# Female(?) but no eggs



## Meriwether <3 (Oct 17, 2013)

I'm fairly sure my two doves are mated, since they have displayed all of the following traits:

Stick Nest Building
Incubation. The parent crouches over the eggs, more or less orients then in a fore and aft position with the aid of the bill, the sides of the legs, and the keel, fluffs the ventral feather which exposes bare skin, and then settles down on the eggs. (My bird has no egg but is still definitely doing this... when I tried to pick her up when she was doing this I thought she was losing feathers because she was baring her skin and all settled down like there was an egg...)
Faeces Retention. During incubation, the faeces of the settling parent are retained until the bird has departed from the nest, when a relatively enormous load may be released. (There is no poop in her cage at all... she just waits to be let out)
Wing Flip. Either or both sexes in a nest site or more rarely on a perch may jerk their shoulders so that the wing, especially the tips, flip. Wing flipping may be constantly repeated and maintained intermittently for several minutes with a frequency of approximately two flips per second. (Both of my birds do this, especially around the nest)
Hetero-preening. The male and female of a pair may "preen" each other especially about the face and neck or head. Hetero-preening may be somewhat ritualized since the preening movement is often more cursory than in ****-preening.
Sex-crouch. The sex-crouch usually follows billing. The female squats, lowers her head, and raises her shoulders which will support the feet of the male. (I have seen this happen a couple of times, but was kind of confused because the female was on the top of the male, instead of the male on top of the female... are my birds just being retarded or are they both males??)

Also, not a single egg has been laid... do they lay eggs even if they're not mated, or only after they've built a nest and all? The place where she keeps crouching (when she's in her cage) has no egg or even a nest. The actual nest they built has no egg either, and only the male sits in now and the female stays in her cage sitting on the imaginary egg. Help!


----------



## spirit wings (Mar 29, 2008)

what do you need help with? perhaps accepting she may be infertile or perhaps too young to lay just now.?

it is hard to say why she has no eggs and only sits on phantom ones. IMO I would provide them some fake ones to sit. make sure they have plenty of calcium offerd in the way of hi-cal grit. 

here is a few things to think on when trying to figure things out.. Iam assuming the "hen" has not layed eggs before?

Fertile male / fertile female = two fertile eggs except when the sperm is blocked from reaching the egg 
Fertile male / infertile female = zero eggs 
Infertile male / fertile female = two infertile eggs 
Infertile male / infertile female = zero eggs 
Fertile female / fertile female = four infertile eggs 
Fertile female / infertile female = two infertile eggs 
Male any / male any = zero eggs


----------



## Meriwether <3 (Oct 17, 2013)

Thanks, yeah I don't know whether she is infertile or too young (I don't know how old she is or if she has even laid before). But I have been giving her the high cal grit, so I guess I'll just have to wait and see. Thanks so much for the little chart. :3


----------

