# Male teil killing newly hatched chicks!!



## Purplegoanna (Aug 26, 2009)

Ive had mork (wf grey pied) since he was 3 yrs old, hes now 8 this year, for the first 4 seasons he happily mated, incubated, hatched, raised and fed all his chicks with partner, last year i was aghast to discover newly hatched (unfed) dead with bite marks on their crops and beaks, he had a new wife so i thought it maybe her, down to inexperience so i left them for that season hoping theyd settle, 3 clutches the same thing happened, i wasnt sure who was the culprit, so disheartened at the end of last season i swapped his wife with another hen, (also to help me work out who was the killer) theyve now had 2 clutches and hes done it again, the last clutch i took all the eggs out bar one to see if that would help but ive just pulled another wee dead fluffball out of the box........ive asked numerous avian vets and experienced bird people but none have an answer.......hes an old fav of mine who may now be looking at spending his days in bachelorhood if this cant be resolved (which it looks like it cant)........


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## tielfan (Aug 31, 2008)

If he fathers any more babies you may need to pull him out of the nestbox before the eggs hatch and let the hen raise the babies alone. You can assist feed if there are more chicks than she can handle. 

How many clutches is he having in a year? I've heard of an irresponsible breeder who had been told to limit her birds to two clutches a year, but she selfishly let her birds breed continuously so she'd have a lot of babies to sell. By clutch #5 the parents were killing the babies. I don't know if the reason was stress or nutritional deficiency, but we did have a discussion here recently about the fact that sodium deficiency can cause the parents to pluck the babies. Sodium deficiency can be a cause of cannibalism in chickens, so it can obviously lead to worse things than plucking.

Try offering him sodium-rich vegetables like chard or celery. If he devours them then it's possible that sodium was an issue. There are more recommendations for sodium sources in the thread at http://talkcockatiels.com/showthread.php?t=27024 which is still active and may add some new advice before it ends.


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## srtiels (May 1, 2009)

The only time I encountered this was, when the baby was a weak hatchling, such as from either a slow hatch or from nutritional defeciencies. Another cause it mite attacks. In rare instances if the parents have a bacterial or protozoa infection while incubating, this can get transfered to the eggs, which can result in a new hatchling not able to open it's mouth.

Other thoughts....is he a pet? If so, used to attention? My favorite pet became a baby killer, and learned that he attacked the babies if I even looked at them.

Another thought....was the hatch normal? meaning I have seen some males assist the baby out of the egg once it piped, and a new hatchling is weak and they get frustrated because it does not give a feeding response and bite it. Or if assisted from the egg and the yolk is not fully retracted into the body this is shock to the baby and he may react to it not being active.


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