My little SI hen, Snakebird, is setting her second clutch of eggs now. The first clutch was infertile, unfortunately, but she and her mate, Marvin, are determined to get it right...one of these days.

Procrastinator that I am, I waited too long to build her a decent nestbox for her first clutch. She and Marv had been ummmmm "exhibiting mating behavior" for a couple of weeks when it dawned on me she didn't have a nestbox. What to do, what to do?? I found a nice white corrugated cardboard box that was about 6" high, 8" wide, and 15" long that opened on the end. I cut the flap off about two-thirds of the way and taped it up so it made an opening into the box and at the same time would keep any eggs from rolling out. I neatly filled it with white paper towels for nesting material. I selected the best looking place on the cage floor for it, and backed off to see what would happen. HAH! Silly human! I don't know anything about a good nest! The first thing she did was climb in and chew the entire top off the box. I mean the ENTIRE top. Then she threw out all the paper towels. She then flipped the whole thing upside down and scooted it over into a corner of their cage. Now the flap is extending down from the top of the box instead of up from the bottom. She was happy as a little clam with her new creation! THE IDEAL NESTBOX!!!

About two days later, when I was finishing her genuine for real nestbox, she laid her first egg. So much for good intentions! Now, at this point the problems with her nestbox of choice weren't really apparent. Like, she had pushed it into a corner of the cage directly under the big perch. That in itself wouldn't have been a problem, but when she came out of the nestbox, she would climb up the side of the cage, over onto the perch, and unload.

Hm. We have a cardboard box on the floor of the cage directly under where she's going to go to poop.... Ok. No problem. I can scrape it off every day. Then Marvin decided the best place in the world for him to station himself to protect the nest was....right over the nestbox. Somehow this all wasn't working out as I had planned! Not to mention, Snakebird would get extremely upset when I scraped the top of her box.

Fine. Best thing to do is just leave them alone, right? They know what they're doing, right? I can't move the eggs into the newly finished nestbox, can I? No. If they could live with that nestbox, I could live with it. I hoped! I also hoped the box would last for at least 28 days!

Since this was their first clutch of eggs, I more or less assumed that the eggs were infertile, and it's probably a good thing they were! I would have to roll one or the other back into the nest on occasion, and poor little Snake didn't quite have the incubation thing down pat. She would have one egg tucked under her breast feathers while the other one would be under her tail feathers, over against the side of the nest, outside the nest...the poor little eggs were all over the place. I'll give the girl credit, though!

She sat like an angel! She was virtually glued to the eggs (when the eggs weren't out wandering) about 23 hours a day, 7 days a week, for 28 days.

It was her technique that was a little off, not her dedication to the eggs.

Marvin the Vigilant was doing his fatherly duties extremely well. He fed her when she wanted fed, tried to feed her when she wasn't hungry, and screamed bloody murder if anyone approached the cage. In fact, all three of my males would scream when someone approached the cage. Ahhh, the dulcet tones of an all-male eclectus choir! Oh, yeah! (Note to self Buy stock in an earplug company...) As long as Snakebird was in the nest, Marvin was perfectly happy to come out for kisses, skritches, and to stretch his wings. However, if she was out of the nest, it was worth a finger or two to put my hand in the cage for any reason! Marvin took that as a distinct invasion of privacy and let me know in no uncertain terms that such an invasion was not appreciated in the least. Snakebird herself wasn't into the skritches, cuddles, and kisses at the time. She wanted nothing to do with those humans. I was tolerated as the purveyor of food and water, giver of baths, cage cleaner, peeker in nest box, and general dogsbody, but it was obvious I wasn't welcome to hang around.

So for thirty-five days (give or take) I toted, fetched, cleaned, replaced, and worried...a lot! When the first egg didn't hatch I was upset, but had pretty much steeled myself to the idea that they wouldn't. When the second egg had passed its hatch date with no action, I started telling myself, "Next time...Next time they'll get it right!" On the 30th day after the second egg was laid, Snakebird left the nestbox for good, abandoning her two little gems that she had cared for so diligently all that time, scrunched up in that little box where she could barely turn around. For the first time in almost 35 days, she could get out of her cage and fly!

And for the first time in about 35 days, I could get that ghastly nestbox out of that cage!