# tame breeding pair or untame???



## Hellena (Feb 11, 2013)

a cockatiel breeder recently told me that untamed tiels make better breeders than tamed ones. Is that true?
I would love to have 1 clutch a year with 2 of my tiels but they are hand tame and social. Would they still be successful breeders and parents?
Some of you out there must have tame birds that have mated and raised young I would think.


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## roxy culver (May 27, 2010)

Honestly, I find hand tame birds to be more fierce and protective in the nest. They aren't afraid of your hands, so they aren't afraid to jump up and get a piece of you. My fiercest and BEST cockatiel parent was Fuzzy, a hand fed baby who thought for the longest time that I was his mate. He was the first one to sit on eggs, the first one to figure out (and show everyone else) how to feed babies. He was the fiercest in the nest and had the meanest daddy face I've ever seen. My untame female was actually the worst breeder I had in my flock. I really think it depends on the birds and it depends on how good of breeders their parents were as well. A lot of things are inherited from the parents.


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## bear2491 (Feb 26, 2011)

In my aviary, I've got 2 pairs (and a loner but she likes it that way). The first pair, Ruby and Squeak were hand raised but moved into the aviary 18 months ago. They are no longer "hand" tame but are friendly and Ruby will jump on my shoulder if I stand there long enough. Pearly and Piedy I inherited and they are obviously not hand raised birds, they are flighty and stay well away from me when I enter the aviary. 

Parenting wise - both pairs were good and the babies thrived, although Ruby and Squeak had 2 plucked babies in their nest. Once I had pulled all of their babies for hand feeding, they started trying to care for the babies in the other nest (belonging to Pearly and Piedy) I was initially worried about infanticide but no, I heard feeding sounds coming from the nest when I went to shoo them out. I did pull those last few babies a bit younger than I would have liked as I didn't want to risk an "accident". 

So I would say that in my experience, hand raised birds can be GREAT parents. Mine were the first to nest and knew exactly what to do. It seemed to me that the HR pair where almost leading the way with the non-HR pair copying!


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## blueybluesky (Jul 9, 2013)

I don't know about a hand tame pair but I do have an untame pair, they do a good job and let me handle the eggs and babies while they are out the nest. I'm not to sure if they would get spooked easier in the nest though.


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## Vickitiel (Oct 10, 2012)

From a general point of view it's very subjective to the individual birds rather than how tame/untame they are, just as people above have said.


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## geenz (Apr 4, 2011)

I've had a pair with the male being un-tame and female being very tame, they are bonded but she would start to attack him as soon as she started laying the eggs and I would have to take him out for his own safety (painful on my part, ouch). And my other bonded pair who have 2 babies at the moment are both tame and doing an absolutely perfect job of sitting and feeding. Both very protective if I try and sneak a peak in the box though!


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