infertile eggs

[paul1966]

Gday all, I have about 20 Gould's in a 5 metre a avairy
plently of nest boxes. So many eggs are infertile. Diet is good sprouted seed boiled egg shells, budgie breeder and finch seed. All are fully coloured. Second round still infertile. Any suggestions ages from 18mths 3 years old so wide age group .

[casehulsebosch]

Hi Paul.
Five meter aviary. 5 meters x what?
I and many others work on one pair of birds per M3 of aviary space. Twenty birds i.e. 10 pairs in one flight does not sound ideal to me.
To give this number of birds a choice you would need 20 or more nest boxes. Keeping in mind that dominant pairs will take the highest nest boxes they should not all be at the same hight.
Infertility can be due to a large variety of reasons least of all the breeding condition of the birds. Also think of loose perches, long nails.
As all birds are over 12 months old this should not be a problem.

cheers, Case

[iaos]

It is not really gouldian breeding season yet. Most people won't have even put nest boxes in yet. I'm surprised you are even getting eggs out of them.

I would try taking the boxes out for a month and let both sexes come into breeding condition

Cheers Ian

[BlackCobra]

I agree with Case, loose perches or moving perches can be a big problem, but I have seen many breeders breeding in colonies smaller than 5 meters with no problems, but all it takes is one real aggressive bird to interfere with mating birds or a cock that dosnt have a mate could interfere all the time.
I don't like the moving perches that hang from a wire, as every time a finch lands it moves & if birds are trying to mate & birds keep landing, it could be a disaster.
I learnt one lesson a long time ago with a colony of budgies, all the birds wanted one box that was on the end, it was constant, as soon as a pair was settle in another bird destroyed there eggs or babies, in the end I took out that one box, & I never had that problem again.

[Diane]

Are the hens beaks black?

[iaos]

While I agree that unstable perches may cause issues with other species, isn't it the case that gouldians mate inside the box?

[Myzomela]

Interesting comment about unstable perches.

I, too, remember reading about these causing infertility when I was younger.

Since then I have seen birds mate on all types of surfaces and many finches mate on the ground or as Iaos has suggested in the nest.

One highly successful parrot breeder I know of ONLY uses swinging perches.

Perhaps this was a theoretical problem which has been overemphasized over time?

[E Orix]

I am thinking down the same line as Di
Just because they lay does not mean they are in breeding mode(hormone wise)
I mentioned the other day that not one of my hens has any sign of a beak going black.
That is the guide I have used for a few years now.

[Craig52]

I am thinking down the same line as Di
Just because they lay does not mean they are in breeding mode(hormone wise)
I mentioned the other day that not one of my hens has any sign of a beak going black.
That is the guide I have used for a few years now.

While I agree that unstable perches may cause issues with other species, isn't it the case that gouldians mate inside the box?

I totally agree with both Di and E Orix with regards to not being ready to breed,but i have only ever seen 1pr of gouldians mate on a perch out of hundreds that don't so the loose perch theory doesn't affect gouldians which mate in the nest box. Craig

[paul1966]

Hi all, don't have a perch problem, what I have done is removed 10 birds maybe less stress, pretty even numbers plenty of boxes, hope they settle. All beaks are black, the males are strutting around chatting the females when you have lovely birds they all want to breed but space issuses- hard to choose the lucky few. The others are moved into open fight with no boxes