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Over the past several months people have been emailing us about their hen suddenly appearing with eggs out of the blue with no mate around or their hen has binding and excessively laying issues. We have decided to do an in depth look into these problems and help all understand the issues and problems that we and our birds face.

Life is a miracle of nature never fully understood but an egg is even more miraculous.  Imagine a small self contained package with a life growing inside having all it needs to grow and survive to birth, how wondrous! Remember our birds are only a few generations from the wild and many of their instincts are intact, especially breeding. This amazing feat achieved by your parrot is controlled by many factors in their environment such as, food, real or perceived mate, and climatic conditions. Since you the owner control the birds environment, you can help control some of the instinctual urges of laying.

One of the most important things we must learn first is how to tell if little molly is pregnant. This is critical so you can begin to adjust diet and environment. If you are intentionally breeding you would have begun this process before now but, if it was an unexpected pregnancy you need to start preparing as soon as possible.

   Usually birds do not store up their poop and when it flows natural it has little to no odor. However, that does not mean that a bird can't store it up if they want to. When a hen becomes pregnant most will begin making a nest right away so they have a place for their clutch. While building the nest the hen will hold back their poop so as not to get their nest dirty or contaminated with germs. You may not notice this at first, even birds who don't start their nest may do this, yet you can tell once they go. When you check their poop it will be odorous, very loose and discolored.  The bad smell will be from bacteria and yeast growing in the poop that was held in, this is a sure sign of pregnancy.

Chronic egg laying and becoming pregnant without a male can happen to any parrot but is more common among smaller birds such as budgies, lovebirds and cockatiels. I've had people tell me of their older macaw or cockatoo laying an egg for the first time and not knowing what to do about it. Also, many worry about egg binding in an unexpected pregnancy or with an inexperienced hen.

Next month we will discuss What chronic egg laying and egg binding are to better understand how to help our precious birds.