Hatching quail eggs under lovebirds?

[Pent]

My Fiance's sister has a pair of very broody female lovebirds sitting hopelessly on a number of eggs. They remove them, lovies lay more. I've been thinking I might see if they'll sit and hatch some button quail eggs, any thoughts? The lovebirds will naturally be very confused when the babies start running around, but it might give them a little satisfaction, and break them out of the broody cycle. I haven't been doing so well with my incubator, so it could be a win-win.

 

[gabrielle1976]

I would say why not. A needy mama is a needy mama cats raise puppies dogs rais cats they both will do squirlls or tigers or what not I have seen chickens with ducklings or what not so give it a try with a few eggs if you like. You will want to watch closely after the eggs hatch to make shure no one hurts anyone else lol . Make shure to keep us updated and have pics if it works those would be priceless

 

[TwoCrows]

The only issue that you should be aware of is that Lovebird eggs take 21-26 days till hatch. So your eggs, will need to be removed at 3 days prior to hatch so they eggs can rest and the Lovebirds are not turning the egg. You want to stop the turning so the chick can get in to hatching position. So you will need an incubator or hatcher ready at this time.

 

[Pent]

Just in case anyone was wondering how this went... The lovebirds went on strike on the last day and abandoned the eggs to the cold. I don't know if the moving eggs spooked them or what, but no one noticed until morning and by then the eggs were stone cold. My sister-in-laws were quite disappointed. Sooooo, might have worked with less stupid lovebirds, but as it was I wouldn't recommend.

 

[James the Bald]

Just in case anyone was wondering how this went... The lovebirds went on strike on the last day and abandoned the eggs to the cold. I don't know if the moving eggs spooked them or what, but no one noticed until morning and by then the eggs were stone cold. My sister-in-laws were quite disappointed. Sooooo, might have worked with less stupid lovebirds, but as it was I wouldn't recommend.

So did you attempt to go the full 16 days or do you mean they stopped sitting on them on day 12? I'm also not fully up to speed on the size of a lovebird egg in comparison with a buttonquail egg. If this was recently, you may want to try again, but only one more time. Some people out there would like to hatch a few eggs "the natural way by surrogate" and not have to worry about the power going out, or the humidity dropping; things that those of us who incubate loose sleep over. Thanks for the update.

 

[Pent]

I attempted to go the full term under the lovebirds; we let them sit dummy eggs for a few days to close the gap between development times. It was a while ago, the lovebirds gave up entirely on being parents after that. Then started trying to kill each other. They now live in separate cages, and neither are going broody.

 

[TwoCrows]

Lovebirds do not make good surrogate parents. And yes, they can turn on each other in brutal ways. So never keep two pairs together ever. My Lovebirds want to kill my Cockatiels all the time and Cockatiels are twice their size! I have to be careful they do not get into anybody elses cage as they can harm other birds 4 times their size.

Now, Cockatiels make GREAT surrogates...even the males are very loving to their eggs and offspring. And they go broody easily. Some of my single males stay broody about 10 months out of the year and only during a molt do they stop being broody.

 

[Pent]

Yeah, I wouldn't have kept two female lovebirds together in the first place. My own lovebird was male, and a solo. He had his buddy, a quaker parrot, and stood up to her like she was nothing. I just had some extra quail eggs I wasn't planning to hatch, and the girls had two lovebirds that had been laying and going broody for months. Figured hatching some quail might shake them out of their broodiness. It did... just a bit too early. The eggs were almost the same size, and the lovies didn't even notice the color change. But yeah, would not recommend.