How to discourage egg laying ?
Providing proper, non-incandescent lighting, a healthy diet, and adequate sleep, as well as removing nesting toys or materials are key to discouraging egg laying.
Diet :
Diet should consist of foods that are not warm or soft, or high in calories and fat.
The reason diet should not include warm and soft food is because that kind of food simulates the regurgitated food that mates feed to each other, and to their babies. If food is plentiful (lots of calories), that signals that it's spring and time to make babies (because food is plentiful).
So, in order to minimize hormonal feelings, diets should consist of a large proportion of vegetables and leafy greens, supplemented by high-quality pellets (preferably organic) to ensure proper nutrients.
Berries like blueberry and acai berry can be used as treats. Seeds and nuts should be given very sparingly and only as treats. Avoid sweet fruits like apple and grapes.
Foraging
Food should not appear to be plentiful and should take effort to find.
When food is plentiful, it triggers your bird to start thinking about making babies. To minimize this, introduce your bird to foraging.
Feeding Method
Food should “run out” occasionally, not always be available.
Food should not appear to be too plentiful. So, cut back on your bird's foraging so that the bowls are empty of food by the time you get home for dinner. You can do this by either giving her less foraging or increasing the amount of shells and inert material in the mix. Ideally the edible food in her foraging should last until a few hours before you get home, so that she is without food for a couple of hours. Remove the bowls when you come home and feed her dinner outside of her cage.
Vegetable skewers can last the entire day. Vegetables are high nutrition, but relatively low calorie. Feed outside of cage or, if you feed inside the cage, remove all food before bed. Remove all food, including foraging bowls and skewers, from cage when she goes to bed.
Toys :
Remove your bird’s “love-toys”. Some single birds will display mating behaviors with objects in their environment, such as food cups, toys, perches, or mirrors. Mating behaviors include regurgitating food, vent rubbing, and tail lifting. If your bird engages in these behaviors with an inanimate object, that object should be permanently removed from her environment.
Cage
Create an environment that is not nesty or dark. Remove anything that can be viewed as a nest box or nesting material. Put papers under the cage grid, to avoid access to paper, bedding, or potential nesting material. Remove access to dark enclosed spaces. Distract her by moving or remodeling her cage when she starts to act "nesty."
Rearrange the cage interior and change the cage location. Your bird is more likely to lay eggs in a cage that hasn’t changed in a while. Putting your bird in a different cage and/or changing the cage location can help discourage laying. Changing the arrangement or types of toys, dishes, and perches in the cage can also be very helpful.
Limit Petting
Do not touch your bird below the neck!!! Don’t send your bird mixed signals when you pet her. Touching your bird's underside and lower back or abdomen can trigger a hormonal response, as your bird thinks you are offering yourself as a mate. In nature, birds only touch each other below the neck when they are courting and getting ready to repLimit petting to gently scratching the head, neck, and upper body area.
Some birds will display breeding behaviors with their favorite person, such as vent-rubbing, tail lifting, or regurgitating food. Discourage these behaviors by putting your bird back in her cage for a “time out” whenever she displays them.
Sleep
Provide more quiet sleep time. Provide at least 12 hours of sleep. If she is still tending to lay eggs, try 13. Use a cage cover, proper lighting during the day (so that she fully wakes and is tired at bedtime).
Put your bird to bed early, by 5 or 6:00 p.m. A long day length is one of the most important environmental cues triggering egg laying in birds. By allowing your bird to stay up late, you are mimicking the long days of spring/summer, making your bird think it is time to breed. An early bedtime will help to turn off her breeding hormones. Note that she will need complete darkness and quiet for this to be effective (covering the cage while the radio or TV is on is not adequate!).