Baby parakeets died....

[77horses]

For those of you who don't know, I posted a few weeks ago about how our Parakeet, Carla, had started to lay eggs again. I posted about their development, and when they finally started to hatch. At the time, Carla's nest was tied securely to the side of her cage, which had her mate, Stormy, and some other of their Parakeet friends in it. Carla took very good care of her 2 first babies that hatched, than when the 3rd one hatched, too. Stormy fed her so she could feed her babies without having to get out of the nest and all seemed fine. The babies grew bigger and got louder as ate more, etc. and I enjoyed watching Carla feed and care for them. We were just starting to think of names for them when disaster struck....


One day we noticed that Carla was out of the nest, which is a pretty rare thing for her to do unless she's eating, cleaning, getting a drink, etc. We waited and noticed that she wasn't going back into the nest, which is strange because if she was getting a drink or something, she would return to the nest pretty quickly. But she just ignored the nest like there weren't any babies waiting to be fed inside of it. So, I decided to take a peek inside and see what was wrong. I saw one small baby Parakeet(the 3rd one) and it was obviously dead.

I saw 1 unhatched egg, feathers, shavings, and nothing else. Where had the other 2 older babies gone? Then I saw one of the poor babies in the bottom of the cage.

It was also dead. I felt awful because it had grown so big and had started to grow some real feathers. Then I saw the other older baby also on the bottom of the cage nearby. It was also as big as the other one. What had happened to the poor babies?

After examining them a little before burying them in a peaceful spot outside, I found out that their nest had been attacked by one or more of the other Parakeets in the cage. The babies had some bruises and bites on them and had been pushed out of the nest.

The smallest baby that was found in the nest had been killed by another Parakeet, also. And after candling the last unhatched egg, it was also dead. We cracked it open to find a half-developed chick and the egg was rotten.

I also feel so bad for Carla and Stormy because she had worked so hard. This was her second try at being a mother; the last time she tried, none of the eggs even hatched. Now, her babies had been killed by the other Parakeets.

I immediately took the nest box out because I know that she will want to lay more eggs and try again, but I want her to have a nice, long vacation to rest and be a normal parakeet. Then, we may put the nest box back in the cage for Stormy and Carla, but this time it will be in a separate cage from all the other Parakeets.

Thanks for reading and RIP all the baby Parakeets.

(oh and sorry for writing so long!

I start typing and don't think about how long I've been typing and when I'm done it turns out so long.

)

 

[Imp]

Sorry.

Imp

 

[clickie]

i am sorry to hear about your baby budgies. sometimes if you have more parakeets in the cage with the breeding pare they will attack the nest. Was the other parakeet a female, because the females will attack, other females, during breeding season. I would wait a little bit before letting her raise a clutch again. Do you have another cage that she and her mate could go into, this way the other parakeets will leave them alone, then when they raise the babies they could go back with their friends. Sometimes the other parakeets just get jealous, I have 6 of them 3 males an 3 females, this way they all have a friend. You can all males or all females or a mix, I was giving most of mine and it ended up that I had 3 of each. they are all in a large flight cage. How many other parakeets do you have, besides the two that were breeding? When I was breeding my keets I separated them because the mamma would attack the other birds. Good luck with your budgies, hopefully she will be able to raise some babies successfuly next time.

 

[crtrlovr]

sorry for your budgie loss; I know your heart is aching. You're right to give Carla a rest. When she is ready (and when you are ready) separate her and her mate from the other 'keets. Again, I'm so sorry for your loss.

 

[Chicks_N_Horses]

 

[77horses]

Quote:
Thanks everyone.

we have 5 parakeets total; used to have 6 until one of our females died for an unknown reason. Now we have 3 females and 2 males. The 3 females are: Carla, Toddra, and Dove. The 2 males are Stormy and Kiwi. So Toddra, Dove or even both killed the babies. I suspect Toddra because the nest Carla was in used to be hers when she was trying to hatch her own eggs. Dove has never nested and doesn't seem to be a type for having a mate...i don't know why. She's beautiful and fairly friendly to the rest(but can be bossy), but she has never really tried to get a mate. She is more of a loner...

The cage they are in is the largest that we have; we do have 2 other cages(one is circular shaped and really long, the other is small and square(like a finch cage). We were going to move them, but the other parakeets seemed to be ignoring them and Carla wasn't letting anyone in the nest because she was really protective. They seemed fine until the day they raided the nest.

Maybe the loud peeps of the babies attracted them more, since they got louder the older they got.

 

[clickie]

Lol I have a female parakeet named Kiwi, she was the only baby that I kept. Yea, I think the other birds were jealous, since you said one of your other females was nesting before.