot and their babies! Or visit us on FB at https://www.facebook.com/ParrotBliss/

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Baby, It’s Cold Outside!

Whether it is an arctic chill hitting the US or the sun shinning down i the form of rays, as responsible, loving parrot owners, we need to be aware of temperatures and how they can affect our birds.

It’s interesting to find that parrots can actually take some cold weather. I’ve read about Indian Ringnecks over-breading in England, so much so that they are considered a pest to farmers, and Quaker nests breaking telephone polls in Chicago. In both cases, these parrots are withstanding cold winter weather, breaking the expectation that a ‘tropical’ bird isn’t built for the cold.

On the flip side, the same is true of some parrots in the summer – they can only take so much heat.

A part of the reason that parrots do well in the wild is because they are free to take care of themselves. They can seek shelter from a freezing wind or seek a refreshing bath in the in the hottest summer hours. When they are in captivity, we take on the responsibility of looking out for them. As such, I’ve researched to make sure that I’m providing the proper environmental temperatures for my parrots. This is super important! If you have parrots, you may know that it is hard to tell when they are ill. They hide their illness so much so that by the time you see signs that something is wrong, it is usually too late. So, I like to be preventative in my care.

Here is a great Facebook post from Tony Silva on parrot care during the cold and warm seasons:

Temperature tolerance in parrots: highs and lows
By Tony Silva

During the current cold snap across the US, I am receiving countless emails, phone calls and messages. The questions invariably consist of one of various versions of the following: What is the lowest temperature that my parrot can withstand? The general perception is that parrots are solely tropical and that they will sicken or perish if the temperature drops even slightly. In truth parrots are extremely tolerant of cold. Several species occupy paramo highlands, extreme parts of the northern or southern hemispheres and isolated locations where freezing temperatures are common. More tropical species also display a great degree of cold tolerance. In general all parrot species have shown that they can adapt to living in frigid conditions if the exposure to cold is gradual, so that they can molt into winter feather. You cannot take a bird living in a warm house and suddenly expose it to frigid conditions. That can prove detrimental.

The sub Antarctic island of Antipodes is inhabited by a parakeet—Cyanoramphus unicolor. It is the largest of the kakarikis. It has adapted to living in an area where summer temperatures average 10°C (51°F) and the winter temperature can drop below 4°C (40°F). That this species can tolerate wet, wind and cold is expected, given its evolutionary adaptation. But cold tolerance is also seen in tropical species. The Double Yellow-headed Amazon Amazona oratrix comes from Mexico’s Atlantic coast, where the average winter temperature is 15°C (60°F). It would seem to be the epitome of a tropical species, but in Stuttgart, Germany there is a feral flock that is growing and thriving. It started with a singleton in 1984 and today numbers more than 50 individuals. These individuals experience snow, cold and an average temperature of 0°C (33°F) in January, the coldest month. Ring-neck Parakeets Psittacula krameri, Quaker Parakeets Myiopsitta monachus and other species thrive across frigid Europe, including the United Kingdom, and also parts of the US north. I have seen Quaker Parakeets in Chicago on a January day where the wind-chill was a blistering -22°C (-9°F) in Chicago’s Hyde Park. They survived that winter and many others and today represent a growing flock. Across Europe, from Russia to the UK, I have seen parrots of all species in outdoors aviaries, even though they had access to a heated shelter. One observation vividly come to mind. I was wearing a parka, gloves, hat and scarf. The macaws were playing in the snow oblivious to the cold. Another involved walking across a huge aviary belonging to Kaj Herse in Denmark. The aviary contained Australian cockatoos, parrots and parakeets. The aviary offered no heat yet even the small Budgerigars Melopsittacus undulatus thrived.

The above establishes that parrots can be cold tolerant. The question then is what are the parameters to keep birds safe on cool days. Here is my list:

1) They need to have food and water. Fat rich foods are important, as they help the body generate heat.

2) They need to have protection from wet and wind. Outdoors a nesting box can offer protection for overnight drops in temperatures. Simple plastic sheets can add further protection; the aviary or cage can be wrapped in sheets of plastic. If the temperature will drop beyond a critical level, a heat lamp or heated room will be necessary. Indoors a blanket or towels can help.

3) The concern level should start when the temperature drops below 15°C (60°F). Bird that are acclimated to living outdoors will develop a thicker under down that will allow them to survive far more cold, including freezing weather; in such a climate they need protection for their feet to prevent frost bite. This can come in the form of a heated perch. The exposed facial skin on macaws, birds that are plucked, which are elderly or infirm must have access to a heated shelter (warmed to 15°C) in winter.

4) Wooden perches are best, as plastic and metal can chill or freeze, causing toe necrosis and loss.

5) Never should a bird showing signs of cold stress be left outdoors. They should be brought into a warm room immediately. Cold stress includes extremely ruffled feathers, inactivity, lack of feeding and shivering. On touch the birds will feel cold.

Heat tolerance, like with cold, also has a threshold. Species from the equator can tolerate a lot more heat than those from areas far north or south of the equator. The Slender-billed Conure Enicognathus leptorhynchus is found in Chile’s temperate forests. It has very thick feathering. They dislike it when in summer the mercury begins to climb. Mine bathe in a bowl to which I have added ice cubes during Miami’s strong summer heat. The birds will bathe several times daily if the ice water is provided. Kakarikis (Cyanoramphus sp.) also show discomfort in very warm weather. When I kept this species, I was forced to bring them indoors into an air conditioned room because they were absolutely miserable outdoors. In winter, on a chilly rainy January, they were bathing. That day the mercury read 6°C (43°F)—a unusually cool day for Miami.

The conditions for parrots surviving the heat are several:

1) Shade must be available. The bird must be able to sit in the shade. The food and water must also be in the shade.

2) Metal perches should be avoided, as they can become excessively hot.

3) There must be good airflow; stagnant air can make it intolerable.

4) Fresh, cool water must be available for bathing and drinking. A fog mister can help the birds stay cool during the hottest part of the day. Multiple 15 minutes runs of a mister during the hottest part of the day can make it more tolerable for the birds.

5) Fatty or carbohydrate foods should be limited, as they will merely contribute towards obesity. In summer we feed some fruit, which normally is offered in very limited quantity to the birds; their diet is rich in vegetables.

6) Discomfort for most species is evident above 40°C (104°F), which is the parrot’s average core body temperature. Panting, holding the wings away from the body, perching on the aviary floor in traditional walk in aviaries and inactivity suggest that the birds will need to be cooled.

The goal of the aviculturist is to provide the best conditions for the birds. Insuring that they are neither too cold or too hot is the task of many across the globe. Both forms of stress can contribute to illness and even death.

Finally, if you enjoy aviculture, please Do NOT support the World Parrot Trust. I kindly ask that you visit the Facebook page Stop the World Parrot Trust and leave a like. This entity is a menace to bird keeping and aviculture.

If you would like to learn more about cold and heat tolerance please refer to my book Psittaculture, which is available from www.psittaculture.eu.

Smaller Parrot & Temperature

I’ve noticed that most of the research I’ve done talks about medium size to large parrots. When in comes to smaller guys, like Budgies, Lovebirds, Green-cheek conures, Cockatiels and so on, I haven’t found specific information. My smaller parrots are indoors during the cold, even though I’m in southern Florida. During the summer, I provide outdoor shade and multiple water and bath sources.

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