Wren eggs & abandoned nest (1 Viewer)

[CosmoJoe]

Greetings!

My parents have a couple bird houses in their yard. One of them was being used by some house wrens and had six little eggs in it.

A few days ago, the municipality did some work laying in a sewer line, and the racket appears to have driven the wrens from the nest After observing the nest for about half a day, we confirmed no return visits to the nest and the eggs abandoned. The last time we observed the mother sitting on the nest was the previous evening. We ended up catching the parents beginning work on a new nest in a nest box farther near the edge of the property by the woods.

It is hard to say how long the eggs have been without incubation but as of the time of this posting, I would say its less than a day.. perhaps 8 hours, depending on the last time the mother was on them.

Is it possible these eggs are still viable, or have they cooled too long? Is there a general guideline for how long eggs can go without incubation? I have heard of people placing bird eggs on heating pads, etc but understanding what goes into getting a chicken egg to hatch (the incubators with carefully monitored temp, etc) this seems like a real stretch.

Thanks in advance for any advise.

 

[delia todd]

I can only speak generally, Joe, as I don't know this species.

Some birds don't start incubating until the clutch is complete, which may take several days. With some species, the male and/or female may have several partners:eek!:, so it can get very complicated trying to work out who is who:-O

But if, as you fear, the original pair have started another nest, there must be something wrong with the old site and there's really nothing you can do.

D

 

[seafolly]

I'd second that - the parents may not have started incubation yet. Yes one can successfully incubate eggs without an incubator, but it's a lot of work and one can potentially harm the development of the embryo.