Eight Eggs!

[Morgan]

Hello! I am so glad to have found this forum - I have learned a lot about linnie genetics from Eddie’s Aviary website and think very highly of your careful breeding practices.

My linnie pair have their first clutch, and my hen, Lottie, has laid eight eggs! I am not sure how remarkable this really is but I was pretty surprised. She is almost a year and a half old, has a ton of calcium options - high potency pellets, calcium with iodine mineral block, mineralized oyster shell grit, sesame seeds and high calcium veggies (among other fresh foods) and I have chelated liquid calcium on hand at all times for all my birds (I also have eight budgies), but she is done laying now. The first egg is due to hatch by the 10th or 11th.

I recently heard that linnie parents, or specifically the mom, can become easily stressed and turn aggressively on their own chicks. I was told to just leave them alone completely and not try to coparent or hand raise them at all, unless I want to pull them all at three weeks to hand feed - but that it is also not necessary to hand feed linnies to help them become “tame”.

With budgies I know that handling them often from a young age (as long as mom is comfortable enough herself to allow it) helps them immensely to become familiar with humans and hands, and hand-feeding them helps them to better accept humans as part of their flock. But linnies are of course a different creature. Lottie was closely bonded with me before I bought her partner, Happy, and they are both still very sweet with me up to this point. I sometimes pop a nutriberry into the nest box for Lottie to snack on and she doesn’t open her beak at me or seem stressed by my presence so far.

My main concern is being able to simply check on the chick’s growth once they hatch, make sure they are being fed properly, aren’t developing splayed legs or getting too much air in the crop, and being able to clean the box if necessary so they don’t get poop stuck to their feet. I am not expecting all eight to hatch, but if they did, that would probably be pretty stressful itself for a first time mom. I think the box is plenty big enough at least (9L/7W/8H) - I make them myself out of thin sheets of solid wood because I don’t like that plywood is held together by many layers of toxic glue.

So what is the best practice to follow once the babies hatch? I am adding more bedding to the box today so I won’t have to bother Lottie once the first egg hatches if that is best, but can I open the door to check on them at all once they begin hatching? If I want to hand feed them should I just leave them alone entirely until three weeks of age to pull them? I don’t generally like this practice of taking the babies away from mom entirely, unless mom is rejecting or harming her chicks - I would prefer to coparent. But I only just heard of this complication, so now I am a bit nervous.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

 

[LinnieGirl]

Hello! I am so glad to have found this forum - I have learned a lot about linnie genetics from Eddie’s Aviary website and think very highly of your careful breeding practices.

My linnie pair have their first clutch, and my hen, Lottie, has laid eight eggs! I am not sure how remarkable this really is but I was pretty surprised. She is almost a year and a half old, has a ton of calcium options - high potency pellets, calcium with iodine mineral block, mineralized oyster shell grit, sesame seeds and high calcium veggies (among other fresh foods) and I have chelated liquid calcium on hand at all times for all my birds (I also have eight budgies), but she is done laying now. The first egg is due to hatch by the 10th or 11th.

I recently heard that linnie parents, or specifically the mom, can become easily stressed and turn aggressively on their own chicks. I was told to just leave them alone completely and not try to coparent or hand raise them at all, unless I want to pull them all at three weeks to hand feed - but that it is also not necessary to hand feed linnies to help them become “tame”.

With budgies I know that handling them often from a young age (as long as mom is comfortable enough herself to allow it) helps them immensely to become familiar with humans and hands, and hand-feeding them helps them to better accept humans as part of their flock. But linnies are of course a different creature. Lottie was closely bonded with me before I bought her partner, Happy, and they are both still very sweet with me up to this point. I sometimes pop a nutriberry into the nest box for Lottie to snack on and she doesn’t open her beak at me or seem stressed by my presence so far.

My main concern is being able to simply check on the chick’s growth once they hatch, make sure they are being fed properly, aren’t developing splayed legs or getting too much air in the crop, and being able to clean the box if necessary so they don’t get poop stuck to their feet. I am not expecting all eight to hatch, but if they did, that would probably be pretty stressful itself for a first time mom. I think the box is plenty big enough at least (9L/7W/8H) - I make them myself out of thin sheets of solid wood because I don’t like that plywood is held together by many layers of toxic glue.

So what is the best practice to follow once the babies hatch? I am adding more bedding to the box today so I won’t have to bother Lottie once the first egg hatches if that is best, but can I open the door to check on them at all once they begin hatching? If I want to hand feed them should I just leave them alone entirely until three weeks of age to pull them? I don’t generally like this practice of taking the babies away from mom entirely, unless mom is rejecting or harming her chicks - I would prefer to coparent. But I only just heard of this complication, so now I am a bit nervous.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

Hi Morgan, and welcome! Congratulations on your first clutch! 8 eggs is a large clutch and I’ve never heard of a Linnie being able to raise that many at once. Have you candled the eggs to see just how many were fertile? How old is the male? Maturity plays a big role in raising chicks so if he’s young, be watchful for any adverse behavior from him.
It’s perfectly fine and advisable to check the nestbox daily to observe chick growth. I prefer to check when both parents are out of the box but if that’s not possible you can take a quick peek when moms in there. Tame birds are more accepting of those nest checks than wilder ones.
Linnies generally keep their nests pretty clean and poop in corners so I wouldn’t advise doing any cleaning until the chicks are a few weeks old if necessary at all. Make sure to continue giving mom extra calcium while she’s raising the chicks as it’s important for their bone growth and strong legs.
if your hen is that bonded to you she won’t mind you handling the chicks as they grow if you wanted to co parent. A few minutes a day increasing as they get bigger.

 

[Morgan]

That is very reassuring, but now I have two sets of completely opposite advice!

Happy is nine months now, so he is definitely young. Lottie was certainly pestering him. She is a year and four months. I was hoping to wait until she was two, but I tried removing all shreddables, reducing daylight hours, and I take my birds outside a few times a week for natural sunlight/vit D and fresh air - but she still laid an egg on the grate of her cage. So I decided to just let her have it her way then.

I’m prepared to co-parent or take chicks if necessary, if anything goes wrong. But I wouldn’t want to be the cause of something going wrong in the first place if checking on the babies stresses out the parents more.

I think I am just going to have to feel it out and go with my gut, but I did have a feeling that a more bonded bird might not be as concerned as one that wasn’t very bonded with the person “invading” their nest.

Thank you for the advice!

 

[LinnieGirl]

That is very reassuring, but now I have two sets of completely opposite advice!

Happy is nine months now, so he is definitely young. Lottie was certainly pestering him. She is a year and four months. I was hoping to wait until she was two, but I tried removing all shreddables, reducing daylight hours, and I take my birds outside a few times a week for natural sunlight/vit D and fresh air - but she still laid an egg on the grate of her cage. So I decided to just let her have it her way then.

I’m prepared to co-parent or take chicks if necessary, if anything goes wrong. But I wouldn’t want to be the cause of something going wrong in the first place if checking on the babies stresses out the parents more.

I think I am just going to have to feel it out and go with my gut, but I did have a feeling that a more bonded bird might not be as concerned as one that wasn’t very bonded with the person “invading” their nest.

Thank you for the advice!

What is the opposite advice you were told?
honestly with linnies, it can go either way.
I’ve been breeding linnies for over 11 years and I’ve never had a pair abandon a nest because I checked the box daily, or for any reason actually.
With a male that young, chances are higher that he will cause problems somewhere in the process but that’s not a certainty. Yes, go with your gut. If you sense the birds are anxious, then give them space.

 

[Morgan]

What is the opposite advice you were told?
honestly with linnies, it can go either way.
I’ve been breeding linnies for over 11 years and I’ve never had a pair abandon a nest because I checked the box daily, or for any reason actually.
With a male that young, chances are higher that he will cause problems somewhere in the process but that’s not a certainty. Yes, go with your gut. If you sense the birds are anxious, then give them space.

An excellent breeder who I follow on Instagram told me that she doesn’t check her linnie’s boxes at all until after all the babies have fledged. She said checking on them is the number one reason the parents might harm their chicks in the first place, and that she avoids more accidents by simply leaving them be. She didn’t mention them abandoning the nest completely.

She doesn't hand feed her linnies either though, because in her experience it doesn't make them any more likely to be more tame or able to bond with their new owners. I am not sure how tame her breeding pairs are. She has a few parrots that are her true pets, and the others do seem to be kept solely for breeding. So perhaps if her breeding pairs are not bonded to her this could be the reason for her experiences when checking on them.

She also mentioned that parrotlets are similar to linnies is this way, being more sensitive to disturbance, but I am not sure if she doesn’t hand feed them either. She hand feeds all the other species of parrots that she breeds, as far as I am aware.

I actually haven’t candled the eggs because we were dealing with a wildfire situation these past two weeks and I was fairly preoccupied, unfortunately. I did mark the first four laid so if one of those doesn’t hatch on schedule I can remove it, but if one of the last four don’t hatch I wouldn’t know which of those was the dud until the rest finish. I do have the dates recorded for when each egg was laid so I know the start and end dates for hatching.

Her first egg was laid on the 13th, but she didn’t stay in the box regularly until the day after her fourth egg was laid, on the 19th. Her last egg was laid on the 27th. So they should be hatching every two days from the 10th to the 17th, assuming they are all fertilized and on schedule.

 

[Morgan]

So, I let Lottie out of her cage every morning and evening because she hates pooing in there. She’ll run all around frantically for a time before finally going in the corner farthest from her nest. When I let her out she goes up to the same high spot on a washable covering that I remove and replace with another. So while she is temporarily out I can at least peek inside the box without her even knowing - unless Happy crawls in there immediately when she leaves, which he does sometimes.

Today I tried a little experiment. She doesn’t really need any extra bedding — she didn’t push it all out the entrance hole like the budgies do. But I added a little extra bedding into the corner of her nest box while she was out to see if she cared, and she wouldn’t go back in! She put her head in, flared her tail, backed out, then put her head in again and just sat there flaring her tail some more.

I took the extra material out and she went right in then. It was pretty cute and funny to watch, but I think I am going to try and leave her alone as much as possible. She comes out to potty every morning and evening regularly, and sometimes midday as well, so I have plenty of opportunities to take a peek inside while she’s not paying attention. Hopefully that should be enough to catch anything amiss without creating any disturbance.

Sorry for the super long posts, just trying to be thorough!

 

[Morgan]

So I candled the eggs quickly while she was out because the first one didn’t hatch. Rookie mistake not doing it earlier - they’re all clear anyhow! None look fertile, so maybe just a good practice run for Lottie! I’ll let her sit on them til she realizes it on her own.

If she tries to lay another clutch I’ve got fake eggs to give her. Hoping she doesn’t try again and we can all just wait til next season when she and Happy are a bit older anyway.

Thanks again for the help though! I feel so silly, but I’m still grateful this forum is here.

 

[LinnieGirl]

So I candled the eggs quickly while she was out because the first one didn’t hatch. Rookie mistake not doing it earlier - they’re all clear anyhow! None look fertile, so maybe just a good practice run for Lottie! I’ll let her sit on them til she realizes it on her own.

If she tries to lay another clutch I’ve got fake eggs to give her. Hoping she doesn’t try again and we can all just wait til next season when she and Happy are a bit older anyway.

Thanks again for the help though! I feel so silly, but I’m still grateful this forum is here.

Dont feel bad! Glad you got a chance to check. Yes it’s good practice. I don’t recall if you said your male was DNA’d or not.
im sorry. you must be disappointed. Hoping for success next time!

 

[Morgan]

Dont feel bad! Glad you got a chance to check. Yes it’s good practice. I don’t recall if you said your male was DNA’d or not.
im sorry. you must be disappointed. Hoping for success next time!

No, he isn’t DNA’d, but his dad was lutino so ALL the daughters were ino in Happy’s clutch.

 

[LinnieGirl]

No, he isn’t DNA’d, but his dad was lutino so ALL the daughters were ino in Happy’s clutch.

Well then, it’s just a matter of time!

 

[Eddie's Aviary]

I am sorry I am late to the discussion. A bunch of things I was going to ask or add are only important at this time if you have fertile eggs. So, so, so!! Excited minds want to know! What is happening? If you had fertile eggs via candling, I like to only inspect when the birds are out of the nest eating or pooping. Mine usually exit in the morning to get a nice little bowl of something fresh. If you expect hatches now, feed some frozen corn (that you tossed into hot water and thawed, warmed and drained) then I mix in some dried egg food or Miracle Meal. This is great for the first day or two of hatches especially as it helps the parents regurgitate what is often referred to as "crop milk". So lets start with that, and take it from there! Fingers crossed for you.

I disagree with some things your breeder friend said about handfeeding, and nestbox inspections. If you have hatches, we will discuss that next!

 

[Morgan]

I am sorry I am late to the discussion. A bunch of things I was going to ask or add are only important at this time if you have fertile eggs. So, so, so!! Excited minds want to know! What is happening? If you had fertile eggs via candling, I like to only inspect when the birds are out of the nest eating or pooping. Mine usually exit in the morning to get a nice little bowl of something fresh. If you expect hatches now, feed some frozen corn (that you tossed into hot water and thawed, warmed and drained) then I mix in some dried egg food or Miracle Meal. This is great for the first day or two of hatches especially as it helps the parents regurgitate what is often referred to as "crop milk". So lets start with that, and take it from there! Fingers crossed for you.

I disagree with some things your breeder friend said about handfeeding, and nestbox inspections. If you have hatches, we will discuss that next!

It’s looking like all eggs are clear, so no hatches this time around - but I love your enthusiasm!

I also settled on simply checking while Lottie is out of the box, because I keep her cage door open as often as possible so she can come out to poop. She’s usually out once in the morning and once in the evening, sometimes also once in the afternoon - but she never really stops at the food dish. Every once in a while she will cuddle up to Happy all frantically or tug on a chew toy, and she always goes for a drink of water, but she relies on Happy for all her food it seems. Hens been good at providing

I am mostly in the bird room working on my laptop when I’m not outside anyway, or at least in the house within earshot and they have a magnetic screen door so I can leave their bird room door open and still keep and eye and/or ear on everyone.

Anyhow, unless I am actively trying to prevent egg laying, I give my eight small birds half a boiled egg to share four days a week. There isn’t much actual egg in egg food and they get other supplemented nutrients from their high potency pellets so I decided to stop using commercial egg food. But I often give a boiled/cooled frozen mix of corn, peas, carrot, and green beans. They mostly ignore the green beans but devour everything else. Also frozen thawed berries (like smoothie mix), spinach, broccoli, bell peppers, dandelion and herbs from the garden, etc.

And tons of calcium options - what they have in their pellets plus a mineral/calcium/iodine block, mineralized oyster shell grit, sesame seeds, and I have chelated liquid calcium in hand always. I’ll use it twice a week, but since birds actually know if they need more calcium or not and can seek it out, and they have many other sources to choose from, I don’t want to overdose the boys so I don’t like forcing them to consume more than what they would desire. But these options are always available even when they are not breeding.

Does the egg food help them produce crop milk more than their regular pellet food or simply feeding fresh boiled egg though? If that is so then I don’t mind feeding it when chicks are due to hatch - my first budgie chicks should be due in a week or so and I still have a bunch of egg food in the freezer I was planning to use up at that time anyway.

Let’s see, did I miss anything? I definitely would feel more nervous not checkingLottie’s nest box at all, so just doing it while she is out is perfect for me. When it comes to helping her raise them, I’ll probably give her four fake eggs next time, so she lays fewer for her next clutch. But I would love to be able to truly co parent.

I don’t like the idea of taking all her chicks from her at three weeks, unless she is done with them and goes broody again (I’ll just give her fakies to sit on though, I don’t like back to back clutches myself). Would she attack any remaining chicks if I took all but one or two? Or could I co parent? These things I may just have to go with my gut, but I am always open to advice!

 

[Eddie's Aviary]

It can be tricky to get to all the questions in longer posts with many diverse topics, so if you try to keep it to one subject per post, we move through them more quickly.

Lets take the clear egg part first.

There are many reasons this can be. Here are a few...
- mate is not actually a male - is yours dna sexed or a sex linked mutation?
- mate too young
- both not in breeding condition at the same time
- hen was ready and a nestbox added before proper bonding, feeding and successful mating
- perches in cage not placed properly, have bounce, or diameter too small or wide
- infertility is unusual, though it is believed that certain medications can damage fertility - I would go to this as a last thought, I have never seen that

Once we get through this, start a new thread on the handfeeding vs parent raised vs co parenting in the best fitting category so when someone like you is looking for the info, it is easier to find.

Thank you for such engaging, articulate posts!

 

[Morgan]

Oh I wasn’t worried about the eggs being clear. Lottie was clearly very intent on having a clutch and Happy is still pretty young (9mo.).

He is definitely male per my previous post - his dad was lutino.

Edit: They’re bonded and Happy was/is feeding her. I didn’t add a nest box until after Lottie laid her first egg in the floor of the cage. Perches are solidly fixed and they have a variety of diameters appropriate for their foot size.

Once I have fertile eggs or a successful hatch I’ll come back to ask more questions about the chicks. You and Linnie Girl have already been very helpful!

I’ll try to keep it to one question at a time.

 

[Eddie's Aviary]

A dad lutino only means his ino offspring are female, but any dark eyed offspring can be either sex. Have any pics of him from the side on a perch that shows the shoulder marking, wing bars, and the tail spots? No flash, natural light is best. I like to give them a good soaking and let them preen until dry before I take a picture so the feathers aren't mussed for easier sexing. Some are clearly male or female, others require dna sexing.

Your question about looking in the nestbox: you MUST look. Though I don't the first couple of days or else I may intervene and I have raised enough day 1 Linnies to know that my life is too busy to do it now. So... I cross my fingers and say a prayer. I also have not kept any young in a long time from a parent pair that doesn't do a good job, and they are better parents than is typical at this point. So I do select with that in mind. The reasons you have to look at them in the nestbox:

- 7 to 10 days of age, they need leg banding (be sure to order bands long before the nestbox goes on, and the big company that did them closed recently so we are all scrambling to find a source)
- cleaning (don't do this early, I would only spot change shavings after a week, total change not until pinning in as it can disturb the parents)
- check for splay legs and pull for handfeeding if you find one, it is almost impossible to lash them tight enough and have them be able to sit up
- watch for plucking by the parents
- check that the babies are healthy (Linnie poops are wet and if the box gets dirty, they can get bacterial or fugal infections.

If no other questions about that, feel free to ask another. Hope this info helps!

 

[Morgan]

Uh oh, I need to look at my punnet square again. I thought ino being sex linked means that all the girls would be visual ino, and could not be normally colored…?

This is what I wrote up myself before buying Happy, because I wanted to be certain he was male. Though the breeder was fairly certain, he was honest to admit he could still be wrong of course. Happy does have a lot of black going up his tail, more black on the shoulders and barring, etc. and he chatters more than Lottie, so I thought his personality matched up too.

Anyhow, this was my punnet square. Please let me know if I got it wrong!

Happy’s parents:

Dad was lutino split blue, Mom was blue (I think turquoise but I don’t remember, didn’t write it down. If so, then dad has at least one dark factor cause Happy is dark green.)

——— blue - blue ——— X. — Y. ——— d. — d.

Green - Gb. - Gb. — Xi. - XXi. - XYi. — D Dd. Dd.

blue —- bb. - bb. — Xi. - XXi. - XYi. — d Dd. Dd.

Offspring approx 50/50 blue/green, greens all split for blue. Boys all split for ino, girls all visual ino. All with one dark factor, making boys 50/50 dark green and cobalt, girls 50/50 lutino or cremino masking a dark factor.

(Dad on side, Mom on top, I wrote out the punnet squares for blue, ino, and dark factors separately because combined made my brain hurt… I’ll save that for a future genetics course lol.)

Edited to fix punnet square formatting… somewhat. Sorry it’s still a bit odd-looking.

 

[Morgan]

Sorry that didn’t format properly, gonna try again here with just ino.

dad is XX and mom is XY. (I know birds are ZW, but I see it done this way in aviculture so I didn’t bother changing it)

—-X—-Y
Xi. XiX. XiY
Xi. XiX. XiY

male inos need to have two copies, one on each chromosome, to be visual. he should therefore always pass down one copy to his offspring because he must donate one of his sex chromosomes.

female inos need only one copy and cannot be split because ino is a sex-linked gene. so all daughters should be visual ino, I think?

 

[Eddie's Aviary]

Sorry, I thought the dad was split to ino.

I would split the pair after this round of sitting to try to get the hen to not waste herself on egg laying while the male is still immature. Otherwise you run her down and need to wait at least 12 months to try again. I would get at least 5 dummy eggs to deploy to lower the number of eggs she lays if you aren't successful in stopping round 2. What do you use for calcium?

I am enjoying talking with you.... it is nice to see someone that cares about what they are doing. Pass it on!

 

[Morgan]

Yeah I don’t want her to lay back to back clutches so I will separate her for a time and give her eight fake eggs to sit on if she lays any more at the bottom of her cage.

She has high potency pellets, a calcium/mineral/iodine block, mineralized oyster shell grit, sesame seeds (and hemp seeds for extra magnesium), and twice a week chelated liquid calcium in her water.

I didn’t use the dummy eggs this time around because I didn’t want her to sit on the dummy eggs in lieu of her own accidentally. She didn’t always have all her eggs under her when she had laid four and five eggs. Now she always has them safely under her. But next time I will use them!

 

[Morgan]

Now about leg banding… I am not so opposed to closed bands as open bands (because they are rarely secured properly in my experience with my adopted budgies), but besides for identification purposes, is there really a need to band them?

Even closed bands can be dangerous for pets birds, and I won’t have so many chicks I need to band them to tell them apart or anything like that.

Lottie has a closed band that I left on her, but I had to remove all my budgie’s open bands. Some were overlapped, others had more than a fingernails width gap.Three of my budgies were never banded and Happy was not banded either. I prefer not having the stress of worrying they might get caught on something, myself.

If their band numbers were registered with the LPS, then maybe it would be worth it for research purposes of some kind?