Do you know what to do if your bird becomes egg bound? When this happens, you don’t have much time to save her and if you don’t know what to do, you may loose your bird. Unfortunately you may loose your bird, even if you do everything right at this point.

With many types of parrots, you may not even know that your bird is a hen until she lays an egg (or becomes egg bound). You may find your bird sitting on the bottom of the cage, all puffed up and in general, just looking uncomfortable. She may be straining without success.

Unfortunately, a bird does not always wait until the veterinary clinic opens to develop this problem and if your city is the same as my city, the emergency clinic may not have an avian vet in attendance. If you can get to an avian veterinary, that should be the first thing you do, but if you can not get to one, you are on your own to try to save her.

The first thing she needs is warmth with no drafts. Sometimes heat is all that is needed and if you (& she) are lucky, she will lay the egg & be just fine. Make sure that you have food and water that she can reach without having to climb because the heat will make her thirsty and she will need to eat to keep her strength up. A cover over the container may also help to calm her as well as keeping in the heat. If she is too weak to drink, you may have to give her some water or Gatorade by putting some directly into her beak.

There are a couple of suggestions for additional things to do if you can’t get to a vet. You can put a small amount of mineral oil directly on the vent or directly on the egg if you can see any of it. A bit of liquid calcium can also be given directly to your bird. Then you must leave her in a warm draft free place where she can attempt to pass that egg. If she does not lay the egg soon, you will now have an emergency situation on your hands and she may not survive unless you can get her to an avian veterinarian.

If she successfully lays the egg, keep her warm & comfortable to help her recover. Be sure she has access to food and water and when you return her to her cage, make sure she has cuttlebone to replace the calcium lost with the egg.


After many years of pet bird ownership, I have decided to write e-books about the care of some of these wonderful birds.