Question on breeding Conures

[JasonB611]

I just signed up to this board and didn't see this room before I posted this. I just posted the following thread in the Conure room but would love to ask this here as well. I am sorry for the double post but looking now this may have been the better forum to ask this question....


Original Post...
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Hi Everyone,
I am new to this room and new to breeding Conures. My wife has been doing a lot of research online but I wanted to talk to some people who have first hand experience. First I want to apologize for being less then knowledgable on the subject. I am here trying to learn...

We have had a quaker parrot for about a year now and love him. He is great! I work from home and my wife is a stay at home mom. Our youngest daughter just went to school this year for the first year and we have an empty house, well for part of the day anyway. My wife was looking for a hobby and we decided to get another bird. We have a ton of room here and more then enough time and a ton of love to show the birds. When we were at the bird store they have a proven breeding paid of sun conures. They were beautiful so we ended up getting them. We have had them for a few months and built a nice nesting box on the outside of their cage. About a week ago they got very territorial and did not want us near the cage at all. Tuesday night / Wednesday morning we looked in the box to see one egg. They about killed us when we peeked in. Not wanting to stress them or disturb their nest at all we shut the box and left it alone. Every morning I peek in once just to see if we have more eggs and then leave the box alone all day. We haven't got anymore eggs at all but they are still very territorial of the box. One bird is always in there and the female is still really big like she is holding more eggs. I read online that the birds will have them once every other day. Today is saturday and the last one came three days ago... Could this be our only egg? How long can it be between eggs? Am I wrong in peeking once a morning when I get up? Trust me I want to check like 100 times a day but at the same time I do not want to disturb them or chance her hurting herself or the egg by me looking so I don't touch it.

Any help or guidance you could supply would be GREATLY appreciated!

Thank you
Jason

[xafsmom]

I'll answer you here too.

Peeking once a day won't kill them. They'll get used to it. Further peekage though could stress your hen out if she's not used to the peeking.

It could be your only egg. However, the average laying interval is 3 days. Sometimes up to a full 7 days. I have one CAG hen that lays one every 9 days. But, the longest I've seen a Sun go is 5 days.

[JasonB611]

THANK YOU for getting back to me! My wife and I are releived... We had been reading they would lay the eggs once every other day and now we were on morning three and hadn't seen them. She has been in the box all day I will peek tomorrow maybe there will be another.... We are excited and nervous.. We really want to get into more birds once we are comfortable with these and all goes well.. Like I said we are both home alone all day now and it would be great to have a few breeding pairs....

I do have a question... How do you find breeding pairs? We got these from a store owner who had to move but typically how would you get a breeding pair?

[Greycloud]

Welcome to BirdBoard! Congrats on your first egg. I hope it is fertile. One place to find breeder pairs is Up At Six Aviaries - Your Source for Avian Information! Complete resource for Aviculture, Pet Birds, Parrots, Macaws, Amazons, Cockatoos and Cockatiels! They have a whole forum of bird sales and breeder sales. I have bought breeders from there before. Yes, it is ok to have them shipped if they are out of state. Question for you...Do you know how to handfeed?

[xafsmom]

Originally Posted by JasonB611

THANK YOU for getting back to me! My wife and I are releived... We had been reading they would lay the eggs once every other day and now we were on morning three and hadn't seen them. She has been in the box all day I will peek tomorrow maybe there will be another.... We are excited and nervous.. We really want to get into more birds once we are comfortable with these and all goes well.. Like I said we are both home alone all day now and it would be great to have a few breeding pairs....

I do have a question... How do you find breeding pairs? We got these from a store owner who had to move but typically how would you get a breeding pair?

The normative is every other day, as in, that's pretty much the soonest it would be, seeing it takes 24 hours for an egg to pass through to laying. But, the true average is every 3 days.

My breeding pairs were either obtained through family (my aunt was a breeder in the 70's) or through respected breeder friends. Watch out for upatsix.com, be very sure of the breeder you get birds from if using them. There are a lot of scammers and brokers there.

What species are you looking to breed?

[Feathered Companions]

BirdBreeders.com - Bird Breeders Directory of Availability and Parrot Breeders is a good place to go too :) Good luck!

[JasonB611]

We are actually looking to get a pair of Greys to breed... We want to get in to all sorts of pairs but very slowly. Like I said she has nothing to do but play with the birds we have now and is excited for the challange of feeding etc... We would love to get into Grey's but honestly anything would be welcome... We are getting nervous though as we only have one egg in there still since Wednesday morning... They are both going in and out of the box and very protective... I have no idea how to tell if it is fertalized or not but I really was hoping for more eggs

[JasonB611]

We are actually looking to get a pair of Greys to breed... We want to get in to all sorts of pairs but very slowly. Like I said she has nothing to do but play with the birds we have now and is excited for the challange of feeding etc... We would love to get into Grey's but honestly anything would be welcome... We are getting nervous though as we only have one egg in there still since Wednesday morning... They are both going in and out of the box and very protective... I have no idea how to tell if it is fertalized or not but I really was hoping for more eggs

[parrots1234]

hi,
if they have had a poor diet before reaching you one egg might be all she lays this time round,
or she could be a young or old bird .
my greys when they came to me only laid one egg..it was fertile but dead in shell.
8 months later on a very good diet of fruit veg,sprouted sunflower seeds,sprouted pulses, and a quality breed mix powder i got 3 eggs all hatched.
now i get three eggs everytime.
same thing with most my breeding pairs.the better the diet the better breeding results.
both my pair of greys now lay 3 eggs everytime.the second pair i got laid a clutch of 2 first time round.now 3 everytime.

make sure your birds are getting good foodand everything will be fine.remember a quality calcium supplement but not too much.also makes sure if the bird is not getting direct sunlight that it ha access to vitamin d3.the body needs this to absorb the calcium.they get it from direct sunlight or artificvial light..i use an uva light for the birds that will tolerate it attached to there cage..but some birds dont like it being to bright.

remember oyster shell cuttlefish are useless without d3.

i have been sprouting sunflower seed for 4 years now and my breeding results have double in fertility etc.
when sprouted sunflower seed the whole nutrition value changes making them into little protein gems.

after this clutch is gone look in the nestbox daily at the same time every day even if they arent in there and then they will get used to this.its very eay when the babies are due to keep peeking in but i have lost babies in the past doing this when my eagerness got the better of me.
if your going to band your babies be carefull conures can be terrible toe leg nippers.

i know of conures that will bite of the whole chicks leg to get the ring/band off the chick and out the nestbox.
i have had 1 pair of sun conures and 2 pairs green cheeked do this..but thery all stopped by me simply putting a few bands in the nestbox routinely every now and then getting them used to the shinny ring.then 3 or 4 days before putting them on chicks i leave them in there.eventually the get sick of throwing them out and ignore this..

if your not banding them thi isnt a problem.

remember and make sure there is a water dish big enough for them to bathe in and take moisture back to the nestbox.

if your breeding them in your house make sure the room is well ventillated and no cigarete smoke,cooking smoke etc gets into that room.
ive in the past had problems at hatch time breeding in my house.it sometimes takes the birds a while to get it right if there used to breeding outdoors..
get yourself a good hygrometer and keep an eye on humidity in that room...

when indoor breeding make sure its not too dry at hatching time..this isnt important untill the egg draws down and internaly pips..

two days before hatching if you think the birds arent taking water into the nest AND THE ROOM IS BELOW 50%RH..it can help to mist down the outside of nestbox and the room with luke warm water..this will really help the chicks hatch rate..

unless of coarse you live in a humid area the you will have no problems..

god luck

sun conures are usually good parents so hopefully you will have a wee baby soon with no problems

[JasonB611]

Hi everyone,
So today made exactly four weeks since our first egg was laid. It still has not hatched yet. How long does it usually take for an egg to hatch? We are worried their eggs aren't going to hatch. These birds have had babies before but not with us. This is our first set of eggs and we are getting nervous.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks!