Musks and funky eggs .

[jusdeb]

My Musk girl is sitting on eggs of dubious colour ...

One is greyish the other pinkish ... according to my trusty egg colour chart I may be seeing one dead and one infertile egg .

Twice Ive gone in to inspect or remove the eggs but she goes nuts , sits tight on the eggs and lunges at my hand . Does she know better than me and should I leave her be or do I have to bite the bullet and get the eggs out ?

I haven't been doing many nest inspections after last years disastrous breeding season , Ive been leaving well enough alone this year so I can only guess that the eggs should have hatched by now .

Any ideas ?

[Buzzard-1]

Without knowing the date they were laid it's hard, Candle if your game but it sounds like 1 dead 1 fresh to me. is the pink one polished or dull in appearance?

[Tintola]

How long has she been sitting?

Pinkish egg = infertile or fresh

Gray = rotten if blotchy,

or even grayish = just about to hatch, large chick inside.

What was the disaster last year?

[jusdeb]

Polished ... yes I wish I had done more inspections .
Now I think though the hen went into the box about the same time as the RRs in the next aviary , there's one new fuzzy under the RR .

Maybe more time then .

Nothing bred last year T . No birds even looked like breeding and they are all in good condition so no reason as to why =disastrous .

[Tintola]

Nothing , and I mean nothing, worse than breaking an egg to find a healthy embryo inside. Leave it another week as lorikeets take longer to hatch than red rumps. I always mark on the calender when incubation starts and when they are due.

[Buzzard-1]

Polished ... yes

I'd say clear then,I'd give them a week and I'd remove eggs and get them to go again, not uncommon for first eggs to be clear specially if the birds are young.

[arthur]

Incubation 23-25 days

[jusdeb]

These have bred before ...2 clutches last season which is what concerns me .
I will leave them alone another week . I guess nest inspections are just going to have to be done . Damned if you do and damned if you dont .

Thanks for the replies folks

[jusdeb]

Noticed the hen has been out of the nest a lot the last 3 days and the boy is courting her again so thought I would check the nest and no eggs to be found either in the nest or in the suspended .... could the parents lift them out of the nest box or could they have eaten them ?

I assume they will breed again ...hopefully .

[djb78]

What type of nest box? Deep I would think they would have eaten as my parrots used to climb out of their box, if similar to a large budgie type box where they can stand and look out probably thrown. Some of my finches used to lay some of those invisible eggs there one day and invisible the next, do hope they didn't go back where they come from.