Hi!
I have a pretty complicated situation with my birds. Skye the female lived with me and my husband since she was a chick, now she is 2.5 years old. Last november she started mating behavior with my husband and started laying eggs....nothing helped, no matter what we did, she kept laying. By March she laid 30 eggs so we needed to figure out something. We got her a male (he was not hand fed, but he is an experienced parent whose mate died, he is the same age as Skye) and probably the big change around her stopped Skye to lay more eggs. Sam, the male just loves her from the first day, and they live in the same cage without a problem, however Skye is not really bonded to him. Now again in november she started her mating behavior...not with my husband just in the cage she does her posture (butt up, quiet chirping) and she started going in the nest box, however she does not want to do anything with Sam...she can get aggressive towards him especially around the nest, however sometimes Sam can sneak in and then Skye just sits in front of the nest looking inside.

Some people say we should remove the nest box, increase night time etc, because clearly they are not bonded enough to be parents together...well Skye laid without the nest box anyway when she got in the mood so i am not sure that removing it would solve anything, however maybe with the box her instincts will develop? If that is possible....

The breeder we got Sam from says we should let them be and trust nature....they will figure out what to do, worst case if the female lays eggs and gets real aggressive so we need to separate them....she also said that we should not pet or take Skye out of the cage for a while so she will have to spend more time with the male...

I honestly do not know what to do or what would be the best, that is why I write to you...
I hope you can give me some advice

Thank you!