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May 2024

Daily Read

The chick dies in the egg

One of the most common problems with breeding lovebirds is that chick die in the egg. One of the reasons for this may be the combination of humidity and surrounding temperature. It is ideal to have a humidity of 60 to 65% and a surrounding temperature of at least 18° C. If the surrounding air is quite dry and the temperature is high, you should offer the birds constant supply of bathing water. You can also regularly offer them fresh twigs, as they ensure more humidity in the nesting box. Be careful, however, as high humidity (more than 70%) combined with low surrounding temperature is just as lethal as an environment that is too dry. High humidity and high temperature are no problem, but too cold and too wet is definitely fatal!

There are, of course, other reasons why chicks die in the egg. Insufficient nutrition may also be a cause, as this results in young that are too week to develop properly or hatch. You can prevent this by only breeding with birds that are older than a year and by making sure that the breeding birds are in optimal condition. This condition has to built up slowly and the basis is to always use good feeding.

Some mutations can also be so weak that the young die in the egg. It is important that you always work with non-related birds and that you always cross ‘weak’ mutations with an independent strong wild form first and then carry on breeding with the descendants. In this case you prevent combinations of mutant x mutant. Never let the birds breed more often than twice in a row. A good pair definitely deserves a break after raising two batches of young, so that they can regain their strength for the next breeding season.

Finally, lack of sunlight can also be a cause why the young aren’t hatching. The birds’ bodies produce vitamin D under the influence of ultraviolet light (UV rays). If there is no sunlight, the reserves of vitamin D might be used up. The consequence is that the percentage of chicks hatching decreases. You can prevent this bay adapting a lighting. You can buy neon-tubes which imitate ‘daylight’ (thus also ultraviolet light). In addition, you can feed your birds a supplement of vitamin A, D3, and E in a ration of 50:25:20 on a weekly basis. These supplements are widely available at pharmacies or chemists’. Be careful and only feed these supplements once a week, as too much can be harmful