# Questions after Unwanted Infertile Eggs



## Dracorn

I have 3 females (Sunny, Cream and Twilight) and am not interested in breeding them.

My husband is retired, and so the birds are cage-free in the office and freely associate. 

Twilight and Cream (a lost bird I rescued 1 year ago) have bonded and were exhibiting frisky behavior. Twilight, a 2-year-old, laid 3 eggs recently. She allowed each one to fall to the bottom of the cage and crack. The eggs were a normal shape. There were no signs of distress in her and she has plenty of energy each day, both during the laying and afterward - really no difference in behavior. She's a very strong bird.

Their diet consists of Zupreem pellets available all day, and 5 Nutriberries, crushed and divided into 3 bowls, once per day. My husband would give them 6 Nutriberries, which is why I think too many calories resulted in them getting too frisky and the subsequent eggs.

I want to reduce the amount of seed to 4 Nutriberries, but I didn't want to put stress on Twilight's diet until she finished laying eggs. I'm starting to reduce the sunlight in the office as well. 

It's been 5 days since her last egg, and her belly is still slightly swollen, soft and cushy. How long does it take for the belly to return to normal?

Here's a picture of Twilight's belly. Sorry it's not the best picture but she was squirming and complaining quite a bit.


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## FaeryBee

*I'm not sure how long it takes for the belly to return to normal - Poukie Bear will be able to answer that question for you. 
I'll send her a PM and ask that she weigh in on the thread.

With regard to the egg laying and frisky behavior, the amount of daylight they get each day will play a big factor. 
I'd suggest cutting them back to just 8 hours per day. 
Do they go into their cage at night to sleep?*


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## Dracorn

Thanks, FaeryBee.

Yes, I put them in the cages at 9:00 pm and cover them. I uncover them in the morning typically when it starts to get light outside.

We have two cages - we started this when we had just Sunny and Shayne (also a female). We separated Shayne and Sunny because Shayne laid eggs and had serious female problems which eventually led to cancer and her death 2 years ago.

When we found Cream, we put her in with Twilight while Sunny, the eldest bird, gets the big cage alone. This suits Sunny just fine because she's never gotten too friendly with Twilight or Cream. I tried once to put Cream in with Sunny and Twilight by herself but everybody was pretty upset about that. And this did not stop the frisky behavior during the day when they were cage-free.

They are located in an office with a big window. They are cage free all day long as my husband is retired and I am semi-retired. I can close the blinds (plastic ones which they have chewed all to heck) to lower the amount of sunlight.

I don't know if artificial light affects them, as we spend lots of time on our computers in the office after sundown so the light is on. 

Should we put them to bed an hour earlier to cut back on artificial light?


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## Dracorn

Here are pix of my babies:

Twilight, Cream and Sunny.


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## PoukieBear

Sorry for the late reply, I've been super busy and not able to log on as often as I would like.

Twilight looks fine to me, and it doesn't look like she will be laying more eggs. What you want to be looking at technically isn't her belly like you would on any other animal. Budgies get what I call "Egg Bum" which literally means that you will see her bum region getting bigger as the egg develops in there.


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## FaeryBee

*Yes, I recommend putting your budgies to bed an hour earlier.

:hammer: I know about "egg bum" and don't know why I didn't respond properly to your initial question. So sorry!

Thanks to PoukieBear for putting us back on the right track! :blush:*


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