Our cockatiel Popcorn is a prolific egg layer. To the uninitiated many female birds, especially cockatiels and lovebirds will lay eggs whether or not they have a guy to help around the cage.

There you are drinking your morning coffee trying to get ready for work and as you breeze by the cage you see an egg lying on the grate.

 If your bird is seeking space in drawers or the linen closet

she is being “broody” (looking for a nest)

Plus the single egg on the bottom of the cage is a trigger for your bird to create more eggs, what we call a prolific egg layer. Your preferred course of action is to allow the new proud mommy to perhaps sit on the egg for a couple of days but then pulled it out and any remnants of the nest she was trying to build to facilitate her breeding activities.

 That’s only a small part of the problem. Egg production triggers many physiological reactions that impact your bird. For every egg laid more calcium is depleted from the bones. More calories are required to nurture the egg. Thus basic nutrition is diverted from the bird’s system to the egg.

Adjusting phototropic periods can help. People speak of adjusting the amount of hours your full-spectrum light that shines on your bird by changing its timer (you have one right?) to allow less than 12 hours of light per day. In nature, long days and plentiful food and water sources are triggers for laying eggs (fertile ones) because the parent birds know the time is right for longer foraging periods so they will be able to feed the babies and still have enough for themselves.

One method we are still fact-checking involves a particular bird supplement and exposing the bird to 72 hours of sunlight shutting down the reproductive system totally. We’re still not sure we’re comfortable with that method.

As a bird ages and if she is producing too many eggs or she is weak from overproduction, she may become “egg bound”. An egg-bound bird has an egg that is stuck inside of her. It may be soft, not properly formed, or she simply may not have the energy to push the egg out.

An egg bound bird faces possible death unless veterinary care is sought immediately. If you do have an egg bound bird and an avian veterinarian is not available at the moment you can give her a couple of drops of olive oil on her beak, make sure she is warm and place several drops of the olive oil in her vent. This is where the egg comes out.

The hope here is that the oil will lubricate the egg to facilitate the passing of the egg. It is important that her environment is warm — close to hundred degrees Fahrenheit, that she is getting lots of fresh air and is hydrated. In a perfect world it is best to let nature take its course