# My cockatiels have decided to lay eggs....help?



## jan_ellison (Oct 29, 2012)

We have 2 cockatiels, one male (Oberon) one female(Larry - we thought she was a boy at first). They are very frisky and have been having sex for months, even though the female has never laid an egg. A few days ago (without a nesting box) they decided to start a clutch and the first egg. We now have 3 eggs. The birds are very protective of their nest (I have now given them a nesting box) and don't like us looking at the eggs. I am worried though after reading some of the posts.... the first night neither of the birds sat on the one egg. Is it probably dead? What is candling? How can I tell if the eggs are fertilized and have babies in them? Does the mother need a special diet while she is nesting? How long before the eggs will start to hatch? Do I need to do anything to the eggs?

Does anyone know of a good link with all the info I should know about?
Thanks Jan


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## Biscotti (Jun 13, 2013)

Wow! That's a lot of questions! I'll have a go though.

First of all, some birds won't start incubating the eggs until there is more than one, so if they didn't start sitting til the second or third egg was laid then the eggs should still be healthy.

Candling is shining a light through the egg to see if there is a developing embryo (baby) inside. A small torch works best for this and you should be very careful when handling the eggs if you are going to (make sure you have clean hands!). The eggs will have veins if they are fertile.

The mother needs a cuttlebone and a vitamin block to replenish herself after laying the eggs. She would also probably appreciate some soft foods (cooked brown rice or pasta, mine like to eat wholemeal or seed bread and salad like romaine lettuce and carrots!) just before the eggs hatch and when she is feeding the babies.

Eggs usually hatch 18-21 days after the parents began incubating.

You don't need to do anything to the eggs, but spraying them with a spray bottle might help them to maintain humidity as this time of year the air is quite dry and that can prevent the babies hatching properly.

Some helpful links:

If the babies have been trying to hatch for 24-48 hours and aren't succeeding - http://www.justcockatiels.net/assist-hatches.html

For when the babies hatch - http://cockatielcottage.net/breeding2.html - http://www.avianweb.com/cockatielchickdevelopment.html


Hope I helped!
Eve :cinnamon pearl: :wf grey:


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## caterpillar (Oct 14, 2013)

jan_ellison said:


> We have 2 cockatiels, one male (Oberon) one female(Larry - we thought she was a boy at first). They are very frisky and have been having sex for months, even though the female has never laid an egg. A few days ago (without a nesting box) they decided to start a clutch and the first egg. We now have 3 eggs. The birds are very protective of their nest (I have now given them a nesting box) and don't like us looking at the eggs. I am worried though after reading some of the posts.... the first night neither of the birds sat on the one egg. Is it probably dead? What is candling? How can I tell if the eggs are fertilized and have babies in them? Does the mother need a special diet while she is nesting? How long before the eggs will start to hatch? Do I need to do anything to the eggs?
> 
> Does anyone know of a good link with all the info I should know about?
> Thanks Jan


Big question should be... do you WANT babies? Do you have the time and energy to help the parent birds raise them? Since you thought your second bird was a male initially I'm guessing you were not planning to have them breed. If you let us know what your situation is here then you can get more concrete advice as to what to do.


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## jan_ellison (Oct 29, 2012)

We didn't really want babies and we hadn't provided them with a nesting box. But they seem to be very good parents and are sitting on the eggs almost constantly. We don't plan to keep the babies once they have grown up a bit .... if they survive, but I don't want to kill them either. We will let nature play out and see if they hatch and develop. I didn't plan on this but it will be a good learning experience for my kids. They will see how hard it is to raise babies. I expect that they should start hatching in about a week if we have viable eggs. I haven't candled them yet, but will today or tomorrow. If some aren't viable, I will get rid of them. 

I just hope that the parents allow us to help them. Right now it is a huge ordeal to even change their water. Our 2 parents used to be out of their cage 10 hours a day probably ... with us. They loved us. Right now we are a threat to their babies and attack up when we go near them. We have to wear protection on our hand to get them out of the cage. I only take them out 2ce a day. Morning and night for extra people food: oatmeal, eggs veggies etc. Sometimes a bath. They get to stretch a bit too. This is when we clean their water bowls and food bowls. 

So I'm not sure how much they will let us handle or help feed the babies when they hatch. I hope after all is said and done that our parents go back to being more friendly with us.


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## Biscotti (Jun 13, 2013)

Dont get rid of the eggs! They will just lay more to replace them.

You dont need the birds out of the cage so much when they are incubating, especially if they arent reacting very positively to it.


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## blueybluesky (Jul 9, 2013)

As said above don't remove the eggs if they are infertile as they will replace them but if they are dis you can (I think) you shouldn't really need to feed the babies unless you are wanting to hand feed them or the parents aren't doing it, just make sure the parents have plenty of soft foods. When the babies are around one week old the parents start spending more time out of the nest box which is a good time to start handling them, the babies can still be tamed by letting the parents raise them and you just handle them often that's what I did with Bear 

Good Luck


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## nwoodrow (Feb 13, 2011)

if you don't want babies you can boil the eggs, and then put them back, as for how long an egg can last before needing to be sat on 7 days.

Don't get rid of the non viable eggs, they help provide warmth to the babies and make sure mom and dad don't sit to deep, once babies are bigger than eggs than you can remove, non viable eggs will not go bad unless broken, when babies are about 6 weeks I recommend you removing mom and let dad finish the weaning otherwise you could end up with a back to back clutch, it takes approximately 21 days for an egg to hatch and about 8 weeks before they are weaned, good luck, I wish you the best


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## nwoodrow (Feb 13, 2011)

my male piccolo was a sweet boy, we got him a mate, he was a terror, for reasons unknown his mate passed, and he's back to his sweet self, when this breeding cycle is done, you need to give your pair 14 plus hours of darkness, if you have to cover them , then that's what you got to do, this will bring them out of breeding cycle, and you need to keep them in that 14 hours of darkness until you wish to breed them. no more long days for them, specially since you have a pair willing to lay without a nestbox


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