Proud owner of 3 cockatiels

[debbie]

Hi everyone! I just got 3 cockatiels, 1 female/2 males, and I just love them. I have never had cockatiels before (I had a canary for 7 yrs.) but I've always wanted cockatiels. I actually got 4 at first because there was an ad in the paper where a man needed to get rid of them so I got 2 females/2 males sitting on eggs a plus their cage for $35.00. I had already purchased a large cage (good thing) because when I picked them up he had them separated, said the 2 males were fighting over who was going to sit on the 4 eggs. So I kept them separated and after the second night the female (in with the eggs) was dead. The male was standing on top of her and they all were squeching. I put their cages close together. I was heartbroken. After awhile they seemed so depressed that I opened the door to allow them to go in and out of both cages. They seemed fine except that night Macho Man (the one that was in with the dead one) started being mean to Penelope so I put him in the cage by himself. He didn't like it at all. The next day when I could keep an eye on them I let him be with the other 2 and he's acted okay since. My introduction is kindof long but I really didn't know what to say. I have some questions. Thanks for having a forum for people like me. :rolleyes:

[Laura]

Hi Debbie welcome to the forum :) Congrats on your new tiels, sorry to here about the female dying :( don't worry about your introduction being long we love to hear about new people and there tiels ;) Its good that they were separated tiels that are breeding should not be kept in groups the parents of the eggs need to be in there own cage, are the male/female you have now on eggs? if they are the other male should be kept out of there cage as well.

[xxxSpikexxx]

Welcome to the form :) Sorry to hear about your one female :( Feel free to ask any questions :)

[Bonny]

HI Debbie welcome to TC:)

[debbie]

Thanks for the welcome! You know, I have not seen any of them sit on the eggs at all. I'll even peek in their cage really late at night and they're still not on them. They will go and look at them but they've never sat on them that I know of. The trip to get them was about 3 hrs. I don't know, I think the eggs are gonners. :eek: The man I got them from was very old, he said he'd had them about 3 yrs. He said they had 11 eggs before but only 1 of them made it. I think he was abit senile. Anyway, from what I've read it takes the eggs about 20 days to hatch and it's been 21 days today so I figured I'd wait until Sunday and take them out. Any advice on what to do in this situation?

[Bea]

Welcome to the forums! Sorry to hear about the female dying. :( If they're not sitting on the eggs they're probably duds, but better to be safe and leave them. If the female that died was the mother you could run into problems with the chicks not getting fed.

[Laura]

I agree with Bea, if there not being sat on I would say there probably not going to hatch, I would leave them a bit to see but its sounds like none of them are interested in them.

[xxxSpikexxx]

I would leave them a bit longer but when you take them out I would take out the nest box aswell.