What An End To 2014
As the title says 'What an end to 2014! Not only have I crashed my car (black ice on road) but my cockatiels have decided to follow my example and as the photo above shows, crash some eggs!!
This is the 2nd egg they have broken they still have two eggs left in the nest that, so far, are OK. (edited to say she has laid another egg- so that's 3 eggs in nest now)
This blog is about what I've decide to try to do with the broken egg but I will be very surprised if it works.
I really don't know if the yolk of the egg has been damaged but I have patched the egg up using micropore to cover the missing part of the shell. If it had been only a crack I know nail varnish would have worked.
Before I attached the micropore to the egg I made sure I covered the part of the micropore that would be next to the contents of the egg so that nothing inside the egg would get stuck to the micropore.
It's now inside the incubator next problem will be how to turn the egg without causing further damage.
My other problem is - should I take another egg from their nest and incubate it too just in case this broken one does survive?. I feel its always easier to rear two chicks rather than one.
I've still to examine the photos I've taken today to find out if any damage has been done to the yolk.
(update: The yolk of the egg had been punctured so egg has been removed from the incubator and destroyed.)
Update January 3rd 2015:
This morning when I checked the cockatiel's nest when they were out feeding I was knocked for six - I found more eggs broken in the nest box, only one whole egg left. I've removed the last whole egg and put it into the incubator beside the previous one I had removed the other day.
I have since checked the egg removed today and it definitely is not fertile but the one I removed the previous day is showing veins inside the egg. I have put two false eggs into the nest- but I am very concerned with this happening, they have had 3 broods before and no eggs damaged.
At the moment I cannot make up my mind whether to remove the false eggs and the nest box or leave it as it is just in case the one egg left in the incubator does hatch out and then take the false eggs out and put the chick in- worry then would be-- would they kill the chick?!!
(Update: decided to remove the false eggs and the nest box. If the egg in the incubator hatches I'm not chancing putting it in with the parent birds knowing their past history. The Parent birds seem to be more settled now)
This is something I didn't know- I intend to weigh the egg that is in the incubator to check if everything is OK. I would have expected the egg to gain weight getting close to hatching.
This is what I discovered :
Throughout the incubation process, the egg has to lose weight in order to hatch. This sounds the wrong way round with the embryo growing inside the egg, but the weight of the about-to-hatch egg needs to be 13% less than a fresh egg to allow room for the chick to break the shell open with its egg tooth.
6 Comments
Recommended Comments
Please sign in to comment
You will be able to leave a comment after signing in
Sign In Now