Hey there,
I was cleaning my cage the other day and as I looked in the nest I noticed that there were 2 eggs in it! This is my first time to deal with doves and eggs. So I had to go out and buy another pair so I can train them so I can still perform but, at the breeders I looked at the doves found males but no females. Then I looked at the nest and found a few females, so I talked to them and they agreed to give me one of the females but she was sitting on 3 eggs. So they gave me the bird and the 3 eggs. I got home and 1 of the eggs was infertile but the other 2 looked good. I put the eggs in a nest and put the original doves with them but they didn't want them. So I called a couple birds shops and talked to some people about what I should do. I basically came to the point where the 2 doves that a sitting on the eggs I could sneak the other 2 eggs under there and the would sit on them too.
Has anyone ever hear of a pair of doves incubating 4 eggs at the same time?

Thanks,
Jeff

Jeff,

My sincere advice is to keep it to no more than two babies per pair. Parents have to feed them. One each is a full load.

Good Luck!

My doves are "busy" too! Spring has sprung!

Bob
Magic By Sander

You will need to do handfed if one dove is sitting on 4 eggs. Petshop sells formula for baby bird, you can handfed them as soon as they are 3 weeks. I did it for cockatiel, I am not sure about dove, maybe Bob can advise you with that. Handfed is kind of messy but kind of fun too. Try it, you may like it.
Ken

Besides handfeeding, keeping 4 baby birds in one nest is going to be very difficult. Once they hatch, they grow very fast and that chances of all 4 of them surviving are very slim. It gets crowded with just two.

Yaah, I forgot about that too. They grow very fast and they look ugly too until they have all the feathers. You'll need to get a nesting box like the one they use for cockatiel so the babies can fit in there comfortably. Make sure you have the formaula as soon as the babies hatched because the mother can abandone them if she can't feed them all. Bring them inside the house and feed them every 3 hours, yeep, just like your baby.

It really depends on how many birds you have. I have 2 males and 1 female and they all work in unison when there are babies to raise. They all trade the sitting as well as the feeding chores amongst them.

Martin

Wow Martin, 2 males get along together in a cage with a female and a baby? That's a terrific accomplishment. Congratulations.

Hummm... never had Dove eggs. Do they taste like chicken too?

I bought them all from the same breeder when they were babies. The female is a pure white and the males are a mix. When they make babies I always get browns. On the matter of getting along, I don't give them a choice.

Martin

Guess you make them walk the plank if they misbehave right?

Hey Martin,
I also have a mixed pair Daddy is a ringneck and Mom is white. all the babies I've seen so far are white (and I've seen a LOT of them) Thank goodness there's a couple other young magicians around here who use doves. I have stopped them from laying so much by putting fake eggs into the coup with them. If I don't do that they'll just keep on makeing babies all year round. I have one baby who's almost fully grown and two eggs in the nest as we seak. I'm going to move this baby to a new cage and start working with him in a week or so.
Enjoy!!
Joe Comet

I have 6 doves and they produced 30 eggs in one year. I take the eggs always out because I don't want a army of doves in my cage.

Hi Lavey, welcome to the Café - Been there, done that. At one point had over 20 + doves. Kind of addictive habit to get into breeding, but so much time to care for the flock changed my mind, along with HUGE vet bills for inspections....I keep 8 now, and only one pair is Male/Female. The others are all female. I try to keep my flock to a minimum now. Too busy to keep up with more than that.

-Alpha

I have a pair that has been trying to hatch eggs all winter long. They have never hatched yet. Now before you get the wrong idea, they have layed 2 eggs, 3 different times. They first time I allowed the birds to take care of the eggs for a little more than a month, then I removed them. The last time, the birds rolled the eggs out of their nest themselves after about a month. The female layed 1 or 2 more eggs about 2 weeks ago. I have not been able to see how many eggs are there this time, and I am trying not to disturb them.

I am fairly sure I have a male/female pair. After about 5 months together they have never layed but 2 eggs at any one time. I'm not sure why the eggs have not hatched. I am thinking it could have been the cold. We had a brutal winter around here, and even though I kept their environment warmer than outdoors, it still got cold at times. There were many. many days where it would not have taken but a few moniutes for the eggs to freeze.

Also, I am wondering if the male is old enough to breed. Maybe the eggs are infertile because he is too young. Someone told me they need to be around a year old. Well, these 2 are just about a year old right now.

I am going to give them a little more time together. It has gotten cold again here (we have snow and ice right now) so if these eggs don't hatch I probably still will not be certain of the reason. The next go round should be warmer, and the male will be past a year old for the first time. Maybe then I can tell more.

If they are not able to hatch after a couple of more attempts I amy try to switch out the male, but I really hope I don;t have to. The other 2 birds I have are the best trained, and they are slightly younger than the 2 in the nest. I have not worked with these 2 would-be parents very much at all since they started setting on the nest.....probably around October of '09.

If any of you have any thoughts about this I would love to hear them. I'd like to know if you think my theories sound logical or not.

Thanks!

Regan

Hey Regan! Its possible you have a young pair, yes. The male (and any female will agree on this one *haha*) may not know exactly what he is doing right now. The age does make a difference. It may also be the female too, you just never know. I wouldn't separate them though. Usually, when they mate, they will stay together until the other is gone. Eggs not hatching could be anything. Its not a failure thing, its just a timing issue. This spring you will notice a difference in things. Your male may mature enough to "get it right". The female may be young too, so just give it a little time. once the machine is turned on though, you will be overrun with doves. Be careful not to have the same pair reproducing too much as it will take a toll on the parents health, especially the female. keep plenty of food and water available during the hatchling process as they grow to become independent.
To help some, if you are keeping your doves indoors, when it warms a little, Place them outside in the sunlight for parts of the days (off the ground however from mice and neighborhood cats). They will sunbathe and lay out, and the sunlight is healthy for them and will create a better 'breeding' enviroment for them.

-Alpha

Regan, Alpha beat me to it. First off, your doves will only lay two eggs at a time. If they lay more than that, you have two females and not a male/female.

A year old is a good time for them to lay fertile eggs if you have a pair. As Alpha said, do not change out the birds. Doves mate for life.

Once they start laying fertile eggs, you'll be overrun with offspring. That's when you need to make the decision on how many "little Regans" you want to keep

At one point, I had over 30 birds in one aviary and the time involved as well as the expense was just too overwhelming. I now have 10. Four of them are matched pairs and lay eggs all through the summer. The winter months slow them down a bit.

Thanks Thomas and Dave!

Maybe I am on the right track. I amd going to be patient and give them some more time. Just to be clear, I'm not planning on switching them unless I determine that my male might be a female. This is the pair I wanted to breed, and they act like male/female in every way. There has never been more than 2 eggs at any time in the nest. They also seem to be great parents, in that they take really good care of the eggs. I'm thinking that I have got the right combination and maybe it is just the age, or perhaps the cold that has kept the eggs from hatching.

Spring is springing, although a little late here, but it won't be much longer.

Dave, as for 'little Regans', I'm not sure about that. I have named all my birds, but I had not thought of naming them after me! I hope to be able to raise a few, along, but I certainly do not want too many. I plan on building more cages this spring/summer that would allow me to keep around 12 birds very comfortably. I would have room for more, but if I get 10 that is about all I'd need or want.

Regan