# Squirt and Elvis are laying eggs



## nkeith2 (Feb 6, 2011)

Elvis, our cinnamon pied male split to pearl, and Squirt, our pied female split to white-face, have been really bonding lately and were starting to mate. Well, we decided to set them up into their own breeding cage and they have been mating constantly. We kept checking the nestbox every few hours since Squirt seems ready to have her egg and sure enough, a little egg was sitting at the bottom of the nest box just now. We are really excited since they have been bonding for a long time but we didn't know if they would be ready to start breeding since they are both young birds. Luckily, Squirt is acting very naturally like she has done this before a thousand times so hopefully we won't have to intervene at all. We are considering letting the babies be parent-raised but then again, we love to hand-feed too so we are still up in the air on that one. Anyways, I just felt like posting and will update this with pictures maybe later or tomorrow at some point. 

3/29: A pic of mommy sitting on her eggs (she has three now)








& an old pic of just the one egg:









4/23: A pic of fill-in mommy Lucy protecting her two babies








& here are Squirt and Elvis's two babies that just hatched
























[[Oh, and the youngest one was a little dehydrated (as seen by how red he was) so we gave him a very small drop of warm sterilized water and he seemed to perk up quite a bit]]


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## DollyGirl (Mar 6, 2011)

Congrats! Hope all goes well!


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## nwoodrow (Feb 13, 2011)

Have you thought about doing both, pulling the older 2 and letting the parents raise the rest. I can do that with my pairs and they dont seem to care, its like they know im relieving them of some burden cause i swear they get a bounce to their step when they go from 4 down to 2 or in this case right now its 7 down to 4, i still plan on pulling the rest but the youngest is only 4 days old,and well it needed an extra bit of attention from mom and dad so i pulled the two 11 day olds, and 1 of the 10 day olds.


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## nkeith2 (Feb 6, 2011)

Hmm yeah, my hubby and I will consider that too. I can imagine the parents were happy to lessen the stress load of having 7 babies, that is a large clutch. Our clutches have always been 3, like our clutch of Audi, Kiba, and Xavier. I guess it all depends on how large of a clutch Squirt will have, which I am hoping for a rather large one since we have quite a few people interested in them already. At least by that point, Maui and Kiba (our late bloomer ) should be weaned so then we will be able to concentrate on those babies. No matter what we decide, it is always a treat to hand-feed and raise the little ones though <3


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## nwoodrow (Feb 13, 2011)

ya ive been breeding this pair for 2 years, 4 per clutch, 2 clutches a year, and then bam they hit me with this, originally there were 9 fertile eggs but once baby number 7 came, they abandoned the eggs, and they got chilled before i could move them to another pair.


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## roxy culver (May 27, 2010)

Looks like you're going to get all pied babies...you'll be able to tell girls from boys though because Dad is a cinnamon pied split pearl so all his daughters will be cinnamon pied and some will be cinnamon pearl pied. All the boys will be split to cinnamon and some will get the pearl split from dad and the WF split from mom. It'll be interesting to see! I love the surprises in the nest!


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## nkeith2 (Feb 6, 2011)

Wow, 9 eggs is quite a clutch and it is too bad that the last two eggs were chilled but at least you have 7 beautiful babies to care for  About the baby possibilities, I am really excited also to see the different mutations that pop up. Since both Elvis and Squirt were babies that my hubby and I hand-raised (Elvis from Mama x Storm, Squirt from Spot x Lucy/ all un-related), we are pretty sure there won't be any hidden mutations that might pop up in the nest. That is unless one of the grandparents was hiding something that was passed down as a split through Elvis or Squirt that we didn't know about. O well, anything is possible and I really can't wait!


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## nwoodrow (Feb 13, 2011)

hey it can happen my friend found out after 3 breeding seasons that her pearl split to (x2: cinnamon ) cock is actually a pearl split to (x1: lutino) (x2: Cinnamon) as they got their first lutino pearl chick


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## roxy culver (May 27, 2010)

O yea it can take more than one season for a split to show up and its so cool when it does!


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## Mentha (Jul 11, 2010)

nkeith2 said:


> Squirt, our pied female split to cinnamon white-face


Congrats on the egg! Nobody caught this, but a hen cannot be split to cinnamon so any cinnamon babies would be female.


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## roxy culver (May 27, 2010)

Mentha, I caught it in my post, that's why I put only the girls would be cinnamon not the boys, I just ignored the split to cinnamon part lol...


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## nkeith2 (Feb 6, 2011)

You guys are making me even more excited and I literally cannot wait to see the babies! Thanks for the info Mentha, I completely forgot that females can't be split to cinnamon so it will be nice to be able to tell the females from the males 

Pictures should be coming later today or tomorrow, last night I was quite busy and today we might go out for a bit, but the pics will come sooner or later


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## nwoodrow (Feb 13, 2011)

ya its always nice having a pair that you can tell the females from the males, the sad part is most cant be told until they get pin feathers, i got lucky with tuck and dawn, Lutino cock and pearl hen, first baby hatched this morning, had red eyes so i know its a girl.


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## Mentha (Jul 11, 2010)

roxy culver said:


> Mentha, I caught it in my post, that's why I put only the girls would be cinnamon not the boys, I just ignored the split to cinnamon part lol...


I did notice that, but I am Captain Obvious' mom, lol


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## nkeith2 (Feb 6, 2011)

I edited the first post with a pic of Squirt laying on her eggs and one pic of the first egg right after it was laid. I will get some more pics tomorrow of all three eggs (unless she has another, which she might)


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## roxy culver (May 27, 2010)

Haha Mentha that's so funny! Can't wait for babies!


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## nkeith2 (Feb 6, 2011)

Well, bringing this thread back up from the dead. Sadly, Squirt and Elvis quit sitting on their eggs after we had a bacterial scare throughout the whole flock due to some bad seed mix, we assume. So during their stint on anti-biotics (and now, probiotics), they had nothing to do with the nest-box and we decided to foster their 6 eggs to Lucy who only had one of her own. Lucky for us, Lucy accepted the challenge and started sitting on them while, surprisingly, three eggs were still good after all that mess. The first hatch was very pre-mature, thanks to Spot, and the baby ended up passing on but we just had our second hatch out earlier today. He is super fluffy and very healthy so we are hoping everything works out with him. We know it is a boy because of the black eyes and Elvis would produce all cinnamon girls with plum eyes. Also, a second egg is starting to pip and chirp so the new baby should be here soon. Tomorrow morning, if I have time, I will take some pics of the two babies with their step-in mommy  

Oh, and Squirt and Elvis are starting to mate again and go into their nestbox so I think I am going to let them double-clutch so they can get some more experience with breeding. They were doing amazing the first time until that darn seed ruined everything. Anyways, keep an eye out for another thread dedicated to them as well


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## roxy culver (May 27, 2010)

Congrats on the new fuzzy!


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## nkeith2 (Feb 6, 2011)

Thanks Roxy :] I just took some shots of them now so I will put those up on the front page before I sign off for the night


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## ahall83 (Mar 14, 2011)

oh my. they are way to cute. i so want one lol. talking to you is making me want more birds hahaha. tiels and conures.


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## roxy culver (May 27, 2010)

AW two cute little fuzzies! Congrats!


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## nkeith2 (Feb 6, 2011)

Thanks for the nice comments :] They have been growing little by little every day and it is the cutest thing. I will hopefully get some pictures up soon


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## roxy culver (May 27, 2010)

YES! I love pictures of baby fuzzies!!!


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