How to empty cockateil and finch eggs

by Lisa

My husband and I raise cockateils and finches. Cliff is really the expert on cleaning these little eggs. In the past 4 years he has broken maybe 3 dozens out of 3000 finch eggs and to date he has never busted a cockateil egg.
This is how he does it (by the way these eggs have 1 hole!).

Tools needed

A T pin that can be found in any crafts/fabric store ( fig.1)

An empty ink refill squeeze bottle (fg.2) with a very small plastic tip, similar to the Tulip fabric paint containers.

A sink with warm running water.

With the T pin he makes a small hole in the larger end of the egg.(fig.4)
Be very careful as finch and cockateil eggs are quite thin especially a finch egg.
Next he fills the empty ink bottle with warm water.(fig.2)




He then takes the bottle and places the tip at the hole he made in the egg (fig.6)
and gently squeezes the bottle.




The warm water going into the egg gently forces the insides out.(fig.7)
He then refills the ink bottle with more warm water to flush out
any thing that might not have been flushed out the first time.(fig.8)

Finally he places the empty egg on some white toilet paper. (fig.9) (the cheaper the better for some reason)
Cliff like the white toilet paper since it doesn't have any dyes or scents that could stick to the egg.

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From Tonnie..........

I also use these eggs, handpaint them and make earrings out of them, or double end bell caps and make a necklace with them. But I use a hypodermic syringe to suck out the contents of the egg, refill with warm water and diluted household bleach or peroxide, dry them and then fill them with a mix of polyfilla (plaster) and tacky glue, insert a toothpick and stand on end in an egg carton to set for several days. Then when dry you can hold the egg by the toothpick, which has set hard inside, and paint or decorate with ease. You can then stand the toothpick into styro foam to dry the paint etc. once finished nip off the toothpick with nailclippers at the base of the egg.

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Another link to empty finch eggs:
http://sunnisan.com/crafts/eggblowing.html