# Does a hen that does not lay and egg but sets a fake egg produce crop milk?



## gkutlu (Jan 27, 2019)

The hen of one of my pairs of Turkish Tumblers did not lay an egg, even though she mated several times with her cock. The day after all the other pairs were done laying eggs, I placed a fake egg into the empty nest of this pair, and the pair has been setting this fake egg since then.

I would like to replace this fake egg with one of the real eggs from the other pairs in order to lighten up the work of the pair with the real egg.

Would this work? Will the pair that has been sitting on the fake egg, and will now sit on the real egg, have crop milk when the chick hatches?

Maybe a question for a separate thread, but how can I help this hen lay eggs the next time? I placed the fake egg into her nest thinking that this might encourage her to lay one of hers, but this did not help.


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## jameswaller (Nov 4, 2008)

*turkish tumblers*



gkutlu said:


> The hen of one of my pairs of Turkish Tumblers did not lay an egg, even though she mated several times with her cock. The day after all the other pairs were done laying eggs, I placed a fake egg into the empty nest of this pair, and the pair has been setting this fake egg since then.
> 
> I would like to replace this fake egg with one of the real eggs from the other pairs in order to lighten up the work of the pair with the real egg.
> 
> ...


dear gkutlu,-lots of questions here!-not a problem,pigeons wrote the book on courtship,egg laying,--my experience is:- using dummy eggs produces zero squabs,however @18 days-when they know to open said egg-it won,t open--imagine xmas w/o santa..-crop milk is part of courtship and squab bearing...-I believe an egg from another female would be disguarded..but there are always exceptions to the rules,--sincerely james waller


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## gkutlu (Jan 27, 2019)

@jameswaller, thank you for the response. The courtship did take place, and they took the fake egg as the fruit of that courtship, even though they did not produce this egg (or any egg). At least, they fooled me that they did. I was surprised to see this, but it's been 15 days, and they have been serious about sitting on the fake egg. They appear to have adopted it as their own. But, you think that that appearance is misleading, and they will discard the egg and the squab that hatches from it. Very possible.

I don't want to risk a squab to this experiment, but I am really curious to know what triggers crop milk production in the end. Is it the pigeon's bonding to the egg in the nest, whether it's theirs or not? Is it the ritual of sitting in the nest for 15-16 days? I want to be able to say that, if a pair of pigeons sat on an egg, fake or not, theirs or not, they will produce crop milk @18 days. Currently, this is an unknown for me.


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## Ladygrey (Dec 10, 2016)

The pigeons will develop crop milk days before the “eggs” are supposed to hatch. Science is not sure what the signal is, some guess it is movement within the egg, some say it is timing of the incubation. I think they can produce crop milk on fake eggs, I had two figurita hens that paired up and they were given fake eggs just because in case of breakage and a mess. Well one of these little pigeons I saw feeding another baby in another nest of a homer .


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## gkutlu (Jan 27, 2019)

Since my last post here, I placed fake eggs under a pair that had gone through the rituals of bonding, where I knew that the hen was infertile. I placed the eggs at the same time that a different pair laid real and fertile eggs. The pair (with the infertile hen) sat on the fake eggs. Close to hatch time, I placed the real eggs from the other pair under this pair, and this pair raised the youngsters successfully. In fact, this pair with the infertile hen is my favorite foster pair right now. When I want them to foster another pair of eggs, I just place fake eggs under the pair, and swap in the real eggs at the end. One additional advantage is that, since the hen can not lay eggs, she does not start to sit on the next pair of eggs, and continues to help feed the youngsters.


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