# about weaning



## sangs_becky (Jun 25, 2012)

hi all  my chicks are now a month old raised by their parents and I have some doubts like when will they be weaned and start eating by themselves ? when will they start to fledge.
It would be great if you could share the steps that you would take in weaning your chicks 
please advise , thanks much 

here is a pic of them


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## roxy culver (May 27, 2010)

I didn't do anything to wean my parents raised chicks, I let the parents do that. They should start fledging around now, they'll start leaving the box and such. You can offer them millet when you have them out of the box so they can see its food. They should wean anywhere between 8-12 weeks.


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## tielfan (Aug 31, 2008)

Your babies are beautiful!

Most chicks fledge at the age of 4 to 5 weeks so your babies should fledge sometime soon. A few days before they fledge they will start spending a lot of time looking out the door of the nestbox and then standing in the doorway, making it difficult for the parents to get in and out. Most of the time the actual fledging is an accident, when the baby loses its balance and falls out of the nest. It won't be hurt by the fall because the baby will instinctively flap its wings on the way down. Here are a couple of pictures of my babies at the "thinking about it" stage.



















Babies are very clumsy at first and it's difficult for them to walk on cage wire, so if your cage has wire at the bottom it's best to spread newspaper on top of it before the babies fledge so they will have a smooth surface to walk on. For the first day or two after fledging the baby might spend most of its time on the bottom of the cage. It's OK to pick the baby up once in a while and put it back in the nest so it has a comfortable place to take a nap and sleep at night. Parent birds are sometimes confused by a baby on the floor, and if they won't feed it down there you can put the baby in the nest when it's time for a meal. The baby will come back out of the nest when it wants to.

It takes about a month after fledging for the babies to become self-sufficient at feeding themselves. The only thing you have to do to help with the weaning process is to provide food that's easy for the babies to eat. Babies are best at natural-style foraging, which means nibbling on food that's lying on the ground or hanging up close to a perch. It takes longer for them to learn to eat from a plate or bowl. They learn to eat millet spray very quickly but it takes longer for them to learn to eat loose seeds. Soft foods are also easy for them to eat.


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## sangs_becky (Jun 25, 2012)

Thank you so much Roxy, how do you befriend them?they hiss at me and don't like me much how do i make them bond with me i want them to be really close to me


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## roxy culver (May 27, 2010)

You have to handle them everyday...now that they're at the full feathered stage you can have them out for longer periods of time. Just hold them and pet them everyday, it'll make them less scared of you. You could offer them some food on a spoon so they associate you with food too and will want to be with you more.


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## sangs_becky (Jun 25, 2012)

Thank you so much tiel fan for complimenting about my babies m glad they are doing good  
Thank you so much for the details and pics  i so wish i had grey babies like yours as their dad was a grey tiel i was expecting to see some grey feathered babies.
About the cage floor i have a wooden board at the bottom of my cage and i have paper on it already should i use a towel or a sheet at the bottom of the cage so that the babies wont get hurt when they have a fall because the nest box is right on top of the cage and m worried if they will land safely without getting hurt.
I am planning on removing the babies from the cage and keeping them in separate cages so that i could take them out daily and bond with them that is why i wanted to know when they would be weaned. Also m concerned if the males would mate with them (if they are females or the vice versa) i don't wont things like that to happen so m planning about all that from now


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## sangs_becky (Jun 25, 2012)

roxy culver said:


> You have to handle them everyday...now that they're at the full feathered stage you can have them out for longer periods of time. Just hold them and pet them everyday, it'll make them less scared of you. You could offer them some food on a spoon so they associate you with food too and will want to be with you more.


Thank you so much roxy  i tried some egg food today it dint work i will keep trying and i also keep talking


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## tielfan (Aug 31, 2008)

> About the cage floor i have a wooden board at the bottom of my cage and i have paper on it already should i use a towel or a sheet at the bottom of the cage so that the babies wont get hurt when they have a fall because the nest box is right on top of the cage and m worried if they will land safely without getting hurt.


You don't need to put additional padding on the floor. In the wild, babies would fall for a much longer distance and land on the ground, and their natural flapping instinct has equipped them to do it safely. You do need to make sure they have a clear space to fall in - if there's a perch or some other object that they might hit on the way down, you need to move it. 



> I am planning on removing the babies from the cage and keeping them in separate cages so that i could take them out daily and bond with them that is why i wanted to know when they would be weaned.


The babies need to have frequent contact with the parents until they are weaned. But they don't have to be with the parents 100% of the time, and when they're between meals you can take the babies out to handle them. 



> Also m concerned if the males would mate with them (if they are females or the vice versa) i don't wont things like that to happen so m planning about all that from now


This won't be a problem before the babies are weaned. But cockatiels can become sexually active at a surprisingly early age, so separating the babies from the adults after weaning will reduce the risks. The mother is lutino, isn't she? If so, then these babies could be either sex, and if one is male and the other is female they might eventually start mating with each other.


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## roxy culver (May 27, 2010)

Millet might be better as egg food can cause a protein overload if they're given too much. As to the cage bottom, tielfan already said they wouldn't get hurt because they flap as they fall, but you can put a towel down if you like. It would be best if you try to start working with them now then waiting til they're weaned.

And at this point they're too young to mate with anyone so that wont be a worry yet. If dad is the grey and mom looks like them then they could be either sex.


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## tielfan (Aug 31, 2008)

If you do decide to put cloth in the bottom of the cage, do a test with it first. Take the babies out of the nest and put them on the cloth to see if they can walk on it well or if their claws get caught on it. Babies have very sharp toenails that get snagged in things that won't catch an adult's toenails.


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## sangs_becky (Jun 25, 2012)

roxy culver said:


> Millet might be better as egg food can cause a protein overload if they're given too much. As to the cage bottom, tielfan already said they wouldn't get hurt because they flap as they fall, but you can put a towel down if you like. It would be best if you try to start working with them now then waiting til they're weaned.
> 
> And at this point they're too young to mate with anyone so that wont be a worry yet. If dad is the grey and mom looks like them then they could be either sex.


Thanks much roxy  will try millet from tomorrow i was thinking of rubber sheets and then paper on top of them


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## sangs_becky (Jun 25, 2012)

tielfan said:


> If you do decide to put cloth in the bottom of the cage, do a test with it first. Take the babies out of the nest and put them on the cloth to see if they can walk on it well or if their claws get caught on it. Babies have very sharp toenails that get snagged in things that won't catch an adult's toenails.


Thank you so much tiel fan for all the response  i was thinking of rubber sheets and paper on top of them yes its true that in the wild birds fall down from several heights and they land safely but i was just worried 
When i handle them i could see that their nails are so sharp that they get caught to my clothes that's why i was thinking of rubber sheets


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## sangs_becky (Jun 25, 2012)

tielfan said:


> cockatiels can become sexually active at a surprisingly early age, so separating the babies from the adults after weaning will reduce the risks. The mother is lutino, isn't she? If so, then these babies could be either sex, and if one is male and the other is female they might eventually start mating with each other.


Yes mother is a lutino  how can i stop them from sexual bonding ? will hormone reducing techniques work to stop them from mating ? Is there anything that i can do which can stop them from mating in the very beginning please help me on this, thanks much


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## tielfan (Aug 31, 2008)

Just about any bird-safe cushioning material you put in the bottom of the cage will be safe for the babies if you put several pieces of newspaper on top of it. The babies don't have the strong chewing instinct that older birds have. They may nibble on the paper a little bit if they get close to the edge, but they aren't going to rip it up so much that they get down to the layer underneath.

If you keep opposite-sex siblings together and they don't have access to unrelated birds in the same age group, it's almost guaranteed that they will bond with each other when their hormones start flowing. This probably won't happen for a while, but I've had my babies do it at 5 months and I've heard of them doing it as young as 3 months. If your babies are the same sex there's no risk that they will have babies, but they might mate with each other anyway and if they're female they might both lay eggs. 

If you want to keep them together and there's a risk of egg laying, you'll have to use hormone control techniques any time they start acting hormonal. I spend half the year playing "hormone police" for Teela and Squeebis, who are a brother/sister bonded pair who were born in the same clutch.


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## sangs_becky (Jun 25, 2012)

hi tielfan m so sorry that m getting to this post after such a long time, i was in a bad shape! and was unable to reach my desktop. Thank you so much for the advise I've been able to walk for the past few days and i just noticed that the dad was trying to mate with one of the chicks and i had to disturb him to stop the act , as you have said the babies are sitting together or with their mom they don't mingle much with the others in the cage than their parents. My mother has been talking care of my birds because of my ill health it will take sometime for me to watch them and figure out what's really happening among themselves. 
I have started with the hormone reducing techniques and m planning to continue them forever


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## sangs_becky (Jun 25, 2012)

Also i just wanted to ask about this, Their cage is positioned right inn front of my room and i can hear them all the time , even though they are going to turn 2 months i and still hear the feeding noise how long does it usually take for them to become totally independent and eat by themselves and is this normal or is it because i have caged my chicks with their parents that they are still dependent on their mama and papa


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## tielfan (Aug 31, 2008)

Most cockatiel chicks wean at 8-10 weeks. Do you see the babies eating food by themselves? It takes a while for them to get skilled enough at it to be independent, but they should have some self-feeding skills at this point.


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## sangs_becky (Jun 25, 2012)

hi tiel fan thanks much for the response  yes they do eat by themselves but sometimes their parents feed them but now they don't cry to their parents for food as they used to. As usual i offer them shredded veggies, sprouts and egg food (sometimes) they also eat their millet but they are very slow with it. The good news is they are better than their mother in eating veggies and some sprouts which their parents dislike this makes me happy and contended


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## tielfan (Aug 31, 2008)

Weaning babies are at a very receptive age for learning to eat new foods; when they are older it will be harder to teach them to accept new foods. So teach them to eat as many foods as possible now, while they're young. It's even possible that the parents might learn to eat new foods by watching the babies!


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## sangs_becky (Jun 25, 2012)

vow!! i guess that is what is happening with the parents and babies  thank you tiel fan i will follow your advise


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