[taikim]

i dont' know if that's the proper term but.. how do we know if a bird has eggs? or pregnant..? is there a certain mark that tells you [not just their belly gets big]?

[Klant]

Birds develop a "bald spot" on their bellies when they're incubating eggs, so if you catch a bird, atleast you can see if it's there (probably hard to see in the field). In the hand, you could probably see if a bird has an egg, since the belly would be pretty big. Other than that, hard to tell...

[Bill Atwood]

If it is eating something weird, like say dill pickles on pistachio ice cream, then it is almost certainly pregnant.

[billhiltonjr]

Originally Posted by taikim

i dont' know if that's the proper term but.. how do we know if a bird has eggs? or pregnant..? is there a certain mark that tells you [not just their belly gets big]?

A better term might be "gravid." in most birds, it only takes a day or two fro a released egg to come down the oviduct, receive its yolk, and then have the shell laid down. In most birds the "incubation patch" (also called a "brood patch" devleops prior to egg-laying.

The best way to telll if an individual bird is about to lay eggs--which often happens before dawn--is to watch its behavior. It usually will builtd and line the nest first, and then lay eggs within a short period of time after that job is complete.

Cheers,

BILL

[Botaurus]

I remember my granny "feeling up" her domestic chicken to tell how many are with egg for control if they lay all eggs into their stalls with the plaster decoy eggs or if they wander off to secret stashes. She would take a chicken under her arm and cup her other hand around the cloaka, and then predict with a confidence if the individual bird was gravid.
However I have no idea if a scientist could do the same with any captured wild bird, or if this is only a thing that can be done to free running domestic chickens that lay almost dayly for long periods and must be prevented to get broody for they would stop laying as soon they collected enough eggs to sit. To a bird it sure has to be stressful unless it is used to be grabbed and handled each other day. I also am not sure how she could be sure she did not catch one chicken twice and the next not at all and use the numbers to anything constructive. To me all this is just a diffuse memory from vacations with my fathers czech folks keeping fowl and pigs when I was tiny.

[billhiltonjr]

Originally Posted by Botaurus

I remember my granny "feeling up" her domestic chicken to tell how many are with egg for control if they lay all eggs into their stalls with the plaster decoy eggs or if they wander off to secret stashes. She would take a chicken under her arm and cup her other hand around the cloaka, and then predict with a confidence if the individual bird was gravid.
However I have no idea if a scientist could do the same with any captured wild bird, or if this is only a thing that can be done to free running domestic chickens that lay almost dayly for long periods and must be prevented to get broody for they would stop laying as soon they collected enough eggs to sit. To a bird it sure has to be stressful unless it is used to be grabbed and handled each other day. I also am not sure how she could be sure she did not catch one chicken twice and the next not at all and use the numbers to anything constructive. To me all this is just a diffuse memory from vacations with my fathers czech folks keeping fowl and pigs when I was tiny.

Wild birds do show a distended cloaca when laying, but they differ from chickens in that songbirds are "determinate" layers that produce a set number of eggs in a clutch. Some birds (such as chickens) will continue to lay if eggs are removed from a clutch; these are "indeterminate" layers.

[Bird_Boy]

If it squawks at you all the time and wants birdseed and icecream at 4:00am in the morning? I dunno, I'm new.

EDIT: Hope that was ok. I was, of course, kidding. I'll be glad to remove if it's inappropriate.

[Quacker]

Originally Posted by taikim

i dont' know if that's the proper term but.. how do we know if a bird has eggs? or pregnant..? is there a certain mark that tells you [not just their belly gets big]?

it wears a smock, at least mine did when she was pregnant.

Hope this help

Steve

[Mary Evelyn]

You can tell this is a male dominated thread.
They are simular and both have 2 legs.... Only one.... is boss