female looks abit down

caspercarl · Snr Member Joined: Apr 06, 2011 Posts: 37

hi there
my brother in law has asked me to post this question for him
he bought a female kakariki around two months ago and she has started lying eggs so he has been taking them out of the cage but know she is just lying down on the cage floor she is eating, drinking and flying about but keeps going back to the floor and is generally looking down/upset and he is worried that she might have a egg stuck or is it he was removing the eggs to soon after she laid them he has only got this one bird

Steptoe · Site Admin Joined: Oct 06, 2004 Posts: 4550

I suggest that since he has a single bird that he has never paired up before, and is laying eggs like that.. it is an older bird that has been a breeder.
Breeders generally do not get rid of their breeding birds unless they are 'past it'
From our experiments this means the bird could have produced well over 150 eggs assuming a 80% ratio of eggs to healthy adults.
It is essential that birds laying eggs must have a good AND consistent diet.....If not the health goes down and egg binding occurs.

Egg binding , as u may fear, needs to be dealt with quickly, and with inexperienced owners , usually ends up fatal.
On the left is a "quick search" block enter egg binding and read, and do the same for diet... looking for a sticky thread "what do u feed....."

To stop egg laying is often very difficult to imposable again the Quick search block

caspercarl · Snr Member Joined: Apr 06, 2011 Posts: 37

hi thanks for the reply the bird in question has never been a breeding bird it was bought from a pet shop from a young age then it was in a cage with two other females before it was given to my brother in law I hope this sheds a bit more light onto his problem thank you in advance for all your help

Steptoe · Site Admin Joined: Oct 06, 2004 Posts: 4550

"young age" how was that established? verbal from the pet shop?
?It is near imposable to tell if a kakariki is 4 months or 14 years out of the nesting box... even by experienced breeders
Where did the bird come from before the pet shop?
"with two other females.." going from so many requests in these forums alone regarding sexing birds and the number of ppl who have been told by pet shops the sex wrongly is quite amazing, expec when one considers there is only a 50/50 chance of being wrong.
If the bird had been in the pet shop even with males, and no nesting boxes it is still very unlikely the hormones would have been stimulated enough to start to lay.
Sry about being so cynical about pet shops... world wide...so many times the information the give on the sex, diet, age is at best grasped out of thin air to give the appearance of knowledgeable help to make the sale?
And yes very often a lot of that information is incorrect because the supplier is also only interested in moving the birds on.

Do we have an update on the bird?
If it is egg bound , then by this point it will be sitting in a cnr on the ground very lethargic.....

caspercarl · Snr Member Joined: Apr 06, 2011 Posts: 37

hi there I went round to look at the bird yesterday she is sitting in the corner of the cage on the floor but she is also moving around and flying around the cage he has told me so its not like she just sitting there and she is eating and drinking fine.
If you go near her while she lying at the bottom of the cage she makes a squealing noise at you like she wants you to go away from an egg but she isn't siting on any.
I am also a bit concerned about the size of her poo I have not seen it this big in the birds that I have got so not sure if this is normal
I'm trying to add some pictures but not sure how to do it

caspercarl · Snr Member Joined: Apr 06, 2011 Posts: 37

picture of bird

caspercarl · Snr Member Joined: Apr 06, 2011 Posts: 37

picture of poo

Steptoe · Site Admin Joined: Oct 06, 2004 Posts: 4550

Have you used the search block for the info on egg binding I suggested a couple days ago?
And pasted that info on?
And also info on worms and how to check the stools.. search and pass that on to.
Thu at this stage I strongly suggest a vet...as would be the case if the egg binding info was past on.

Crossie · Regular Member Joined: Apr 26, 2013 Posts: 24

What's the vent looking like? If it's visually swollen and protruding then yes egg binding is the problem. The poo seems to be consistent with this also, it will be large and runny.
She will let you handle her so check the underside and see what the vent looks like, gently feel around the vent to see if you can identify an egg.

If she is then she is in some real pain and needs assistance quickly or she will be meeting a slow and painful end.

caspercarl · Snr Member Joined: Apr 06, 2011 Posts: 37

hi there
thank you all for your reply's sorry I haven't kept this up to date but been a bit busy my brother in law moved the cage around a bit to stop the bird from getting back to the corner and now she is back to how she was before alert, flying around, coming out the cage and making lots of noise and her poo is even back to normal thank you again for all the advice