CAUSES OF EGG BINDING

By Ernie Ninness
An article from Agapornis News, the Newsletter of: The African Lovebird and Foreign Parrot Society of Qld Inc.

Causes of Egg Binding - Lack of exercise, lack of sunshine, birds getting too fat from eating incorrect diet - often caused by a lack of something to do - a lack of protein which often causes a bird to eat more seed to compensate, which in turn raises the carbohydrate intake, not enough food, birds being too sick or too old - can all contribute to egg-binding.

Egg binding in birds is definitely confined to species kept in aviaries. I rarely see the problem in my aviaries which have a flight length of 13m or more and I find this problem mostly confined to my aviaries with flights of less than 3-4m.

Like other aviculturists, I resorted to such other things as Cod Liver Oil, but always came to the conclusion that it did more harm than good. Yes, it often cured the immediate problem of egg-binding, but often led to kidney failure and soft shelled eggs.

So I found out what Cod Liver Oil contains that works for egg binding. It is rich in Vitamins D3 and A. Sunshine could provide Vitamin D3 and plenty of green food would provide Vitamin A. This helped greatly but it did not eradicate the problem altogether.

I found that three drops of Fishaphos to one litre of water worked as well as Cod Liver Oil. Why only three drops? I found that by adding more than three drops only reduced the daily intake of water by the birds.

I do not think that any one thing will prevent egg-binding. I have also found lettuce as a green food is very helpful in preventing egg-binding, especially in cabinet breeding. Lettuce mainly tones the blood and tones the blood and reduces the uric acid build-up in vital parts of the body; but the lettuce can be more of a problem than egg-binding.

Firstly, it needs to be organically grown and eaten by the bird while it is still fresh, and given only enough so that the bird will eat it all in five minutes, so there will not be any left to go stale. The birds should be given other greens as well.

Treatment of Egg-binding - Most cases of egg-binding will respond to treatment if found soon enough; the Hospital Cage supplied by most Societies is ideal for this purpose. I have found that one bulb is sufficient for the treatment - no more than 25 watts.

Remove the perch and allow the bird to sit on the floor; supply bird with a small dish of water to which has been added sylpha D (eight drops to 40ml water). With a small eye-dropper, give the bird one or two drops of this mixture every half to one hour, depending on the state of the bird.

Do this without holding the bird in the hand so as to reduce the amount of stress on the bird. The idea is to hold the eye-dropper above and behind the bird's head and gently drop a drop of liquid on the bird's beak which often will tilt its head up instinctively and more liquid can then be given. This becomes easy with practice. Birds will usually lay naturally from one to ten hours later - if not, then more drastic action will have to be taken by experienced people.