Red-billed quelea in colour, sometimes with some dark spots. Some clutches contain six eggs, but large clutches may be the result of other females dumping an egg in a stranger's nest. Both sexes share the incubation of the eggs during the day, but the female alone does so during the cool night, and feeds during the day when air temperatures are high enough to sustain the development of the embryo. The breeding cycle of the red-billed quelea is one of the shortest known in any bird. Incubation takes nine or ten days. After the chicks hatch, they are fed for some days
Red-billed quelea Sometimes called "Africa's feathered locust", the red-billed quelea is considered a serious agricultural pest in Sub-Saharan Africa. In particular, they eat wheat in the dry season, rice in the early rainy season, and sorghum/millet in the rainy season. An individual red-billed quelea eats around of grain in a day, hence a flock of 2 million individuals—not an unusual size—can consume of grain in a day, or in a month. Their wide range, enormous population and fecundity make control difficult. Traditional methods to protect crops are mainly used in subsistence farming. When the crop is vulnerable, people go into the fields,