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i aquired a 9 yr old Lutino ,History is she is been laying Eggs. She was ok for the first week with me ,appeared friendly and interested and she even ate out of my Hand, was trying to teach her to eat some veggies. any case she done rather well for a week then she laid an egg again, she was not so nice from that day on (understandable). i figured i follow some advice leave the egg in and let her do her motherly instincts. well a wekk later she laid another egg, now she is becoming to be hard to live with , she charges the cage when i come close to it and she did bite me once.
in other words she means business.
my question ,, do i take the eggs out ? and if so she will lay just more ?
and why does a Tiel lay Eggs constantly ??.
a little frustrated here need some good advice

thank you GoldiesMom

I have no experiance with an egg layer yet. got that to look forward to. But just by what you are saying sounds like she is being protective to the eggs. If they dont hatch see will loose intrest. you just have to be patient.

If she has a past history of laying eggs relentlessly, there are some meds your vet can give her to help stop the egg laying. Leave the eggs even if infertile or she will lay more to replace them if you remove them before she gives up on them. Make sure she gets plenty of calcium, leafy dark greens, cuttlebone, and even pulverized and cooked eggshell with the egg itself. She will be very aggressive towards you or anybody else that approaches her eggs, and it's something you'll have to deal with while she is on eggs. It's normal behavior.

Some other things you can do to discourage her from laying is by keeping her in the dark for at least 12 hours, rearrange her cage, maybe even put the cage in a different spot, change toys, or in general, take away her security. If that does not help, then you need her to see a vet for help. There is nothing over the counter you can get to help her stop laying eggs. Oh yes, don't touch her on the back or she might consider that stimulus as a male would be and cause her to lay eggs also. Don't give her a place she can hide like dark corners or tight spaces.

Hope she stops soon so you can have your baby back

Thank you for all your advice it looks to me like the vet is my last recource as i have tried all of the above mentioned suggestions.
lets just hope she will soon decide to give up and not just add more eggs.
cleaning her cage is rather difficult as she has them on her grate in a corner on the floor.
but i will wait her out ,how long is the usual time before they give up ?

GoldiesMom

Usually about 18 to 21 days. Your vet is your best bet to get it stopped, but I"m not sure whether I'd take her now, or let her finish laying. Perhaps someone who's experienced this can add more.

Goldiesmom, Chibi-tori is right, you need to get her on a strict natural daylight schedule, Follow all those steps and she should let up at some stage. Ensure she has lots of calcium to reduce the risk of eggbinding.

Another thing you can do is purchase fake eggs at www.fakebirdeggs.com. Replace real with fake and she will not know the difference. Do not remove the eggs before she loses interest (about 28days) otherwise she will just keep laying ...

ok so my next question would be why would i want fake eggs ?? the whole problem here is ,she is realy nasty since she layed her eggs and all she does is eat and lay on eggs. She is not at all interested in anything elseand. the worst part of it all tonight between me cooking and eating supper she laid another egg .so now we are up to 3 eggs.
at this point i am curious , is she laying eggs because her first one did not hatch??. is she hust looking for one to hatch ??or does it sound silly !
this has been going on for some time now , first 2 eggs where a week apart , this one less then a week .
what to do !!!

From what I understand, they could lay one every other day, until she is happy with the clutch. The incubation time is about 3 weeks. Since she is single - they will not hatch.

The reason for fake eggs is to trick her into thinking she laid enough and will stop. Let sit on them, it's nature running its course. Egg laying is very stressful on the hen, uses lots of calcium (egg shell).

I would give her 14 hours of "night time" . During the "day" leave the cage door open so if she decides to come and visit you she can, this could help her lose interest. Leave them with her until she looses interest or she will think she needs to lay another.

When this egg laying stops and things get back to normal try having a seperate sleep cage. Another site that has some very knowlegeable people is www.birdmart.com . There are some who can get pretty opinionated but most of them are very good and experienced.

Good luck and I hope the laying stops soon.

ok well so i did closed all the blinds in the room keeping her covered to make her think its still dark ? and she is hanging tuff wants to cover those eggs. to be honest i feel bad for her , she is trying so hard to hatch those eggs (we all know nothing is going to happen ). it just makes me wonder over and over again would she make a good Breeder Bird ?? .
any body with expereince know ?

thank you

Best practices indicate a hen can lay 6-8 eggs during one "session", which could be as long as 3 weeks long, but normally, an egg every 2-3 days till her clutch is done. At her age, she is fully mature, and could very well be a good breeder hen, but she also could have a problem with incessant laying, and needs some treatment by her vet to slow things down or stop her from laying constantly. If she is a habitual layer, she stands a good chance of becoming very ill from calcium depletion. Make sure you give her lots of high calcium foods, baked egg shell, dark green leaf veggies, and of course, cuttlebone. Let her get through this period, and maybe she will give up on the eggs soon. Short of what you've done, she might just need to see her vet if you perceive a real problem.

Hi and thank you for your reply i do have a problem with this word "incessant" just what does it mean ??

and this may sound silly , but as we can purchase fake eggs ?? , has anyone ever thought of giving there Girl a fertile egg ?? and if so is there even a possiblity of such a thing ?
thank you worried goldiesMom

i also may to add,goldie just will not eat anything but seeds , believe me i have tried , as i said before she went into to egg laying thing and being real nasty , i got her to take a little bit of a pea from me . but since that i can not get her to even try anything else . now mind you she came to me as she is , i did not make her that way . but she does have a calcium and mineral block in her cage and she realy makes great use of the pineapple Mineral Block

The term means without stopping, but in your case, I take it she is not "constantly" laying eggs, but just laying more than would be expected of a hen her age.

As for the food, you must try continually to get her to eat high calcium foods, and she may well reject any and all attempts of yours to eat it, but if she has a mineral block and cuttlebone, she *might* be safe in the calcium department. Wild birds don't have cuttlebones or mineral blocks and they survive, but who knows for how long. As for giving her fertile eggs, I can't answer that. Someone who knows more about breeder birds might help you, but I do know in the wild, some birds will use surrogate mothers for their fertile eggs because of circumstances, and I have personally witnessed the outcome of cross-breed hatching and feeding. Why would you be interested in giving her fertile eggs, and where would you get them? Why would the natural mother hen not keep the eggs, or perhaps someone is trying to sell you fertile eggs out of the nest? NOT GOOD. Period.

no nobody is trying to sell me anything for sure it was actually just a thought that came out of the blue and only because i feel so bad for my little girl she is working so hard at it !!
i do have a little update this am , noticed she has pushed the oldest egg aside and is no longer laying on it
it is about a month old. at least i think it is the oldest ,would she actually be smart enough to know i wonder ??

OK.. there had been a thread not long ago about someone trying to hatch fertile eggs having been sold via mail order, and it was frowned on by almost everyone who has ever bred any kind of birds. Just didn't want you to get caught up in some kind of shady dealings.

As for the egg, if she's been sitting on it for nearly a month and has pushed it aside, she knows it'll never hatch, and you may well have to just wait her out on the rest. I know you want your cuddly little birdy back, but believe me, they can become a holy terror when you start dealing with eggs and nesting. She will eventually leave the rest, and hopefully, will not lay another clutch (assuming she's finished now) for a good while. If she continues to lay with an un-normal separation of time, I'd let her vet know and see what can be done to help her stop.

HTH