Brood
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The word brood has three meanings in ornithology (very similar to fish and insects ):
- The clutch (the eggs laid) of a female or pair .
- The hatched nestlings of a clutch.
- In the case of birds , breeding (keeping the laid eggs warm until they hatch) also plays a decisive role.
The fish and in everyday parlance the second meaning dominates.
Clutch and incubation period
After mating , the female lays the fertilized eggs in most species within a few days to a few weeks. In songbirds , the clutch has an average of five to eight eggs, but there are also bird species with only one or more than 20 eggs.
In reptiles the clutch size is comparable, but in fish the number of eggs fluctuates considerably and can reach several hundred.
The breeding period of various bird species and genera can be between about ten days and three months.
Breeding and breeding behavior in parakeets
The ring-necked parakeet takes about 23 days to breed. During this period he lays around three to five eggs. The female usually lays the eggs about five days apart. Since ringed parakeets are permanent breeders , the brood is incubated from day one. The young spend the first four weeks in the nest or nest box . If they are old enough to look out of the entrance hole, the rooster also takes part in their rearing.
This feeding is done by the hen with a lot of protein-rich food, she can be fed by the rooster herself. At about five weeks they fly out and are supported by the addition of food by the old animals.
In the budgie , the female lays her eggs about two days apart and hatches from the first. After three weeks the young hatch every two days. Feeding is done by the hen. The young spend the first four weeks in the nest or nest box . The young also fly out at about five weeks. You should wait about two weeks before handing over the young because they are still being fed.
Brood in the domestic fowl
From April / May the hen lays her 13 to 15 eggs at intervals of one to two days. It fills the nest within about three to four weeks and only then begins to brood, leaving the nest only once or twice a day to take in food and water and to empty itself.
Since the development of the chicks in the egg only begins with the constant supply of heat that the hen gives off with her body, all chicks hatch after 21 days almost simultaneously within 24 hours with a hatching weight of 35 to 45 grams.
The breeding behavior is innate; hens from battery cages also show it when they are given the opportunity to build a nest, fill it and breed it.
The chick rearing is done exclusively by the female chicken, which leads the chicks to feeding grounds, protects and warms them until they are independent.
Brood in other birds
The laying intervals and the duration of incubation can be around half shorter for other bird species, but also three to four times longer. However, it depends only slightly on the size of the animals, the clutch size not at all.
The breeding period for most bird species in Europe is two to four weeks. Interestingly, in the middle of this time frame there is the heavy Great Bustard , which was flightless during the moult, with its two to three eggs. The partridge also incubates its clutch (around 20 eggs) for three weeks. For the vast majority of songbirds , it is around two weeks.
As with fish, brood care is often carried out jointly by the female and male.
The proportions of the large ratites are very different . Some let the sun hatch the eggs, while others let the males do it. The Nandu male, for example, mates with several females, but then does the breeding and rearing alone . The females withdraw and mate with other males.
See also
- Breeding area
- Brood care
- Refugee
- Nestling
- Ground-nesting birds , free breeder , cavity nesters , American breeders , crown breeder
