| budgie infanticide - CLICK HERE for the Pet Manual Forum Home Page |
| susan |
we established a large outdoor aviary last year with 3 couples of
young budgies and were pleased when our first batch of 3 eggs hatched
and are now flying about happily. A 2nd batch of 3 was hatched by
another female in another nest box a few days ago. On checking them
this morning the first female was found with blood on her breast
having killed all 3 chicks!!
how can this be explained? is it a case of the female killing in
order to guard her own genetic line ? did she want the nest to lay
another of her own batch? ...although there was a nest box free.
is this a common occurence?
will she do it again?
did we do anything wrong?
susan
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| Eduardo del Solar |
Are you 100% sure it was the mother killing her babies? Is it possible it
was the other hen that did it? I ask this questions since I stopped colony
(all nest boxes in one cage) breeding after I saw the carnage that hens can
inflict upon other hens even if there are many extra nest boxes.
If it was the hen killing her babies, I have not seen this but heard it is
possible, I would not allow her to breed again. Also, she may kill the
other babies if kept in the same cage/aviary. Territoriality can drive some
hens insane.
Good luck
"susan" <susan@enc-kozani.net> wrote in message
news:bf30d34a.0407152347.7bd8909f@posting.google.com...
> we established a large outdoor aviary last year with 3 couples of
> young budgies and were pleased when our first batch of 3 eggs hatched
> and are now flying about happily. A 2nd batch of 3 was hatched by
> another female in another nest box a few days ago. On checking them
> this morning the first female was found with blood on her breast
> having killed all 3 chicks!!
>
> how can this be explained? is it a case of the female killing in
> order to guard her own genetic line ? did she want the nest to lay
> another of her own batch? ...although there was a nest box free.
>
> is this a common occurence?
>
> will she do it again?
>
> did we do anything wrong?
>
> susan
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