I think there is a lot of misinformation readily available when people try to look into maternal incubation. I know that was the case when I let my female brood for the first time. One of the worst assumptions concerning maternal incubation is that the female will not eat while she's incubating eggs. I didn't question it because it was written in so many care sheets and care manuals and when I had offered my female a meal that first time, she refused it. I assumed that she was just following the norm and wouldn't eat. I didn't learn until the following year when I bred her again that this was all wrong. Females that are brooding eggs can and will eat but they can be just as finicky about meals as females that aren't on eggs and one refusal doesn't automatically mean that all subsequent meals offered are going to be ignored.
Last year I was offering my brooding females meals once every week. One of them ate weekly while the other two ate bi-weekly or ate rather sporadically - but they all ate while maternally incubating their clutches and didn't seem to lose any weight - if anything, they gained some weight in the process. Because they use so little energy while brooding, there is little weight loss in the process so even if a female refused all meals (or were denied them in the case of my first and ill-informed time maternally incubating) they are not at risk of wasting away to nothing while brooding.
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