Friday parrot blogging: egg edition

We still have a few stray snowflakes drifting around this morning, but spring must be on the way. I had quite a surprise last night....

Now that Aziza is slowly on the mend from her eggbinding, Kianga, my Congo African grey (who will be sweet 16 on March 31), decided to get in on the egg act as well. When I turned out the lights for bed, she climbed down off her perch to the bottom of the cage. I knew something was up. "Kianga, whatcha doin'?" I asked a couple of times, but she was quiet. After about twenty minutes, though, I heard it - a familiar sound since Aziza's egg-binding incident - the sound of a parrot pushing on an egg. I was thinking, "oh no, this is just what I need - another egg-bound hen having to go to the emergency vet." But it didn't sound like the stressed pushing that Aziza had been doing, so I just listened. She pushed and grunted a few more times, at several minute intervals, and after about ten minutes, I heard the sound of something hitting the metal tray on the floor of her cage. "Kianga! Are you done already?!" I got up and turned on the light, and sure enough, there she was, looking at the egg and starting to pull it underneath her.

I got a box top and put some paper in, then the egg, and turned the lights back out. She eventually got in the makeshift nest and started sitting. This morning, she was looking pretty proud of herself:


If I get the opportunity, I'm going to put her egg side-by-side with Aziza's and get a picture. I think Aziza's egg is almost as large as Kianga's. (Aziza weighs about a half pound, Kianga about a pound.)

It seems so odd that I never heard Kianga laying any of her previous four eggs, but I do hear her laying this one, and right after having gone through hearing Aziza try and try to lay hers. I guess I know now what normal and abnormal sound like. (And I'm extremely thankful that Kianga didn't have any problems.)