hello everyone i have a breeding pair of quakers called tilly and mint, tilly has layed 4 eggs and doesnt seem to be sitting on them does this meen they are infertile i would be greatfull for any answeres, i am very new with quakers i have only ever delt with canarys thanks midget

Welcome to the forum!!!

They will sit on infertile eggs for awhile. I'll leave the rest to the more experiences breeders. It's usually a little slow around here on weekends but I'm sure others will be along with more advice later.

Could you give us a little more information? How old are these birds? Are they first time nesters? Have all the eggs been layed in the same place? Do they have a nest box? And are you sure you want them to set the eggs since you are really new to them?

I'll answer the questions I've posed and see if that helps. Then you can ask more questions and offer more information if need be.

If these birds especially the female (hen) are 2 years old or younger this may be their first clutch of eggs and while its instinctual and physically possible for her to lay the eggs, she may not know what to do with them once she has. That's not that uncommon. Or they may set the eggs, hatch the eggs and then not know what to do with the chicks as in feeding them etc. Do you have a nest box available for them and are they laying the eggs in the nest box, some hens will lay eggs anywhere that remotely resembles a nest others will lay them while sitting on a perch and they'll drop and break etc. Some will even lay on the bottom the cage in a corner etc. Many times a hen won't get serious about setting (incubating) the eggs untill there are at least 3 in the nest sometimes 4. So that might be part of it.

Now for the answer about are you sure you want them to set them and hatch? Since you are so new to quakers; were you actually wanting them to raise a clutch of babies? Do you have all the equipment set up and ready to go to hand feed these babies every 2 hours to start with or were you going to allow the parents to raise them completely?

If you were planning on allowing the parents to totally do all the work and then try to sell the babies for pets, I doubt that you will have much luck because parent raised babies are usually wilder than little march hares. They are very hard to get tamed down enough for most people to want to even bother with them and then you could end up with a bunch of babies for the next 20-30 years. Most people who are wanting to raise and sell babies hand feed the babies after they pull them from the next at 7 to 10 days of age. Which means when they first pull them they are being fed every 2 hours and they need to have a source of heat to keep them warm, they need specific type of food which is mixed into a pancake batter consistency and fed by a syringe. It has to be at a certain temp, not too hot or too cold or the babies can become sick and die. You need things like a gram scale to check the babies weight daily to make sure that they are all growing etc. Its a lot of work let me tell you. And for the newbie person to these birds it can be quite stressfull on both the baby bird and you. If fed incorrectly the babies can asperate the formula into their lungs and its pretty much sure death for the babies. Then if you do manage to get them raised, and weaned are you going to be able to find an outlet in which to sell them and are you going to be willing to make sure that these are good homes and are you going to be willing to take the babies back should it not work out for the new parents for what ever reason.

These guys aren't like raising canaries where you can allow the parent birds to totally raise them and wean them for them to be marketable. Quakers need to be tame and handlable or they just aren't going to sell for anything other than a breeder.

So I guess what I'm saying is that unless you've thought this clear through, you might not want to worry whether or not the hen sets them. I'm not trying to be mean, I just want you to be prepared and know exactly what your getting yourself into.