# I seem to have a 3 some



## cookie232 (Aug 15, 2010)

I have 2 females and 1 male all sitting and sharing a nesting box, not really sure what to think, but they all seem happy with the situation, has anyone else encountered this? They all seem to be looking after the 3 chicks that have hatched so far?


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## Jess (Jun 20, 2010)

Yes, it seems to work well and babies get well fed


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## Woodstock (Feb 25, 2011)

When we raised parakeets, the females sat on the eggs and fed the hatched babies until they fledged, then Dad took over feeding. That was in the '80s. I'm sure 31 years later there is more domesic duty sharing....


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## geenz (Apr 4, 2011)

Hahah, that's cool as! At least the babies won't go hungry


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## cookie232 (Aug 15, 2010)

Thanks everyone


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## roxy culver (May 27, 2010)

I had this happen last year except it was two males and a female sharing a box, and all the babies turned out just fine!


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## cookie232 (Aug 15, 2010)

This is my first year of breeding, and they are all doing better than i expected  In the box i have a pied male, a pied/pearl female, and a cinnamon female. Im trying to get my head aound the mutations, but its a lot to take in, so not sure i will be able to tell who is the parents of which chick is, any adivce would be great?


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## Debbie05 (Feb 9, 2010)

Who's da Momma. lol.


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## cookie232 (Aug 15, 2010)

Just checked the box  7 chicks


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## roxy culver (May 27, 2010)

O wow, that's a lot of babies!!! If you end up with any cinnamon babies, those would belong to the cinnamon mama because girls can't be split to cinnamon so the pearl/pied mama wouldn't be carrying the gene. But that's only if the daddy is also carrying the cinnamon gene. Otherwise just her boys will be split but you wouldn't know that unless you bred them.


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## cookie232 (Aug 15, 2010)

I have had a moment of clarity lol I have been taking pictures daily since they started breeding, and the cinnamon mummy was there first and laid 3 eggs, the pearl pied joined them later, so would i be right in thinking that the 3 oldest chicks probably belong to Izzy (cinnamon mummy)


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## roxy culver (May 27, 2010)

Yes you would...since she was there first and started laying, you know for sure the first three are her's.


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## 4birdsNC (Dec 4, 2010)

Good luck guessing the rest! LOL


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## cookie232 (Aug 15, 2010)

*Help*

 I am struggling to see what is going on in the box, there is always 2 birds sitting. How do i encourage them off to see how many chicks, eggs, and open shells there are???


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## roxy culver (May 27, 2010)

Well it depends...are your birds hand tame? I can pull mine out of the box when I wanna take a look and then put them right back after. But if they aren't tame they will probably bite you.


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## cookie232 (Aug 15, 2010)

Hi Roxy. No these are my aviary birds, they will land on me when i am in there feeding them, but they hiss at me when i look in the boxes, and i am sure they would bite me if i put my hand in. I can see 6 - 7 chicks at the moment, but with so many in that particular box, its hard to tell. Shouldn't i be removing the empty egg shells to prevent bacteria etc?  I have 5 other boxes. 4 of which has chicks, but aagin am unable to tell exactly how  Any tips or advice would be much appreciated  I didnt expect to do so well with my first attempt at breeding them. I did hand a rear a baby from a freinds birds last year and she is indoors and very hand tame. I do eventually intend on hand rearing from my birds but thought i would gain some more experience before i attempt that on a larger scale


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## roxy culver (May 27, 2010)

The hard part is catching them when both parents are out of the box. And since there are three there's always one of them in the box. So I'm not quite sure how to go about doing that.


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## cookie232 (Aug 15, 2010)

Nor me lol Thanks anyway


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## cookie232 (Aug 15, 2010)

Really confused now  They seem to have all moved around and out of 6 pairs only one pair are in the correct box! To confuse things more some of them are not even in their correct pairs? Why would this suddenly happen after 5 weeks?


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## cookie232 (Aug 15, 2010)

Im hoping here is a picture. If so do they look o.k?


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## cookie232 (Aug 15, 2010)

Im guessing i did that wrong lol will attempt it again tomo


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## lperry82 (Aug 2, 2010)

Here is a link how to upload


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## cookie232 (Aug 15, 2010)

Its probably me being a bt dumb but i dont see a link in your post?


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## lperry82 (Aug 2, 2010)

cookie232 said:


> Its probably me being a bt dumb but i dont see a link in your post?


sorry i do that alot :blush: *old age* http://www.talkcockatiels.com/showthread.php?t=17811


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## cookie232 (Aug 15, 2010)

Happens to me all the time, and i wouldnt consider myself old at 35 lol I have tried it but it keeps failing, im guessing my photo's are too large  Any idea how i reduce the size of them? Just an update, I now have 30 chicks in 6 boxes


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## lperry82 (Aug 2, 2010)

You can resize your photos in paint thats on your computer


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## cookie232 (Aug 15, 2010)

I think this might take me a while lol I managed to find paint on my computer and open a file and played around with the resize option to a certain percentage and then i lost it  Would it be easier on somewhere like photobucket, not that i know how to use that either?


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## Debbie05 (Feb 9, 2010)

My photos always say fail. So what I do is e-mail them to myself and then save them and for some reason this works. I guess e-mailing them reduces the size. I couldn't figure out another way to do it.


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## lperry82 (Aug 2, 2010)

Yes photobucket will work too


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## cookie232 (Aug 15, 2010)

Thanks Debbie that sounds like something i could manage lol I have uploaded to photobucket so will have a play around with that too


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## cookie232 (Aug 15, 2010)

Yay  i have finally managed to get the pictures off of my camera and resize them in paint so here are the 3 parents  Pics of the babies to follow


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## lperry82 (Aug 2, 2010)

They are all gorgeous and the egg 

Ha ha answers my question, how many can you fit in a nest box :lol:


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## cookie232 (Aug 15, 2010)

I will try and do the pics tomo of the chicks, thankfully i have only ever found 2 adults in with the 10 chicks at any one time, but now the chicks are getting bigger 12 in one box does seem a little crowded lol I have also noticed that i have 4 different females helping with the feeding in this box, which i must say has definately helped to keep all the chicks well fed. I did think i was going to have to take the youngest one out and put him in with another clutch of simular size, but he is growing at a normal rate and seems to be doing really well, so i have decided to leave him where he is for now. 2 of the females laid the eggs the first 3 i can definately say belong to Issy my cinamon and the others are either hers or wingo's. The other 2 females helping out are older birds that do not have any chicks of their own and are often in there with one of the parents so the arrangement is obviuously suiting them all


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