Discovering that a female parrot has laid eggs without a male can be a shock. Due to the hormonal triggers associated with the breeding season, lone females lay unfertilized eggs that never hatch.
If you have a bonded male and female, it may be that the pair never mated. A female may still lay unfertilized eggs, which the male’s sperm haven’t fertilized.
Even fertilized eggs may never hatch due to embryo mortality. Shine a small flashlight on the egg or use an egg candler to reveal if an embryo is growing. If not, the chicks are dead-in-shell (DIS).
Embryo mortality usually occurs due to the wrong temperature or humidity level, bacterial and fungal infections, incorrectly turning the eggs, aging parents, and parental abandonment.
Why Parrots Eggs Fail to Hatch
Let’s take a closer look at what causes parrot eggs not to hatch:
Lack of Fertilization
Captive female parrots lay unfertilized eggs without a male. Chronic egg-laying behavior should be discouraged because the parrot’s health will suffer if she produces/lays too many clutches.
Females are likeliest to lay unfertilized eggs in the spring because this is the start of the breeding season. As the days get longer and warmer, parrots’ bodies produce more hormones.
To discourage egg-laying, do the following:
- Cover the cage earlier in the day. The more light, the likelier the female is to lay eggs.
- Remove anything that can be used as a nesting box. Also, avoid dark, enclosed spaces in the cage.
- Prevent interaction with other birds. A male can trigger egg-laying even if there’s no mating.
- Avoid petting the back, wings, or tail. These areas are reserved for opposite-sex mates. Move away if the female shows signs of stimulation by lifting the tail and rubbing her vent against you.
- Remove toys the parrot uses to simulate mating and replace them with an alternative.
Parrots may mistake their reflections for a second bird because they don’t pass the mirror test. If so, remove the mirror from the cage or get one with a distorted reflection.
How To Tell if A Parrot’s Eggs Are Fertilized
Parrots can’t reproduce asexually. If the female hasn’t mated with a male, the eggs will be unfertilized.
If you want to check, the Journal of Avian Medicine and Surgery recommends ‘candling’ to determine the presence of an embryo. Candling involves holding a bright light against an egg.
Focus the light on the bottom of the egg. If an embryo is visible, you’ll see a dark mass. Over time, blood vessels form and become increasingly prominent. Then, return the egg to the nesting box.
The egg is unfertilized if the light is bright and there’s no shadow.
Parrot Sitting on Unfertilized Eggs
A parrot can tell the difference between fertilized and unfertilized eggs. Some parrots instinctively incubate their eggs for 3-4 weeks until they should hatch.
Don’t remove the unfertilized eggs the parrot is sitting on. Wait for her to abandon the eggs voluntarily.
What To Do with Infertile Parrot Eggs
Remove unhatched eggs and throw them away once the parrot allows it. Throw them away once she loses interest in the eggs because they’ll turn bad.
Embryo Mortality
If a parrot’s eggs were fertilized yet failed to hatch, the cause is embryo mortality.
This means the chick died before it could fully develop and hatch. Most embryo mortality occurs at the onset or conclusion of the hatching process.
Embryo mortality within days of egg laying is often due to a lack of warmth (incubation) for the egg(s) or inappropriate nesting that leads to a fatal bacterial infection.
If the embryos survive the initial days, they’ll likely grow and develop healthily. However, as the hatching date approaches, they’ll once again become vulnerable.
The chicks inside the eggs will have a developed chorioallantois. The chorioallantois is the parrot’s equivalent of a placenta, delivering oxygen to the embryo.
Toward the conclusion of incubation, the chicks must start breathing independently. They achieve this by making a small hole in the egg and breathing through it.
The chicks need the right temperature and humidity during these final stages of hatching. They’ll dehydrate if the nesting box is too warm and arid.
Here are some common reasons for embryo mortality in parrots:
Poor Nesting Conditions
The condition and maintenance of a nesting box are vital to ensuring the hatching of healthy eggs. Ensure the nesting box is on level ground and remains clean.
A tilted nesting box can cause eggs to fall and crack, killing the embryos. In addition to checking the shape of the nesting box, ensure it’s the right size.
Neglect of Eggs
A lack of incubation from the parents can result in embryo mortality.
This is common in first-time egg layers, who are inexperienced and don’t understand their role. Most parrots learn to care for their eggs as they gain experience.
Some parrots also neglect eggs they consider unviable or defective. If the eggs are unviable, the embryos will likely develop into chicks with genetic abnormalities that won’t survive.
External stressors can cause a female parrot to neglect her eggs.
Consider getting an incubator for parrot eggs to minimize this risk. Set the incubator at 99°F. Then, periodically mist the eggs to increase humidity and prevent dehydration.
Mishandling of Eggs
Eggs must be handled with care before they hatch. This is why parrots sit on their eggs because they must protect them. Only handle eggs if the hen neglects them.
If you handle eggs without gloves, you may spread bacterial microbes to the entire clutch.
Shaking and jarring of the eggs can also harm the embryos.
Parrots Know If Their Eggs Are Dead
Most parrots can tell the difference between dead and living embryos. If one embryo dies, the hen may reject the clutch and start afresh, fearing the other eggs have suffered the same fate.
Parrots are emotional animals that experience grief, but they don’t mourn the loss of eggs in the way they would a bonded companion or human caregiver.
Helping A Parrot Lay Healthy Eggs
As Animal Nutrition explains, the nutritional profile of a female parrot’s diet affects the health of her eggs. Calcium and vitamin D are essential nutrients for egg-laying females.
If the parrot isn’t fed the right food, she may become egg-bound (dystocia) or infertile. Sometimes, the eggs may not hatch because the chicks are too weak to break out of their shells.
Attach a cuttlefish bone to the cage bars to provide extra calcium for gravid females. Also, ensure the parrot gets sufficient natural sunlight or has access to UV lighting to synthesize vitamin D3.
