# 10 Fertile Eggs Laid - Need Advice



## gmalway (Aug 8, 2018)

I recently purchased a beautiful pair, healthy sweet and experienced breeders. They were sitting on 4 eggs when I brought them home, they have a wonderful environment and diet and are well loved. So far, the hen has stopped at 10 EGGS :wacko: We have 2 perfect babies hatched, all eggs seem fine when candled. I'm concerned she laid so many due to the stress of her move! SO...

Will the pair be able to care for all the babies? 
Will the littlest youngest get trampled by the older and ignored?
Is there any chance of survival at all if I choose to hand feed them? 
Could I separate the older half from the younger half and leave a parent to each group for optimal chance of survival? 
Does there need to be a surrogate parent taken in to foster the littlest? 

Thanks for your time and being patient with my ignorance, as I have never dealt with this situation before.


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## Vickitiel (Oct 10, 2012)

Hello there and welcome to the forum!

Wow, that is a huge clutch! I have no experience in breeding cockatiels (yet!) so until someone else with better knowledge replies to your thread I advise you to check out the Sticky Library for info. All your questions can be answered by reading through the breeding Stickies.

You may find some informative links about breeding/handfeeding/chicks etc in this Sticky.


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## kimberleykhan (Sep 8, 2012)

My cockatiels had 7 eggs and they all hatched and I did let the parents feed them and they did a wonderful job. I think the youngest ones were kept warm by the older ones as they all hudled together.


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## tielfan (Aug 31, 2008)

Keep an eye on the situation. If it seems like the parents are having a hard time keeping everyone fed, you can help out. You don't have to remove the babies from the parents, you can just "borrow" the older chicks periodically and handfeed them, then put them back. This is called assist feeding in a situation like this. When the parents aren't having any problems but you borrow the babies for handfeeding because you want to socialize them to humans, it's called co-parenting.

Unlike some species that favor the oldest chicks (with a risk of starvation for the youngest in a big clutch), cockatiels usually do a good job of making sure that everyone gets fed. It's a mystery to me how they even manage to find the youngest one, who is often completely buried under the older chicks. But even the little one gets fed, and is not harmed by being at the bottom of the chick pile. Just keep an eye on the situation to make sure no one is going hungry. 

Don't separate the parents from each other, that's much more likely to cause problems. When one parent doesn't have access to the nest, the other one may decide to abandon the clutch. 

It's very possible that she laid all these eggs because of the move. Her environment changed so she may have thought the first clutch was lost even though she still had the eggs. Cockatiels aren't good at logical analysis lol. So she started a new clutch, and now you have double the usual number of babies.


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## gmalway (Aug 8, 2018)

Hi guys! Thank you all for your help and advise, looks like ill be on standby to co-parent


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## ninfatiel (Jul 22, 2016)

The youngest chicks are your main concern. far not every couple does good job at finding and feeding them. I usually try to foster them for a better chance of survival.apart from given less food youngest chick also given less water and will have just dry seeds stuck in the crop-in desperate need of additional hydration. I have couples who had raised up to 9 chicks sucsessfully..but.. be ready and prepared to handfeed from day 1


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## cho0k (Nov 3, 2017)

*Feed the younger chicks first*

With such a big clutch i would try to do co-parenting. Your priority is to assist the parents feed the babies, you should start with the youngest because the older one are more pushy and needy. Also provide a lot of food and water!!!! check every 2-3hours to restock. it is better to have the parent to feed as parents can give baby the enzyme they need to build their immunity so you can try half feeding the older after feeding the younger ones first. try not to clean the nest so often. being in their own poop help them build their immunity like in the wild. goo d luck!


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