How can a mother bird tell if an egg was laid by herself?

In nature, some birds take advantage of the loopholes that are not easy to identify from bird eggs, so nest parasitism appears.

For example, the nest parasitism of cuckoo birds. The behavior can be genetically inherited! The cuckoo lays its eggs in the nests of other birds, usually the eggs of the cuckoo bird hatch first, and the hatching baby cuckoo will arch the eggs of its adoptive parents out of the nest and destroy them, so that the adoptive parents can feed the cuckoo exclusively.

It's funny that the cuckoo bird is much larger than the adoptive parent bird, and the adoptive parent bird doesn't know it, which is a bit awkward. The cuckoo bird is the king next door to the bird world! When the baby cuckoo grows up, they will repeat this behavior without being educated by their own parents.

The cuckoo's "nest parasitism" The Oriental reed warbler is feeding the foster cuckoo bird, and such a big difference can't be seen that it is not in person, and it does feel a bit stupid. Different strains of cuckoos also find different host birds, a phenomenon called host specificity Analysis of the DNA of different strains of cuckoos found no meaningful differences in their nuclear DNA, while mitochondrial DNA was significantly different between strains, and it was speculated that host-specific genetic information was passed from female to offspring. But many birds' eggs are colored and marked, if the difference between the eggs of the cuckoo is too obvious, the bird parasitized by the nest will abandon the nest, that is, this nest of your eggs and my eggs will not hatch, I will have another nest.

So if you put an egg directly in this nest, it will not hatch and will be abandoned directly in the nest. But in order to fool another bird, the cuckoo can change the color of its own eggs depending on the color of the eggs of the bird it wants to parasitize. On the other hand, the parasitic bird still has tricks to fight against.

When the host is not parasitized by the nest, around 9-10 days after laying eggs, the parent bird will make a certain special sound, which ends when the first young bird emerges from the shell, about 15 days or so. When the chick comes out of the shell, it will give another sound to the parent bird, so that the parent bird knows that the nest is its own nestling. But when the host is parasitized by the nest, the host's chicks usually emerge earlier than other chicks (because it takes time to squeeze the host's eggs out of the nest).

In this example, the chicks of the Holmess cuckoo emerge in about 12 days. According to the host's previous habits, a special sound begins to be made at 9-10 days, which ends after the first chick emerges, so that the host chick does not have enough time to learn and respond to the sound of the parent bird, so the host will abandon the nest. <>

The other birds don't know, but in my own experience with penguins, of course they can, and they can't tell whose baby is until it's out of the shell. Generally speaking, penguins will lay one or two eggs a year, but the hatching rate of the second one is really impressive, and we will put the eggs under the crotch of other penguins, and they will be OK if they have an egg dress, and they don't mind who it is. Chickens probably haven't evolved this ability yet.

When I was a child, I raised chickens at home, and I was afraid that the chickens would lay eggs indiscriminately, so I would put something called egg-inducing in the chicken nest, some with table tennis balls, and some with other shapes that were close to each other. Ducks are raised at home, they are all hatched by hens, duck eggs are obviously larger than eggs, and chicks hatch only take three weeks, ducklings take four weeks, hatching ducks hens are very hard, and when the ducks hatch out, they can hardly stand up. <>

At least in some species, it is possible to take eggs from other individuals or even eggs from other species to the mother bird to incubate. The ostrich, for example, is a helpful bird. Many ostriches do not have a nest, and in a nest of ostriches, in addition to the owner's eggs, there will be eggs laid by other ostriches, all of which are incubated by the owner.

Ostrich eggs are large and vulnerable to attacks and damage from ferocious animals such as lions and wolves, and only a small percentage of eggs can successfully hatch into baby ostriches. Therefore, the owner of the nest is also happy to help other ostriches hatch their eggs, because in the event of a smaller attack, the eggs they attack will be preserved by the dilution effect. Of course, if it is served in one pot, then there is no way.

1. Newly laid eggs.

It is difficult to tell if a bird has just laid an egg or not. But we can tell which eggs are easier to hatch by looking at the vacuoles inside the eggs. When you get a bird's egg, you can use a flashlight or look at the sun, the larger the air bubble inside, the worse the quality of the egg, if the air bubble has covered the bottom of the entire egg, then the egg can basically be abandoned, otherwise it is a waste of time and energy.

2. Incubate eggs for a week.

The best time for candling is when it is one week of incubation. The operation is very simple, just turn it on with a flashlight and bring the eggs close to the light source. If we see bloodshot in the egg, then it is fertilized.

The candling process should be fast, try to complete it within 1 minute, because it will take some time for the birds to return to the nest to hatch after the candling. Bird eggs that have been incubated for a week, the life in them has been activated, and there is a requirement for temperature at this time.

3. The last candling before the shell is broken.

This candling before the shell is recommended to be carried out about 12 days after incubation if it is a bird, and it can be carried out at 18 days of incubation if it is a parrot egg. However, it is generally at this time, and it is not recommended that the owners go to the candling test again, whether there is fertilization or not, and the results can be known in a few days. Don't let the candling cause the parent bird to be frightened or the eggs to get cold.

At this time, if the development is normal, the air chamber of the egg is enlarged, the blood vessels in the egg are thick, and if you are lucky, you can still see fetal movement.

In fact, it is also beneficial for candling at this time, and experienced breeders will choose whether to help the bird break the shell according to the condition inside the egg. For example, if the weather is dry and the moisture is insufficient, the bird inside the egg will not be able to break the shell, and the inexperienced mother of the new bird will cause the nestling to die in the shell if she does not help the nestling to break the shell. When we checked the candling, we found that the bird had no heartbeat and was motionless, so we could tap a small opening to see if the bird was still alive.

If necessary, we can help them break out of their shells and do the work of delivering babies.

If you want to tell if the egg is dead, you can look at the bubbles inside the egg, if the bubbles inside the egg have filled the bottom, the egg has died. It can also be judged by looking at whether there is blood inside the egg, if there is blood inside the egg, the egg is alive. Finally, you can determine whether the egg is alive by shaking the egg and listening to the sound of the egg, if the sound is low and complete, it means that the egg is alive.

You should be asking if the embryos in the fertilized eggs are developing normally.

The embryo in the egg does not stop developing (changing), and this can be identified by "taking the egg".

A normal zygote develops into an embryo, and the egg is placed in front of the light, and with the change of time, it can be clearly seen that the shadow in the zygote (embryo) will change from nothing to something, slowly changing from small to large, and if there is a contrast, it is easy to distinguish the fertilized egg, the non-fertilized egg, and the dead embryo. If there is no comparison, the only way to observe whether the embryo is developing (whether the shadow is larger) can only be observed by comparing the time before and after.

It should also be noted that the shadow of the embryo under the light is translucent, not completely black.

If you pick up a few eggs, how can you tell if the eggs can hatch or not?

First of all, look at these bird eggs, you get them from, if it is from some normal bird nests, it can be said that these eggs are generally fertilized eggs that can be able to surface birds.

And it also depends on whether the eggs have been hatched, if they have been hatched for a period of time, if the mud eggs are out of the nest for a long time, due to the change in temperature, the bird buckle inside may be greatly damaged.

If these eggs have not been hatched, or can hatch birds, you can put these eggs in the sun to see if they are dark, and if they do, it proves that they have hatched.

Therefore, if the temperature changes after a long time from the nest, it will cause damage to the eggs, and the birds will not be able to hatch.

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Analysis: Causes: Caused by malnutrition or fright, etc.

Prevention and control methods: 1. Provide feed with a reasonable ratio of energy and protein. Especially in the 3 to 4 weeks (about 110 days old) before the laying hens start to farrow, use about 10 days to gradually replace the finishing chicken feed with laying hen feed.

When the chickens are 120 days old, regardless of whether they are in production or not, they must be fed with laying hens.

2. Provide sufficient feed to the flock in strict accordance with the feeding standards. In the 3-4 weeks before the laying hens start laying, the ovaries and oviducts of young hens grow rapidly, and the amount of protein synthesized in the body is the same as that of the peak laying period. If the nutrition is insufficient at this time, it will affect the full development of the reproductive organs of the laying hens, resulting in small eggs during the peak of egg production.

Generally, young chickens consume 0 11 kg per day, and laying hens consume 0 12 kg per day. If the feed intake of the chickens increases, it means that the nutrient concentration of the feed provided is not sufficient and needs to be adjusted.

3. Pay attention to the breeding of young chickens, prevent the chicken group from being too heavy, and ensure that it is timely to start production. Modern laying hens generally have the characteristics of early maturity, if they do not pay attention to light or feed during their breeding period, some light white shell laying hens are more likely to mature prematurely, although they start laying early, but the eggs are small and the egg weight is light. Prolonged light exposure should be avoided in the second half of the rearing period and a sample (20 out of 1000) should be taken at any time from 110 days of age.

If the number of chickens in the standard weight range is less than 80, the feed nutrition needs to be adjusted to promote the weight gain of the layers.

4. The average egg weight of laying hens should reach 33 grams after laying. If it is less than 33 grams, you need to check the reason to see if the energy and protein content in the feed is too low;See if the feed intake of the laying hens is insufficient;See if the chickens are underweight;See if the light time is extended too early and too quickly. Find problems and make corresponding adjustments in time.

In addition, as the age of the laying hen increases, its egg weight should also gradually increase, if the egg weight increases slowly or does not increase, the reason should also be checked.

5 **Inflammation of the fallopian tubes in chickens. The lack of yolk in deformed eggs is mainly caused by inflammation of the oviducts of chickens. After testing, taking ampicillin and ante has a special effect on the inflammation of the fallopian tubes of laying hens, and generally 120-day-old chickens can be used twice a day for 5 days. 

In both cases, they will eat their own eggs.

The eggs are broken;

The eggs laid are not intended to hatch (most of them are infertile eggs or in environmental conditions where there is no hatching, e.g. in groups).

Some people often say that it is caused by malnutrition, there is no scientific basis, and the birds themselves are not nutritionists, hehe.

When the mother bird is deficient in calcium, she will eat her own eggsYou can add some shell meal, fish meal or eggshell meal to the feed and the situation will be better.