# Some observations about the parents



## Detector (Apr 17, 2010)

My Cockatiels are first time parents and they seem to have different ideas on who does what, and when.

I have 9 eggs now and at first the two changed sitting responsibility roughly every 30 minutes or so. After a few weeks I noticed the mother was not sitting on the eggs, and the father would chase her around the cage trying to get her in the box. Now they have a completely new schedule that both seem to agree with. Now the mother sits on the eggs all night, and the father sits on the eggs all day. Is this normal?

I put material in the nesting box for a nest, but my birds took it out. I've tried to give the material from shredded paper to natural grass and stuff but they won't use it. The eggs have been on the bottom of the nesting box all the time. Will that be a problem?

Also, some of the eggs, I think the first ones, look to be turning dark. I don't know if this means they are bad or getting closer to hatching? The first eggs arrived about March 1st.


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## srtiels (May 1, 2009)

If the first eggs were laid March 1st it should have been between March 18-21 when they should have started hatching.

Have you candled the eggs to see if they are good?

Nine eggs is large for 1 hen...are you sure you have a male and female? Many times 2 females will also lay and share a nest.

No bedding is not good in the bottom of the box. it increases the chances of the eggs getting cracks or broken. They also resceive inadequate or consistant heat and are more likely to chill faster and die. When there is no bedding in the box there is nothing to hold heat and humdidity which is needed for proper development of the eggs. If the chicks hatch there is a higher risk of them getting chilled and also to develop splayed or spraddle leg because they do not have bedding for their toes to grip to to keep the legs from slipping out sideways.


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## Detector (Apr 17, 2010)

Well I was told I had a male and female, but what do you think? Here are their pictures. One has the orange cheeks the other has an all white head. The Whiteface does cat call whistle, can whistle Jingle Bells and says His? name. ChewChew

Oh, and I've also caught them mating.










How can I get them to keep nesting material in the box?


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## tielfan (Aug 31, 2008)

They do look like a male/female pair. You might have two clutches of eggs in the nest - one clutch that was laid around March 1, and another that was laid maybe three or four weeks later when the first clutch failed to hatch. The March 1 clutch can't be any good, but if there really is a second clutch then it's possible that these eggs are viable. If you can figure out which eggs are six weeks old you can take them out of the nest. Nine eggs is a lot for a little cockatiel to cover, and any viable eggs will get better incubation if there aren't so many eggs in the nest.

The male sitting in the daytime and the female sitting at night is the most common incubation arrangement, although many pairs have a different pattern. Unlike a lot of species, the male doesn't feed the female during incubation and she has to go out and get her own food. And she needs food more than the male does, to recover from the strain of laying eggs.


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## Detector (Apr 17, 2010)

Thanks!

So I'm guessing the brownish eggs are bad?


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## tielfan (Aug 31, 2008)

They look bad to me but I'm not an expert. You'll be better off talking to srtiels.


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## srtiels (May 1, 2009)

I edited you pix. Can I also save your pix to my files for use for others to use for comparisons of eggs?

IF the eggs were fertile at all the cause of death would have been from lack of bedding which would have helped to maintain heat and humidity. You need at least 3 inches of bedding in the nestbox. if the pair is used to you checking the box you can keep putting the bedding under the eggs. This *is essential* for successful incubation and hatches.

BUT looking at your eggs they may not have been fertile to begin with. OOn the ones I have marked with a *X *I would recomend removing them and breaking each open to see if it was fertile or not. I would candle the ones marked *?*and *** to see if they are still good. An egg that is good will glow red, with visible veins radiating to the edge of the air cell.

If you check out some of the links in my signature in the album link there are pix's of candled eggs. And at my cockatiel website under articles there is an Assist hatch article that has a album of pix's at the bottom of the article. And on my mousebird website I started an album on candling: http://www.mousebirds.com/candling-eggs.html


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## Detector (Apr 17, 2010)

Thanks!

Any suggestions for bedding that they might like?


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## srtiels (May 1, 2009)

I would put in either pine *(non* aromatic or dusty) or shredded aspen (which can be found at Petsmart)


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## tielfan (Aug 31, 2008)

I'll take that a step further and recommend Kaytee brand bedding. I'm not a fan of Kaytee in general but their shaved-wood bedding is nice and clean. I bought a different brand once and it was full of dust, so I took it back to the store. You won't find this stuff in the bird department - it will probably be in the small animal (rodent) department. It comes in plastic-bag packaging of different sizes, and if you go to http://www.kaytee.com/products/aspen-bedding-litter.php you'll see some pictures of what the package looks like. You won't need to change the litter before the eggs hatch and doing it after that is optional. You won't need a huge package if you don't plan to change the litter very often.

Another problem with not having any bedding is that it's hard for the parents to keep the eggs together. The eggs would be rolling around and smacking together like billiard balls every time the parents moved. My parent birds scoop out a little bowl-shaped hollow in the bedding which does a great job of keeping the eggs close together.

I don't know how much bedding you put in before. If it was just a thin layer it wouldn't have done much good. A nice thick layer is what you want, and hopefully the parents will think it's too much effort to chuck it out.


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## Detector (Apr 17, 2010)

OK I removed 4 bad eggs and got some bedding they seem to like. They were back in sitting on the eggs within 30 minutes. I also noticed Precious has left another egg. That makes 10 altogether. Does this look better?


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## srtiels (May 1, 2009)

That looks ALOT better  What you might do is have the whole bottom of the box with as much bedding as you can, and where the eggs are at have that a slight bit lower...kinda like a bowl shape. When the chicks hatch they will scoot backwards to poop and retuen to the nest. I found that if my bedding is bowled shaped they can get back to the nest easier, because it is a downwards lope to get back. If the bedding is uneven, and lower at the edges, mant times they can't get back and if they can they can chill very quickly and die if not seen right away.

If precious is laying another egg this means they may have thought all the others were no good, and are starting another clutch. Put a spot (use a Sharpie marker) on the eggs you already checked. This way you know which are the older ones. After a few days candle the eggs. As to the new ones it takes 3-4 days to see if they are good or not. Remove any that you are sure are not good. This will help increase the chances of all the good eggs being successfully incubated and hatched out. When there are too many eggs in a clutch some eggs may not get properly covered during development and get chilled and die.

good luck


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## Detector (Apr 17, 2010)

Gee's, yet another eggs. I'm back up to 7 after removing 4. She has laid a total of 11 now.


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## tielfan (Aug 31, 2008)

It sounds like she has given up on the second set of eggs and is now going for a third clutch. You need to check the older eggs for signs of viability and get rid of them if they're no good, to give the newest eggs a better chance. If the new eggs are fertile they'll have a better chance of hatching than the old ones did because the conditions in the nestbox are better now.

It's too late to stop her from laying the clutch she's producing right now, but you want to stop her after this new clutch (whether the eggs end up hatching or not). Excessive egg-laying is very unhealthy and the recommended maximum is two clutches per year.


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## Detector (Apr 17, 2010)

Well looks like the first egg hatched last night. Any advice you can give for raising a new baby? Do I need to get some different feed for the parents to feed the babies? I'd really like to train these to be hand friendly, but I'm not sure if I can hand feed them as needed. I'm single and work 8 hours out of the day.


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## dude (Mar 29, 2010)

Oh wow. A baby.... so cute. I have no advice (don't have a clue what to do!) but I am following this thread with a lot of interest to see how it all goes. So exciting and informative at the same time.


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## Jenny10 (Feb 27, 2010)

Hi, I am looking into hand rearing myself although never done it, generally most people pull the chicks from the nest to hand rear at about 2 -3 weeks old, you will need a brooder (somewhere to keep them warm) hand rearing formula, thermometer for the formula and the brooder as well as feeding equipment, and you will need to feed approximately every 4 hours with a break for the night the intervals for feeding gets less as they get older, if you google it you will find plenty of info on the subject, also this site has info on hand rearing.

The other option is to co parent rear where you go in and feed them maybe twice a day and handle them and leave the rest to the parents, buy handling them regularly from a young age you should be able to get them fairly tame, although I haven’t really looked into this option, it was just something someone suggested to me on another thread.

Good luck, thou, you must be so pleased to have a little one, although you should have some of the basics for hand rearing just in case the parents do decide not to bother, I did read on a site that even a water bottle can be used to provide heat in a emergency, but I would imagine it would be difficult to maintain the correct temperature, plus form day one you would have to feed every 1 and half hours even through the night, so pretty tough going.

Hopefully the parents will do a good job.

Jenny


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## srtiels (May 1, 2009)

*CONGRATULATIONS! *on the new baby. Leave things as is. You don't want to change things too much because this might cause the parents not to feed or care for the chick or remaining eggs. The parents will know what to do.

As to the chick once it is several days to a week old you can start to get it used to handling a couple times a day. I do this with mine so that they don't have a fear of humans or hands. As they pin feather and feather out you can spend more time with the chick. But for right now there is no need to do anything.

It looks like you have 3 more definite good eggs. The egg closest to the back side of the chick looks like the next egg to hatch...and the one behind it has an odd color so it may not be good. You can wait a day or til the second chick hatches and remove the one egg if it is no good.


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## Detector (Apr 17, 2010)

*Say Cheese!*

First day of holding. Eight days old.


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## Jenny10 (Feb 27, 2010)

Congratulations, you must be so happy, s/he is looking great.

Jenny


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## Detector (Apr 17, 2010)

I'm a bit concerned about what happened early this morning. I got up about 3:00am and walking by the cage heard the baby chirping. I wanted to see if I had any new hatch-lings so I turned on the light to find my baby sitting in the middle of the cage. I'm pretty sure it didn't get there on its own. I did notice I do have a new baby that was in the nesting box with the mother.

I picked the baby up and put it back in the nest with the mother so I guess we'll see what happens.


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## srtiels (May 1, 2009)

It sounds like the parents might have had a might panic. Many times when this happens when they scramble to get out of the nest box a baby can get caught under their wing or grabbed by their foot and slung out of the cage. To safe guard against this don't cover the cage, and keep a night light on during the night.

That is great that you caught it. At that age if they get chilled too long they can die or develope secondary yeast and/or bacterial infections from the stress of chilling.


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## tielfan (Aug 31, 2008)

My comment is a little bit late, but you asked earlier about providing special foods for the parents to give the babies. The parents should have access to plenty of soft food to feed the chicks because it's difficult for babies to digest dry seed. Buster and Shodu's favorite foods for young chicks are pellets (they drink water to soften them) and whole grain bread, and when the chicks are a little older they prefer sprouted grains. Cooked food is great for birds who accept it although my birds don't care for it.


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## Detector (Apr 17, 2010)

*Feeding time!*

Caught the Daddy(ChewChew) feeding the chicks. Looks like I need to get the nest back in order.


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## kfelton0002 (Mar 12, 2010)

I'm glad I'm not the only one who uses cardboard boxes! I tried to introduce my new pair of grays to a standard plywood nestbox, but they never chewed at the entrance or stepped a foot inside! I made one out of cardboard for them and put it up and they love it! Go figure! They like the cheapo nestbox better than the $20 nestbox I bought at the petstore!! I think it is because the cardboard is easier to chew and tear so they can customize the entrance to their liking. Your babies look great and it looks like you still have at least one more good egg that will be hatching soon! ChewChew is adorable! I love whiteface cockatiels and it looks like your boy is split to pied as well! I think your female is a normal gray from your picture so it looks like you've got a nest full of normal gray split to whiteface and possibly split to pied babies!


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## Detector (Apr 17, 2010)

*And baby makes 3*

Another egg has hatched making it 3 chicks now. Getting pretty crowded in the nest.

You can just see the backside in the middle of the other 2 chicks.


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## jenholt (May 10, 2010)

aww super cute babies! congrats!


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## Detector (Apr 17, 2010)

Oh my, and now there is 4 with 2 eggs left.


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## kfelton0002 (Mar 12, 2010)

Are you going to pull your babies at 2 weeks and finish hand rearing them, or are you just going to let the parents raise them?


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## Detector (Apr 17, 2010)

I plan to let the parents raise them. I'm single and work so I could never devote the time needed.


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## srtiels (May 1, 2009)

Detector said:


> I plan to let the parents raise them. I'm single and work so I could never devote the time needed.


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You have a big size difference between the chicks. This can be a problem. The littest ones are going to be fed the same solid consitency of food as the oldest chick. When this happens they will not be getting enough fluids and can't digest as well. They can either become stunted or die. What I would do is to assist feed the littlest chicks a couple times a day until they are 7-10 days old to give them a good start. Here is a link: http://justcockatiels.weebly.com/assist-feeding-chicks-in-the-nest.html


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## Detector (Apr 17, 2010)

Thanks. I'll give it a try.


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## kfelton0002 (Mar 12, 2010)

That is definitely understandable! lol 
As long as you handle the babies for a few minutes everyday they should still be just as tame. Good luck!


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